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Wall Street Journal Original article ›
Economist Original article ›
WSJ Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
There are similarities in the Republican and Democratic party platforms in 2016. One area of agreement is in the reinstatement of Glass Steagall Act. That legislation made in the Depression period to separate commercial banking from investment banking was changed  when president Clinton made changes in a deal with Senators Phil Gramm and Jim Leach in 1999. The too big to fail problems of banks and the problems of investment banks during the 2008 financial crisis are attributed to the lack of Glass Steagall protections for financial stability and safety. The result is that in the post 2016 environment banks can expect a tougher regulatory environment. Another are is in trade where both parties are expected to take tougher positions to protect U.S. interests. The Republican platform calls for "better negotiated trade agreemets that put America first."

Wall Street Journal Original article ›
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It is not clear how China's president Jinping's support for the idea of "China Dream," -of China as a world power on a level with the U.S.- should be interpreted. China will increase its defense budget and continue its efforts to be the dominant power in its region, even as the U.S. and Japan begin to build closer ties in the Pacific. Is it simply a new assertiveness for its rights in relation to territorial disputes with Japan, and a continuation of a policy of peaceful development of earlier leaders. The move could also be an effort to build close ties with the military as the new leadership of Jinping-Keqiang prepares to make major changes in the economy. A speech in Dec. 2012 to Communist party officials in Guangdong province by Jinping, on how the lack of unity with the military led to the collapse of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, could throw light on the thinking. In a few days an old party was gone, as he put it. This also follows the Bo Xilai episode which involved contacts with the military and the risks of division in the military and political leadership....

Ghosts That Haunt Pakistan

New York Times Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
A look at the history of the founding of Pakistan and the 60 years since, looking all the way back to Muslim League's activities in the 1930's under Jinnah, and the failure of politicians and the military to help build Pakistan and improve the lives of its people. One by one the generals and the politicians, including Ms Bhutto and Sharif, have all failed and the dim prospects that it would be different this time with a new elected government.
Washington Post Original article ›
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
Washington Post Original article ›
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US differences with Pakistan are based on two different perspectves that are not reconcilable. Recent events and the relationship between the US and Pakistan's army chief have confirmed that this is not going to change. US sees militants and Taliban inside Pakistan as havens for the short term as the US disengages from Afghanistan, whereas Pakistan's army sees them as useful elements in Pakistan's security interests in relation to India for the long term. Whe Kayani met with Obama in Washington, he handed Obama a 13 page document showing Pakistan's strategic perspective and emphasizing the gap between short term US interests and Pakistan's long term interests. The Wikileaks cables show Kayani discussing with US officials a possible removal of President Zardari and his preferred replacement. This made Kayani, normally reticent, to rant for hours on the irreconciliable differences between the US and Pakistan with a group of Pakistani journalists. He described Pakistan as the US's "most bullied ally," and said the frames of reference of the US and Pakistan regarding regional ssecurity "can never be the same," according to news accounts. And added that "the real aim of US strategy is to de-nuclearize Pakistan." Holbrooke and Admiral Mullen had hoped to reverse "a trust deficit" between the two sides. But this has not happened. General Petraeus is taking a tougher attitude and patience is thin on both sides. According to a Kayani friend, air marshal Chaudhry, Kayani is always asking Petraeus what the strategic objectives are in Afghanistan. US officials say they have given up on changing Kayani's thinking and that Kayani has told them: "I don't trust you." Kayani's position makes sense when one looks at the strongly anti-American public in Pakistan. Pakistani military and intelligence officials say a campaign against militants inside Pakistan incites domestic terrorism and uproots local communities. And by following Pakistan's own interests and frames of reference Kayani sends signals that win esteem among the Pakistani public. Opinion polls now show the military held in higher esteem than the Zardari administration. This puts the US in a no-win situation in Afghanistan with no clear objectives for the long term. This leaves the US in a time of tight budgets stretched thin to meet the needs in other defence areas that need attention, such as modernization of forces, trouble spots such as Korea, Iran and elsewhere, and resources needed for modernization of US infrastructure and supporting new technologies and industries. The lasting solutions that will take time, careful thought and preparation would be to integrate South Asia as a whole into an economic zone, extensive infrastructure building, and bring India and Pakistan closer through diplomacy and negotiations. See the articles by Richard Haas and others on the need to redirect resources. ...
The Financial Times Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
There is a sense of cognitive dissonance in the states of former East Germany, known as the GDR or German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Union period from 1950's to 1990. The 5 states that formed the GDR continued to build close ties with Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the perception that this would build good long term relations. The crisis in Ukraine with border states of the Soviet Union opting in favor of close ties with the European Union and not Russia have disrupted the economic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Russia. As long as Russia needed the economic ties to build its economy and standard of living the political issues posed by NATO expansion and EU expansion were set aside by Putin and political parties within Russia. The very ties that were supposed to usher in an era of peace in Europe helped strengthen the Russian and Chinese economies. Leading to a point where these two economies were strong enough by 2021 in the midst of the waning pandemic to  assert themselves on political issues where serious differences existed such as expansion of NATO and Taiwan. When the economic relations such as making China a manufacturing powerhouse  was the path taken by American and European business in 1990's, business interests were focused on the declining quality and high wages demanded by unions and workers in the US and Germany. This could be personally witnessed at Apple's factory in Colorado Springs where quality was failing badly in the 1990's. Apple when Steve Jobs returned in 1997 adopted a China manufacturing strategy when its manufacturing operations in the US failed to deliver the quality and cost structure needed for it to expand. The high margins with low costs of manufacturing in China was the strategy adopted by Steve Jobs to compete with Microsoft and turbocharge its expansion. Soon other companies followed. A similar process happened in economic ties with Russia on a smaller scale. Two decades of such expansion whittled down American manufacturing, hurt American workers, hurt European manufacturing and European workers.  This process could not continue- yellow vest protests in France, the protest vote in US midwestern states in recent elections, the protest votes in German elections and fragmentation of parties, made this clear. The US imposed trade tariffs on Chinese products and moved to restrict flow of technologies to China under the Trump administration, accelerated by the Biden administration. President Xi was once of the view that China's ties with the US were important "thousand fold" in the period as late as 2010. Yet this lopsided trade relationship was not beneficial to American workers or American interests as a technologically advanced leader. It is true that American workers and engineers at Apple had failed to ensure American quality competitiveness in the 1980's into 1990's, yet no advanced country or its business can come up with a false narrative that cedes its manufacturing leadership and jobs for the working class of its country. That false narrative is being challenged today by Mr. Biden, Mr. Scholz, and all American and German political parties, and by Mr. Modi with Atman Nirbhar Bharat for local manufacturing. The integration one sees of the port of Hamburg as Chinese export hub with China's economy is one aspect of what has happened. A new leadership is taking its place in Europe and in America that sees clearly the false narrative. The visit of the new Danish prime minister to India is the beginning of the effort to set up a new logistics relationship with South and South East Asia, as Denmark's Maersk is a world leader in shipping logistics for exports and manufacturing. The planned Noida logistics center outside of New Delhi under Gati Shakti integrated development is part of the change happening today as a new supply chain is being built. The unwinding of the one sided trade relationship with China, and its related relationship on energy with Russia, led to the changing perception in Russia and China of the value of the relationship. Political relations superseded economic and cultural relations during Putin's second phase and Xi's second phase with assertive attitudes on NATO, and on Hong Kong, Taiwan under Xi and Putin 2.0. As could be expected Germany and the US were caught flat footed as leaders who were cast in the mold of Putin as a Soviet representative in Dresden, and Xi with his father leading the Communist struggle in the 1930's and 1940's against Chiangkaishek, acted in ways that reflected the Soviet period. Chiang left for Taiwan in 1948 when Mao-tse-tung setup the People's Republic of China. Taiwan and Hong Kong remained important in the perceptions of Xi 2.0, in the effort to build "China Dream" and erase last vestiges of what in Soviet times were seen as western colonialism. US and EU particularly Business and the new IT telecom Business failed to grasp these matters, and historical events such as the opium wars of the 1850's. Business and cultural interests lacked both the inclination to learn and the knowledge of these events in Chinese history and its relations with colonial powers Britain and Japan, and also Russia. In 1900 the Boxer rebellion against ceding Chinese ports to colonial powers Britain, Japan, Russia, ended with permanent colonial settlements in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tsingtao, other Chinese ports. Chinese rejuvenation in the mind of leaders such as Xi from the second generation of Communist leadership, means putting this behind, leading to the action taken in Hong Kong. In some ways as some observers have commented it is as much a problem of the sluggishness of American and European thinking, particularly business interests including in Taiwan, post British Hong Kong, and ignorance of recent Chinese history which was mistakenly thought not to exist or forgotten. This is as much of a problem as the action taken by Putin and moves by Xi Jinping. The great democracies such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, were ignored as American and European business interests integrated the American and German economies with China's. In terms of population the population of these regions and related parts of South East Asia such as Malaysia and Vietnam which have a shared cultural history is about 1.5 times the population of China. Travelling through the parts of India's largest state Uttar Pradesh, an Madhya Pradesh one finds how much American and European business interests have failed both their own interests, their own workers and failed the great democracies of the world, by not only not investing in the democracies of Asia, and also of Africa and Latin America and bought into a narrative of China which no longer holds true and may never have been true all along. This is starkly evident in a once in a century pandemic in these great democracies of the world. These democracies have been left to fend for themselves during the pandemic and their leaders facing false narratives in the media such as the BBC and American media outlets even on issues such as vaccination of the largest part of the world's people.           ...
WSJ Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Nikki Haley is doing what has happened before, fighting for principles in her party and showing that a fully significant 40 percentage points of her party believe in the old conservative ideas, of the Republican party. That of the country club type, the everyman who happens to be conservative the core of the party, small and large business owners. The situation is analogous to the intraparty struggles that beset the Democratic party after the abrupt end after 1000 days of the John F. Kennedy presidency and administration. Since the 1920's and two periods of rising inequality accompanied by technological change from the 1870's that ended with the Great Depression, the US had experienced a great revival under Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Eisenhower. In 1960 a new future was articulated by Kennedy of the new world that lay ahead, one he had seen upfront in Asia before, during and after the war. How would we bring the post colonial world of billions of people into the modern world. Since then both a modern China and now modern India are part of this change. "Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do." Acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President, July 15, 1960. It was interrupted after the intraparty disputes that began in 1968, Robert Kennedy challenging LBJ, leading to Richard Nixon, and Edward Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter leading to Ronald Reagan. John F. Kennedy had articulated a vision that still is alive today based on an understanding of how America's needs fit into all humanity's needs.  In some ways the situation after 2024 or 2028 still goes back to the vision of a new order of the world with emerging nations in Asia with 3 billion people, and additional billions of people in Africa, Latin America. The Arms buildup promised by Reagan in 1980 has yielded little about 50 years later, not even the fall of the Berlin Wall which today has been replaced by another struggle in Eastern Europe in 2024. Truman tackled the Berlin Blockade,  Eisenhower had faced upto Soviet tanks in Budapest, Kennedy had faced the Berlin crisis in 1963 his ich bin ein Berliner (I am Berliner). What purpose would an orbital weapons program serve- and could the US ever be or even want to be  "only one superpower in a safe world," with an orbital weapons program as Reagan and Weinberger went out to do and failed completely. America faces a situation analogous to 1920's with increasing inequality and weakness in the social fabric, as a result of four decades of rising inequality accompanied by technological changes, and misguided Reagan programs that diverted from John Kennedy's vision that the "old era is ending, the old ways will not do."  The vision put forward by John F. Kennedy has more relevance today for the future. That vision he articulated in the First Inaugural Address in which he also said that this work may not be accomplished "in our lifetime on the planet." It is important to remember that John F. Kennedy connected his vision to FDR when he said in his State of the Union Address to Congress in Jan. 1961- In the name of a great President whose birthday we honor today, closing his final State of the Union Message sixteen years ago. "We pray that we may be worthy of the unlimited opportunities that God has given us." This is the vision that stands before America even today in 2024.   ...
New York Times Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
A study by the National Employment Law Project shows most of the job creation in the economic recovery to 2014 in the U.S. is replacing the better paying jobs with lower paying jobs in fast food retail and similiar low paying industries.
WSJ Original article ›
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Following positions heading manufacturing in 2006 and the expansion of Ford's China operations in 2008, Joe Hinrichs is now president of the Americas group in 2014. Hinrichs is responsible for the product launches in 2014-2015, including the new aluminium body F-150 pickup. Hinrichs supported a strategy for expanding SUV sales in China, which helped increase Ford market share to 4.4% in China in 2013. He started at GM after getting an electrical engineering degree from the University of Dayton in 1989. He is one of the younger managers who came up through manufacturing and feel at home in factories, talking to workers telling them why things should be done a certain way, and problem-solving on the factory floor. Apple CEO Tim Cook also started in manufacturing, with roots in Alabama, and joined Apple in 1997 as Apple struggled with quality issues in factories.
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Zalmay Khalizad, a former diplomat to Iraq, reports from Iraq after discussions with prominent Iraqis, describes the state of U.S. relations with Iraq under the Abadi government. He says the Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq prime minister Abadi, and Iraqi public opinion, now favor improved relations with the U.S. following the sectarianism promoted by prime minister Maliki and Iran's expanded role in Iraq. Other reports show Iraqi opinion in transition as the U.S. withdrawal promoted by Maliki has led to 2 million refugees, and huge dislocation of people with the expansion of Islamic State from Syria into Iraq. The change in opinion is also towards promoting better relations with Sunni countries. People in the region do not see a bright future with an increase in religious tensions that only lead to more destructive behaviours and increase in refugees. Towards the end of the Bush administration there was some hope that Iraq would see a bright future, only to see this reversed under Maliki's sectarian policies. U.S. public opinion has shifted away from any involvement following the failure of the people in the region to resolve differences and live peacefully. The cost of the wars with little gained as a result of the failure of the people in the region to work together in the common interest is a part of the public debate in the U.S. presidential election of 2016. Sectarianism in the region is the root cause of the growth of the Islamic State and the expansion of the war in Syria, and this has not only worsened the situation for the people in the region, delayed economic development given large oil resources, and left the region worse off than before. It has also led to the refugee flow into Europe worsening the situation in the European Union, adding to tensions in European societies such as France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, following terrorist attacks and political parties promoting fear of immigrants. What started as a U.S. response to terrorism originating in this region in New York, followed by the war in Iraq, has led to more convulsions in this region, a huge number of refugees, whole country populations displaced, and requires a fresh rethinking about what people in the region can do to live and work together and promote the peaceful participation of people in their own development and growth, before Western societies consider further involvement. The statement about lost to Iran in the title also suggests framing of statements in the old way that are the root of the problem. When the dust settles years from now Iranians, Iraqis, Saudis, Yemeni, Turkish, Pakistani, Indian and other Muslim societies may want to look back at this period as reflecting the dangers of getting caught up in the geopolitics of world powers, letting religious sentiment override calmer thinking, and reflect on the brighter aspects of the common Islamic heritage in Iran, Turkey, India, expressed humanly as it is always is in different ways and forms. They can also take hope and confidence in the fact that European societies have struck the same rocks and emerged calmer, wiser, and better than before....
BusinessWeek Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Morse's reasoning and figures for a fall in oil prices by the end of this year and eventually settling down in the $90 price range? On the supply side he sees the OPEC decision to last year withhold oil production increases and this year's decision to put more oil on the market putting an additional 1.2 million barrels a day on the supply side. About 500,000 barrels a day are added to this from Iraq as security improves in Iraq to make this 1.7 million barrels a day. And refined product with refining capacity for the heavier crude has increased creating more competition among refiners leading to refined product increases lagging behind crude price increases. Add to this the large investments in the middle east and especially in Saudi Arabia to increase production, also in places like Nigeria and Angola, says Morse. On ther demand side he sees an astonishing decline of as much as 900,000 barrels a day year over year from 2008 over 2007 in the USA as fuel conservation is kicking in. On this score he sees a decline in oil price even if this decline had not happened in the USA. (From the video interview). This underscores the importance of everything else that is happening. He sees demand in China declining after the Olympics. The Chinese economy will slow as the Indian economy is already doing and oil imports will decline for China. At this point demand from India, China and other developing countries says Morse is increasing at 1 million barrels a day year over year and will now head downward. A couple of points are relevant in this context. One is that credit contraction in one study by University of Chicago economist Anil Kashyap is expected to be $1 trillion, in recent BW report on the economic situation and banks lending. With such a big impact industrial production by the end of this year and into 2009 will be severely impacted, especially as other countries in the EU and Asia are affected. This plus the dramatic nature of the shift to smaller cars as companies like Ford and its CEO Alan Mulaly vow to transform their production by 2009 to smaller cars is sure to bring further declines in demand. See recent statements by Mulaly and Ford. Morse's credentials show that he brings experience un teaching monetary policy at Princeton, as well as experience going back to being Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for international energy policy in the Carter administration , cofounder of consultants PFC Energy and publisher of Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, following the petroleum industry for many years. He has in the past predicted the emergence of Russia as a dominant oil supplier rivalling Saudi Arabia, and predicted the oil price increases based on fundamentals. So as he says the oil price has always been affected by fundamentals, that being the reason for the oil price increases in the last few years and now the moderating influences that reverse someof these oil price increases in the coming year and continue to exercize that moderating effect in coming years. ...
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
WSJ Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
India's Supreme Court rules on Aadhaar, India's biometric identification program, saying privacy is a fundamental right. Aadhar was started in 2009 as a way to help the poorest citizens and prevent leakage of fuel and food subsidies, and to fight corruption. Using biometric technology the government of prime minister Modi has extended the program as a way to build a database of digital fingerprints, iris scans of most of India's 1.2 billion people as part of a way to extend this into a national id card system for driver licenses, bank accounts, travel on Indian railways, making financial transactions. The government contends that privacy is not a fundamental right in a poor country where most citizens suffer from corruption and leakage of services and subsidies, given that basic safeguards against abuse are introduced. The Court's decision says privacy rights should be taken into account against surveillance by the state and for protection of data, and that it was part of the intrinsic rights of citizens to life and liberty. ...
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Caterpillar is asking workers at its Canadian plant to accept a large cut in wages and benefits. Wages and benefits at Caterpillar's rail equipment plant in LaGrange, Illinois, are less than 50% of the costs at the Caterpillar locomotive assembly plant in London, Ontario. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. manufacturing labor costs per unit of output were 13% lower in 2010 than in 2000. This compares with an increase of 2.3% in Germany, increase of 18% in Canada, and increase of 15% in South Korea. Caterpillar is also asking for more flexible work rules at the Canadian plant. The flip side of this is that U.S. workers are earning significantly less in manufacturing, especially considering inflation, and the middle class is shrinking in the U.S. At the same time wages in the U.S. that are more competitive with wages in Mexico and China with flexible work rules and use of automation and technology, is helping to reverse the shrinking of the manufacturing sector in the U.S....
New York Times Original article ›
WSJ Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Mr. Rodrigo Maia, the 49 year old son of the former Mayor of Rio De Janeiro, Cesar Maia, is uniting Congressmen from all parties in Brazil's parliament to get things done and restore lost confidence, such as the recently passed pension reform. Brazil's pension system sucks up most of the money in the budget with overly generous benefits, leaving little to pay for essential public services such as sanitation and transportation. Shockingly sanitation has suffered as only 50% of the sewage is treated in Brazil.  Polls show confidence in parliament after corruption scandals and lack of work to help the people of Brazil with essential public services has fallen to an abysmal low of 7%. Only 50% of Brazil's sanitation is treated and the rest flows as untreated sewage and rubbish into the rivers. To bring some sanity to pensions the Brazilian parliament, with the organizing skills of Mr. Maia to bring parties together around the reform, has cut $240 billion over 10 years from pensions and introduced 65 years for men and 62 years for women as minimum retirement age.  Brazil has 33 parties and Mr. Maia's is with the centre right DEM party. How did this happen. This WSJ story says Rodrigo Maia, 49 years, was born in Santiago, Chile in 1970 during the days of Brazilian military dictatorship. His father was in exile in Chile. The election of a  far right figure Jair Bolsonaro who supported the military dictatorships record as president in the recent election was a warning sign for the different parties in Brazil on the centre right and the centre left that corruption scandals and a do-little spirit was wiping out their influence and destoroying their credibility with ordinary Brazilians. The pension cut reform was their response to gain some of the lost goodwill from the Brazilian people. In the past Brazil's members of the Chambers of Deputies were people of power and influence who held positions for long periods and passed on these positions to people in their families or in their close circle. The elections and democratic governments following years of dictatorship brought in a new class from centre right and centre left that mismanaged public finances and excluded new ideas. The Car Wash scandal and scandals at the state petroleum company under Da Silva's Workers Party led to loss of confidence not only in the centre left party government of Da Silva and the Workers Party, but also in a do-little parliament. The large state spending from the government was possible during the commodities boom from China with Brazilian iron ore and other products getting high prices. WIth the collapse of the commodities boom and lower prices the entire system of state spending has unraveled revealing how much generous pension system is damaging the financing of  basic public services.  Corruption is prevalent in many countries in Asia including India but nowhere has the spending on essential public services such as sanitation suffered as in Brazil. And nowhere was parliament and the government able to get away with staging Olympics, World Cup and building many stadiums, handing out generous benefits to gain public support as in Brazil when basic sanitation and health services were neglected in a shocking way. The health system was weakened to a great extent when it lacked the resources to tackle an outbreak of yellow fever in 2018 as it moved south from the Amazon region towards Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Protests against the lack of investment in public services such as transportation and bus systems resulted in the public protests in big cities that led to the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in an effort to bring new administration to tackle the problem of financing for infrastructure, public services, health and education.    ...
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Toyota has passed GM in sales worldwidefor the first quarter 2007. But this is happening against a changing backdrop which is that worldwide sales and markets are shifting to China and India, and GM has the initative in both countries. Its Chinese sales increased by 32% to 876,000 units in 2006 and it plans to inroduce 10 new models or upgrades in the Chinese market in 2007. The other change is that after years of growth Toyota sees a relatively stagnant US market and its strategy is shifting to extracting more profit from each car, by increasing the flexibility of US plants to make more and diverse models, and building plants in low wage areas like the one in Mississippi. Note that the plant in Mississippi is expected to come onstream a year later in 2010 and produce 150,000 not 200,000 Highlander SUV's. Also related to this is the disappointment in Tundra pickup sales which may miss the modest target of 200,000 for 2007. On the manufacturing front Toyota is slowing down product development to ensure that all needed quality checks are performed by engineers. Mr Watanabe, Toyota's CEO, and a manufacturing man himself, has referred to quality checks being skipped or neglected in the rush for sales growth. GM is pursuing cost, efficiency and quality goals of its own and $9 billion in cost savings are planned for this year compared to 2006, another $9 billion is expected to be achieved in 2008. Another factor that is relevant to Toyota's experience in the US market is its fear of being labeled as a foreign company taking away American jobs. Hence the build up of US manufacturing capacity to 1.8 million now to increase to 2.2 million by 2010. And advertising for Toyota continues to foster an image of cars made in America, by American workers for the American buyers. In this new environment leadership in a worldwide market may actually shift back and forth between competitors and new challenges will come up as the Asian market explodes, and profitability and quality will become just as important or more important than sales....
WSJ Original article ›
BusinessWeek Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
Patrick Chovanec of Tsinghua University, says the loan target for 2011, though smaller than 2010, will still be over one and a half times the money lent in 2008. Stephen Green, head of research for Standard Chartered, says if anyone is printing money, it appears to be China's central bank, not the US. During a meeting of the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing goals are being set for the next 12 months. One expert predicts the governmet may set official targets of 4% inflation (it is running at about 4.7% at this time) and 6.5 trillion yuan of lending in new loans in 2011, compared to 7.5 trillion in 2010. Questions remain whether China can manage a soft landing after the huge surge in lending and the continued asset bubble.
Wall Street Journal Original article ›
LyrArc Article Gist
In June 2012 India's Food Minister K.V. Thomas agreed that 13% of India's 50.2 millon of wheat grains from a record crop were under makeshift shelters which could be damaged by the monsoon rains. Another complicating factor is that a law from the 1980's intended to protect workers in the jute industry requires all packaging of foodgrains for storage to use jute bags. Since 1990 jute products have increased by about 30% compared to an increase of 82% for the wheat crop, as a result there is a severe shortage of jute bags to store foodgrains in states like Madhya Pradesh.

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