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

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Sharp swings in attitudes have left America divided in terms of education. A comparable situation exists also in the UK as areas with more education access have separated from areas with less access to higher education. As the WSJ analysis points out at one time social cohesion prevailed in the postwar years till 1970 with educational attainment playing a small part leaving social cohesion intact. Even in the period 1970-1990 when there was a shift for college educated women to prefer Democratic Party and white men without a college degree to prefer Republicans this was not a significant gap. The Democratic Party appealed to less educated union voters in manufacturing industries as well as it did with college educated men and women. This gradually fractured during the Clinton and Obama administrations as the Democratic Party  moved closer to the higher educated and drawing more support from new tech industries than manufacturing. Nowhere is this more evident  than in the way college educated women have shifted to the Democratic Party and white men without a college degree have moved to the Republican Party. Swings of different types are normal in elections and politics. But swings purely based on education are rare in American politics and not healthy for the democratic system of government. As the analysis from WSJ/NBC News shows college educated women favor Democratic Party by 33 percent margin. And the swing is even deeper for white men without a college educated degree who favor Republican by a 42% margin. This is the situation before the 2018 U.S. Congressional elections. The combined group of college educated women and white men without a college degree make up 40% of the U.S. voting public. This makes each group unreachable for the other party, a situation unimaginable for many of America's leaders if they would be living today- from presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. White voters make up 70% of the electorate, and a situation where they would be unreachable for Democrats would be unthinkable or unimaginable for Truman, John Kennedy. And Eisenhower would also find it unimaginable that he would have to writeoff college educated women in his campaign.  By returning the Labour Party to its roots Britain is combatting this tendency for fracturing of social cohesion. In the way the UK's Blair administration moved away from Labour party's roots in manufacturing and the trade unions, the Democratic administrations under Clinton and Obama  moved away from manufacturing industries and the trade unions.   Most of the postwar leaders of the stature of Eisenhower and Kennedy would have seen such a situation as a significant failure in political leadership. ...

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Britain's FSA takes the initiative to put in new liquidity rules to prevent afuture banking crisis. It puts pressure on financial services firms to buy 110 billion pounds of government bonds that would remain liquid in a financial crisis. The rules would be borught in over several stages over the next few years. A week earlier the British government met with executives of the 5 largest banks to agree to install limits to bonuses laid out at the G-20 Summit. THe British are the first to take these steps.

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More on how the partitioning of Iraq into Suni and Shiite is taking place contrary to what official announcements are saying. On the ground it looks quite different . Remember Iraq did not exist before the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and is a post war creation of Britian and France who set new borders arbitrarily in the former Ottoman Empire and settled areas of influence.

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Mistakes French bank Societe Generale made with acquiring a controlling stake in Greek bank Geniki. Credit Agricole bank had a similiar experience with its stake in Greek bank Emporiki. In 2010 Societe Generale was forced to set aside 400 million euros for bad loans. Credit Agricole had to remove the CEO and higher executives in 2009 before introducing good loan criteria at Emporiki. Today Emporiki has loan loss provisions of 12.5% of gross loans, and Geniki has 21%, according to analysts. Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, analyst at Bernstein Research, estimates that a default that took out 30% from the value of these Greek banks loan book and 70% from Greek government bonds would result in a loss of 3 quarters of earnings for Credit Agricole and for Societe Generale 1.5 quarters of earnings. This would mean that the French banks would take 3 quarters longer to get their capital reserve ratios to 9% for new Basel III regulations.

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Hype and sales tactics by banks in sovereign bond issuance is coming under scrutiny by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA). In one deal, a "covered bond" issued by Spain's Banco Santander SA in June 2011, with the collateral being Santander's loans to Spanish local and regional governments, this was clearly the case. The deal was managed by HSBC, Societe Generale, Commerzbank and Santander. One or more of these banks told investors they already had orders of 1.5 billion euros, which exceeded the original size of the 1 billion euro offering. After this deal found no buyers because of fears about Spain's debt situation, it became clear that the claims about orders were hype. The underwriting banks had to buy the bonds worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Views of students and former Chief Secretary Anson Chan are expressed in this piece by Wan on the protests for more democracy in Hong Kong. Chan says if he had known what Hong Kong would be like today he would not have been so enthusisastic about the handover to China in 1997. He is one of the leaders pushing for a compromise.

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The Economist magazine says China needs to find a way for Chinese citizens to participate in governance without risking the kinds of upheavals that have happened in the past, including Tiananmen. One way to do this is to see Hong Kong more as opportunity than threat, and allow an experiment to happen in a place ideally suited for this with its long traditions of free expression. Jinping is faced with a chance to do his country a great service.

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This view in the Economist shows that president Trump actually represented the instincts of the Republican party base by 2018- anti-immigrant, anti-elitist, and to the right on social issues. As a result it says it is no surprise that he has taken over the Republican party. As the elections for Congress get closer most candidates are trying to get Trump's support and many of the older senators and Congressman from the earlier period of the party are retiring. It cites polls showing Trump has support of 85% of the Republican party base. In 2018 Mr. Trump appointed new members of his cabinet who more closely represented his views on China, Iran, NATO, and business issues. Remaining party leaders such as Mr. Romney running for Senate seat from Utah are now seeking and getting Trump's endorsement. The Republican National Committee is also run by Trump supporters. On issues of foreign affairs Trump has combined alternate shifts between demands and pragmatism in relations with China, Iran, and other countries on trade, politics, coming up with a new way international relations are tackled. Part of the reason for their appeal is the nature of the intractable problems such as the imbalances in trade, nuclear weapons, and the idea that an alternative approach might work when other approaches have failed.  On social issues such as issues facing workers in globalization and free trade the parties to the left in the U.S. and countries in western Europe have failed to deliver, leading to the appeal of Mr. Trump, Brexiters, National Front in France.  The immigration issue has also worked against the socialist parties.  In Britain dissatisfaction with Theresa May and hard core Brexiters is growing, leading to Labor Party getting 40% of the vote in the recent election. Suggesting that the changes induced by the Brexiters and the Trump administration may lead to other changes in the future that may shift the focus back to basic issues and delivery on infrastructure, health and education which are fundamental for the future.   ...

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Floyd Norris says the announcement by the ECB on Dec. 20, 2011, that 523 banks borrowed 489 billion euros under the newly created Long Term Financing Operation goes a long way towards giving Europe time to address the debt crisis. A major problem is recapitalization of European banks and the ECB's action helps address this problem. This is one of the achievements of the December summit of European leaders, though it was not the way markets had expected. Markets were focussed on large scale bond buying by the European Central Bank or issuance of euro bonds. ECB head, Mario Draghi, aware of widespread opposition in Germany to such proposals made it clear this was not going to happen. The Long Term Financing Operation of the ECB provides unlimited amounts of loans to European banks at 1% for 3 years, and accepts sovereign government debt as well as other types of securities as collateral. The result of this action was to lower the yield on a recent Spanish bond auction to 1.7% for three month bills from 5.1% the prior month. Spanish and Italian banks can now buy government debt of their countries and use the bonds as collateral at the ECB for three year loans at 1%. This Norris estimates will generate profits of about 37 billion euros for European banks from the difference between the ECB rate of 1% and the rate on two year bonds of Spain and Italy of 3.6% and 5.1% respectively for the bond purchases of 489 billion euros- calculated on a spread of 2.5 percentage points over three years. Another infusion of funds from the ECB will occur in February 2012. The new capital infusion gives European banks less reason to reduce lending in the eurozone as they work to meet the higher capital reserve requirements set under new Basel III rules. This is especially important given the austerity measures being implemented across the eurozone countries and Britain to reduce government deficits, and in light of the lower growth expected as a result....

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The crisis of late 2008 and early 2009 in the global economy saw huge stimulus programs, resposible economic management, and rapid recovery by the end of 2009 in developing countries. China put in place a large stimulus program, and in most developing countries, India, Vietnam, Brazil and other countries efforts were made to strengthen the safety net for the poor and to introduce stimulus for creating jobs. India and Indonesis saw the return of ruling party governments and in Brazil Lula da Silva had favorability ratings above 60%. So contrary to earlier fears in late 2008 their was both asense of political stability and asense of confidence in the developing countries. Capital is flowing into these countries and the IIF says that net private capital inflows to developing countries will double in 2010 to $672 billion. Russia which saw capital outflows of $50 billion in the first 9 months saw $20 billon of capital inflows in the fourth quarter of 2009. Half of the 140 million laborers working in Chinese cities returned home in early 2009, a fifth stayed there and another fifth counld not find work when they returned to the cities. But as the stimulus in China kicked in, and infrastructure development surged, (see link to the rail infrastructure spending) by the middle of 2009 jobless ness among rural migrant workers went down to less than 3%. This shows in the Pew Global Attitudes Project wth more than 40% of respondents in India, China and Indonesia saying that they were satisfied with their lives, in China this was 87%. In France, Japan and Britain the share is below 30%. In America 49% of those in the Pew pollingfelt that America should mind its own business internationally, 30 points higher than in 1964. When asked "Are you better off in free markets?" the respondents share fell in 2009 in Germany by 4 points, in Spain by 10 points. Shares rose in India and China, and stayed flat in Brazil and Turkey, so there is no backlash against free markets in developing countries....

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Tata Sons, the holding company for Tata Group companies, is looking for a successor to Ratan Tata. The Tata Group of companies cover a whole range of products from steel and cars, to information technology and consumer products. This includes India's second largest automobile company and India's second largest IT outsourcing company. Tata has in all 98 firms. It made acquisitions of Corus, a British and Dutch steel producer for $12 billion, and of Jaguar and Land Rover for $2.3 billion. Ratan Tata did much of the reorganization of the old Tata Group over the last 2 decades. The company started during the Victorian era as a maker of textiles. It was founded by Jamshedji Tata. His vision was to establish Tata as a steel maker and to invest in education and research institutes for India's technological revolution. The Tata companies also set their own high business standards based on the founder's concepts. And unique in India, Tata Sons was setup so that two thirds of the company is owned by charitable trusts. Jamshedji spent time in Britain during the Victorian period, admired Gladstone, was a forward looking visionary believing in and providing inspiration for India's future technological development. During the early ears after independence the company was run by JRD Tata who maintained the legacy, but it was Ratan Tata his successor from the same Parsi family, who reorganized and established Tata as the company it is today. The Tata Nano was a result of Ratan Tata's vision of a car that would cost one lakh rupees, and be an affordable car for millions of people in India who now drive motorcycles. With the magnitude of the responsibility, the search for Ratan Tata's successor, is being closely watched in India. This time the Tata Group is looking at outsiders and searching for the right person. Now 65% of Tata Group's revenues of $70.8 billion come from overseas, which would suggest the value of international experience. In fact British Prime Minister Cameron cited Tata Sons as being Britain's largest manufacturer. ...

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The situation today of the London and the Thames Valey region's economy and the economy of the areas surrounding it in the south. Its history,downturns in periods after the dotcom crash in 2000-2005 and the current expected downturn after the US subprime crisis, and the expected deterioration in the housing market here. As well as problems for the financial institutions in a tightening credit market with London's position as a key centre of international finance impacting the economy the most. Regional diffeernces in the current upturn London's output per person grew to 136 vs decline in output per person in Scotland Wales and the North, a 36% improvement in London vs deterioration elsehwere in the north and in Wales. With Newcastle in the north hit by the Northern Rock mortgage lender's collapse adding to the difficulties from a general decline in manufacturing. A general decline in industry in the north and the rest of the country outside the Thames valley region shows up in the numbers. From 2000 to 2004 according to official estimates, manufacturing declined from 17.9% to 14.1% and financial services around London expanded from 5.5% to 8.3%, and by 2006 to 9.4%. With a contribution of one tenth of the economy financial services account for 30% of overall GDP growth in the last 3 years and 30% of all corporation tax revenues which helped the Labor government finance its public sector improvements and infrastructure improvements. The current downturn will also lead to a sharp drop in immigration to Britain. Growth is expected to slow to 1.4% in London and in the rest of the country in 2008 which is lower than the 2% growth in London region in the period 2000-2005 when the last downturn in London occurred. The financial services industry spills out benefits to other regions and the rest of the country which is how the British economy has done well even with the lack of strong manufacturing, weak exports and strong currency. ...

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How Sweden in 1992 and is Finance Minister Lundgren faced a similar crisis in its banking system after a housing bubble in that country collapsed. At that time the way Sweden approached it set aside 65 billion kronor or $11.7 billion dollars then or $18.3 billion in today's dollars, 4% of its gross domestic product, for rescuing failing banks. The US plan for $700 billion is roughly 5% of gross domestic product. But the way Sweden did it it extracted full price from shareholders and rescue was arrranged only after the Swedish government got a big equity share in the banks that were rescued. Lundgren is concerned that the US plan does not provide for the US government to take big equity stakes in the banks that receive government money. By selling off these shares in better times the government of Sweden has recovered most of the money depending on how its calculated. However the US government has taken big ownership stakes in Fannie, Freddie, and in AIG. And the plan is not yet spelled out. In terms of its size its similar to the Swedish plan an in this sense its similar, a big government effort to take a decisive and complete approach to the problem. In the short run this may create problems for the dollar according to currency experts like John Taylor, but some experts like currency strategist at Deutsche Bank think that in the longer term this rescue plan hel[ps American macroeconomic fundamentals and in doing so will help the dollar. Another factor is the European economy and as Europe also faces some problems of its own, from a housing bubble standpoint Britain, Ireland and Spain fall in the same boat as the Americans, and Germany may also have some bad loan problems of its own, so the macroeconomic fundamentals may weaken in Europe over time and this might also favor the dollar vs the euro in the longer term. ...

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The IMF extends $100 billion in loans to countries that have healthy economies but need temporary help, such as S.Korea, Brazil, Mexco and Singapore. Some of these countries have borrowed heavily in other currencies and the drop in the value of their own currencies makes repayment difficult. No strings such as requirements to raise interest rates and to cut public spending are attached to this program. Under this program countries could borrow five times the amount they are normally entitled to, $25 billion in Brazil's case, without the strict conditions that normally accompany such loans. Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank. He said the funds use of the words restore confidence itself could make a lot of countries nervous. That is because in the Asian and Latin American crises in the past, the IMF set strict conditions to increase interest rates and cut public spending and food subsidies at a time when the poor especially and the rest of the people, all needed help, thereby increasing public distress. In the developed countries stimulus packages and infrastructure spending goes up to support employment and incomes, but the IMF has advocated quite the reverse in the case of the developing countries, with the US Treasury a key factor in IMF support and ideology. Which is why countries in Asia like South Korea see a stigma attached to the IMF and are refusing IMF help. In Pakistan also the IMF support is a last resort or Plan C. Iceland for instance raised rates in return for IMF help from 6% to 18% to try to stabilize the currency. The IMF was created as part of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 when the Allied Powers USA and Britain and other countries that sent representatives met in New Hampshire for a postwar economic system. Japan, S. Korea, India and China and many other countries were not part of it because of the war or colonial empires....