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The private sector ignores health insurance. And state coverage in China is inadequate. More than two thirds of China's 1.3 billion people have no health insurance at all. If you have insurance you still pay up front in cash, if you do not have the cash up front you cannot get a surgery, treatment of any kind or any drugs, even if the insurance will later reimburse you. The Chinese health care system is dysfunctional and in a crisis because of the way it is structured, and the faulty policy incentives. It caps prices for basic drugs and procedures at below market rates, yet it lets hospitals profit from everything else from advanced drugs to sophisticated diagnostic tests. So hospitals invest heavily in technology and expensive testing. and drug sales account for 45% of revenues. And enforcement is lax. Doctors in Shanghai make monthly incomes of about $400, about what a taxi driver makes, so they supplement their income with bonuses earned by prescribing more expensive tests and drugs. There is no utilization review so the state reimburses for whatever the hospitals charge regardless of whether the test was needed or not. So the system is dysfunctional and lurching towards a crisis. In fact heavily burdening the middle class. The private outlays and burden of total health care spending has increased from 20% to 60% of total health care spending from 1978 to 2003, as the the health care system got the same dose of unfetterred capitalism as the rest of the system. The Government's share of total health care spending has dropped sharply. In addition there are design flaws that push expensive care and build in incentives for expensive care at the expense of good medical care. The government recognizes this problem and sees it as athreat to social stability. It has committed to increase spending on healthcare. ...

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Cillizza points to two demographics that the Republicans missed in the 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential elections. The Hispanic vote comprises 10% of the electorate. Obama won this demographic with 69% compared to 29% for Romney. Romney's extreme positions, to the right of Governor Rick Perry of Texas got him through the Republican primaries but left him exposed in the national elections as he defended his statements of support for "self-deportation." In this respect Reagan, Bush, Perry adopted moderate positions and favored helping children of immigrants get a good education so they could be integrated into American society. Perry even took a hit for his moderate position supporting immigrants in the primaries even before his memory slip in a debate. Romney failed to support even the Dream Act for a pathway to be given to children of immigrants supported by Mark Rubio, a Cuban-American Republican senator of Florida. The second key demographic is the young people vote ages 18-29. This was 18% of the electorate in 2008, and about 19% in 2012. Obama took this demographic with a lead of 34 points in 2008 and a lead of 24 points in 2012. So that even with diminishing support such large numbers meant there was a large cushion to win the election by combining several demographics even if the Democratic position eroded somewhat because of the economy and unemployment at near 8%. This is what happened because of the 6 out of 10 voters, or 60% of the electorate who voted, Romney won 51% to Obama's 47%. This enabled Obama to get the small victory margin he needed in the popular vote. In many ways Romney was "an unnatural candidate" as the Wall Street Journal described him in its editorial, being a private equity business executive fighting a election with Democrats fighting to protect middle and working class interests....

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Chinese companies are heavily invesing in the stock markets and many companies get a large part of their earnings from the stock markets. The myth is that the real economy will simply go on like before if the stock market takes a nosedive. This is not true because large and small companies are both playing the stock market and IPO's in a big way. They are using corporate funds to invest in IPO's and stocks to boost their earnings. Morgan Stanley estimates that more than one third of corporate earnings in China come from putting money in stocks. The figures are much higher for some industries. In the health sector this number is 54% including real etate earnings also and in consumer goods sector 65% according to Morgan Stanley. If the markets take a steep downturn then these companies will have to show the losses on their income statements, depressing earnings and pushing their stock prices down even further and more steeply. Japan experienced something similiar in the the eighties. And in one respect the situation is more dismal than in Japan. The financial statements may be even less transparent than the ones in Japan's boom period. And investors lack the expertise to figure out whats behind the financial statements. There is no effort to think deeply about what can happen when a nosedive in stocks hits corporate earnings and these losses create a vicious cycle that sends stocks into a further fall turning into a freefall. A Professor of Accounting at a Business School in Shanghai, head of China research at Morgan Stanley and a governance expert in HongKong all point to the dangers in the situation as it evolves. Most of these bubbles like the housing bubble in the US have a situation which George Soros described recently as it burst after he had kept predicting for years that its going to collapse and finally he got tired of saying that because it continued going up. Its possibly the nature of bubbles that a sharp observer can tell whats going on but the phenomena will continue for quite awhile even when its obvious that something is wrong. Its something to do with human nature and the dynamics of human situations where knowing the danger the person will continue to act the opposite way just because everybody else is playing in a certain way. This is the situation in China in 2007. ...

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Bernie Sanders is reelected Senator from Vermont, as one of the oldest and most senior members of the US Congress in history. He will be 89 at the end of his fourth term in the US Senate. At 83 years he is the most resilient and active Senator in the US. Bernie Sanders support was key for president Biden's election in 2020. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right. “Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago. “Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, many young people will have a worse standard of living than their parents. And many of them worry that Artificial Intelligence and robotics will make a bad situation even worse. “Today, despite spending far more per capita than other countries, we remain the only wealthy nation not to guarantee healthcare to all as a human right and we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We, alone among major countries, cannot even guarantee paid family and medical leave.” ...

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The global auto industry has capacity for producing 92 million vehicles in 2009, but only 60 million cars will be sold next year, according to CSM Worldwide. And CSM forecasts capacity utilizations will not return to the 2007 rate of 80% till 2014. And because of their better product mix, more new models, and better fuel efficiency, the Japanese, Korean and European carmakers have a better capacity utilization than the Detroit Big Three, even though they are also hurting badly as credit collapses and and an overextended American buyer is wary of new purchases. Robinet, the head of global vehicle forecasting at CSM Worldwide, estimates that the Big Three Detroit automakers will only need half their current production capacity in 2009, something he says is not sustainable for any industry. If these estimates hold true then there is a major earth shaking experience ahead for Detroit automakers that is not reflected in the attitudes and the bargaining about who benefits and who concedes what from unions, management, workers, bondholders, dealers and suppliers, even after the near miss for the bridge loans. It is a situation in which even globally and among the strongest automakers like Toyota and Honda there is going to be a lot of misery in 2009 and beyond. Only some automakers around the world will survive this shakeout. ...

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Bill Ford answers some very pertinent and good questions with confidence and clarity in a meeting with Maria Bartiromo of CNBC and Business Week. His answers are direct and show his thinking today and throughout his difficult experience of the last few years struggling to establish his presence at Ford Motor and then struggling to get the right person to run the company. "It hurts us to see the employees of the company suffer," and this has made this experience at Ford have a personal impact as Ford traumatized over the layoffs of employees with many years of service. And he himself was not easily accepted in the prevailing culture of the time at Ford, and asked to drop his contacts with environmentalists when he joined the Board, which he says he told them he had no intention of doing. He knows his managers had foresight in borrowing a "ton of money" just before the credit crisis struck, and which will be a key to going through any further deterioration of the market in the next 2-3 years. Much clearer than any of the other manufacturers is Ford's new vision under, Bill Ford, Mullaly and Farley, with the finance guys in the background, of Ford as a car company and focused on smaller fuel efficient automobiles. And Bill Ford's vision and aspiration has a lot do with it, who he helped bring in and what he supported and pushed for in the old Ford culture helped Ford to grasp a vision of its future with clarity and purpose like a new beginning. Ford will continue to make trucks but it believes as Bill Ford does that the market will never go back to its old ways, that the absolute price of oil will have less to do with it than the psychology which will push for smaller more fuel efficient cars. And as he points out its European cars are" extremely well appointed and very, very succesful and extremely profitable"....

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The election of Sebastian Pinera only confirms a new emphasis in Latin America towards a social cohesion agenda. In Mexico with Calderon, in Columbia with Uribe, in Brazil with Luiz Inacio Da Silva, in Chile with Pinera promising to work closely with the Concertacion and carry on social programs introduced by that coalition which reduced poverty, the trend is the same. It is to put behind Latin America the struggles between the military, the universities, business, unions and other parts of society and forge a common consensus for coupling social programs for the less well off with business friendly policies to improve the economy. Its even a process that is taking place in Spain which has a great deal of influence on Latin America, as Spain combines social support programs with business friendly policies. And the Concertacion President in Chile, Michelle Bachelet, leaves with personal popularity ratings of about 75% showing that these policies are popular with Chileans, as they are in places like Brazil and Mexico. The fatigue with 20 year old Concertacion rule shows with a change in administration but overall policy direction will in large measure continue....

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This report in the WSJ says about Evergrande and China's housing boom that it was a risky race against time in which developers took in billions of dollars of borrowed money from buyers in cash to launch project after project in every Chinese province. The 25 year old company founded by 37 year old Hui Ka Yan in Guangzhou was setup in 1996. Its name stands for "constant" and "big" in Chinese and during the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy after 2000 it played a part in meeting dream of home ownership. It did this by taking in full cash payment for apartments that were delivered years later. It is the largest symbol of debt for housing developers in China $89 billion in outstanding debt and millions of unfinished properties, 42% of debt due in less than 1 year. Today Evergrande is collapsing, unable to pay creditors, and paying creditors in construction with unfinished properties, says this WSJ Report. Capital Economics estimates that Evergrande has presold 1.4 million apartments valued at $200 billion that are not yet finished. Typical is a woman in retail sales in Shenzen who invested 1.4 million yuan or about $217,000 in 2018 for one 400 square foot apartment in a high rise building.  The Chinese government is unlikely to stop Evergrande from collapsing. Its only interest is in protecting the people who paid in cash for unfinished apartments. ...

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Ownership of stocks is more evenly spread out in the US population by 2023. During the pandemic younger people invested in stocks. WSJ graph of percentile of income and stock ownership shows  20-40th percentile of income households moving from 30% of households owning stocks to 40%, and 40-50th percentile of income households moving from 50% of households owning stocks to 60%. This means people in the middle incomes have built more household wealth  sharing in US stock gains of 16% in 2020, 27% in 2021, dropped 19% in 2022 and gained 24% in 2023. Recovery from the effects of free market policy experiments after Reagan that led to the 2009 financial crisis and shipping of factories overseas were met with a reverse response bringing factories home under Trump and Biden. Wage gains happened under Biden 2020-2024, and a Biden $1 trillion dollar infrastructure renovation adds to jobs and demand. Wealth in homes for US households increased on average from a low of 225,000 6 years after the financial crisis of 2009 to about $325,000 by 2022. This is part of a general recovery for the American people after the shocks of free market experiments with inadequate regulation and oversight by the government, and the neglect of manufacturing and communities dependent on manufacturing for employment and income with its uplifting of services sector that comes with it, the taxes that pay for public services also enhances community wellbeing through libraries, wellbeing, transport and other public services. ...

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What we bring is scale, says Teskey, co-founder of Brookfield Asset Management, which has set a target of $25 billion for 2 private funds for climate action. $10 billion has been raised and it continues fundraising. $2 billion from the UAE for energy transition fund and $1 billion for emerging markets transition. Additional fund raising will take place for emerging markets fund. Across all its funds Brookfield says it has raised $100 billion for investment in renewable power and energy transition projects. The demand for renewable power comes from cities and companies looking for cleaner ways of powering everything from data centers to manufacturing. It also comes from regulations on climate and from generous incentives offered by governments. The demand for renewable power from corporates, says Connor Teskey of Brookfield, is simply overwhelming. Teskey and Mark Carney, the former head of the central banks of UK and Canada and the point man on climate for the UN, are co-founders.   Total global energy transition investment was $1.8 trillion in 2023, a 17% increase from 2022, and yet this is nowhere near the needed investment of $4.8 trillion for climate goals needed annually for 2024 to 2030. Lyrarc.com will track these investments in its Climate Change Action part of the site. Brookfield is looking at cutting emissions in what is a broader strategy. whih means it will invest in fossil fuel projects where it can significantly cut emissions. This includes cement and steel makers.    ...

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Extreme drought affected Minnesota cattle farmers leading to elimination of many cattle herds.               Wildfire smoke from Canada settled down over the cities of St Paul and Minneapolis for days.                 Lack of enough snow and ice in winter led to losses in ice fishing and cross country skiing making winters unnatural in Great Lakes Region that also includes Wisconsin and Michigan. Walz acted, and his plain spoken communication style made a difference clearing misperceptions. Pew Research shows 67% of Americans favor clean energy but misperceptions abound.          Minnesota during his two terms now produces 50% of its energy from wind, solar and nuclear. Minnesota is now likely to be ahead of California in getting to 100% wind solar and nuclear for all its energy. Walz set the date 2040 into law for this to happen with 40 climate initiatives. A bill signed into law speeds up the permits for renewable energy projects. Walz’s communication style shows that when people understand the benefits and specifics you get things done. “The surest way to get people to buy in is to create a job that pays well in their community. All of us are going to have to be better about our smart politics, about bringing people in.”        ...

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Figures from Kiel Institute for World Economy show that European Union aid to Ukraine is nearly double that of the US- $187 billion for EU to $98 billion for US aid. The American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank also confirms EU aid is significantly higher. Trump said US was $250 billion to European Union $100 billion- completely the reverse of the facts. This is one aspect of the debate with Harris that was not fact checked to reach the 67 million watching immediately similar to the FBI correction on crime rates by David Muir.   "Look, we’re in for $250 billion or more because they don’t ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary to getting this thing done than we are. They’re in for $150 billion less because Biden and you don’t have the courage to ask Europe like I did with NATO. They paid billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars when I said either you pay up or we’re not going to protect you anymore. So that may be one of the reasons they don’t like me as much as they like weak people. But you take a look at what’s happening. We’re in for $250 to $275 billion. They’re into $100 to $150. They should be forced to equalize.”   ...

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Deep in the jungles of Indonesian Borneo one finds Bayan Resources coal complex. In 2025 Indonesia is the world's largest coal producer. Bayan Resources was founded by Low Tuck Kwong a Indonesian businessman who started out with his father's construction business in Singapore and switched to start his own business in mining in Indonesia in 1972. Bayan is now one of the largest coal producers in Indonesia and ships the coal to India, Vietnam and Philippines which depend on coal for electricity and modernization.  Coal demand will actually increase instead of decrease from 8 billion metric tons in 2013 to 9 billion metric tons in 2027. India and Vietnam are taking on the role of manufacturing that once belonged to China in the supply chain. The combined population of India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines is about 2 billion people with a huge need for 100% electrification of rail and transport, and for homes and industry. India is accelerating it's renewable energy production, yet coal will be needed in the interim transition to renewable energy. Coal production is about 1 billion metric tons in 2024. About 20% of coal is imported from Indonesia and Australia. India depends on coal for 75% of electricity needs says Anil Kumar Jha former head of Coal India Limited. He predicts coal to increase to 1.3 million metric tons produced in India by 2031.   ...

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The southern U.S. which was early to reopen the economy after the lockdown with some states having only partial lockdowns, is emerging from the coronavirus in much better shape than the rest of the U.S. The unemployment rate fell to 6.9% in August, the lowest of any region. The number of people employed was only 6% lower in August than in February, when most of the U.S. went into lockdown, compared with declines of 10.6% in the Northeast, 8.2% in the West, and 7% in the Midwest. Some of this was a result of aggressive reopening in Texas and other southern states. Overall deaths in the south were 60 per 100,000 people compared to 132 in the Northeast including New York and New Jersey, Midwest at 52, and West at 40. The Northeast numbers are high because of the elderly in nursing homes hit hard in New York and New Jersey.  In the southern states by comparison the deaths came later and among young people taking risks. The virus hit the northeast early and parts of the midwest, southern states had the advantage of some of the work already being initiated in March to fight the virus nationwide. Many of these states are also Republican and residents feared the virus much less. Republican Governors followed their instincts and aggressively reopened putting the economy first. The numbers tell the story. In South Carolina 44% of Republicans say they aren't afraid of the virus outbreak in the local area, compared to just 2% of Democrats, according to Civiqs poll. Georgia and Florida have similar numbers, all with Republican Governors. One factor favoring southerners is that cities in the south are much less dense and less populated than in the North and West. Smaller cities than Los Angeles and New York. ...

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The director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy says he worries about the effect of automation on work performed by garment workers in countries such as Bangladesh. As machines become adept at performing the difficult tasks performed by humans, automation is spreading in places like Bangladesh. This report shows the Mohammadi Group which makes sweaters for H&M, Zara and other brands replacing 500 workers in its Bangladesh factory with 173 German machines. As wages grow in countries that made garment products such as Bangladesh, India, China and Cambodia are affected. A 2016 International Labor Organization Study predicts some Asian countries could lose as much as 80% of the apparel, textile jobs as automation spreads. This presents a huge problem for these countries as creating high skilled jobs is a challenge in these Asian countries. In Bangladesh where 2 million new jobs are needed each year to keep pace with increasing labor force, the 300,000 new textile industry jobs a year for 2003-2010 have shrunk now to about 60,000 a year, according to World Bank data.  The garment industry in Bangladesh provides 80% of the exports and 3 million  manufacturing jobs, reducing significantly the number of people below the poverty line. After a fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh the government set a monthly minimum wage of $64, an increase of 77%, with automatic annual raises. Factory owners moved to suburbs and used more machines to deal with labor unrest. Some garment workers became rickshaw drivers, a scooter type taxi in India. The Bangladeshi garment industry is continuing to be cost competitive by reducing costs through automation, increasing exports by 19.5% from 2013 to mid 2016, increasing jobs by 4.5% during this period, according to the local industry association figures.   ...

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As the Nation debates immigration there is time to reflect on the anti-Asian immigration Act of 1924 that led to housing restrictions on where Asians and other minorities, and Black people could and could not stay. A Chinese farmer and gardener Lloyd Dong was able to find only one tlack family to rent to them in Coronado island near San Diego in 1939- Gus and Emma Thompson. 85 years later The Dong's (the son) are selling this Coronado home and donating two thirds about $5 million to a resource center for Black students at San Diego State University.

The world needs more of the Thompson-Dong spirit, says Gus and Emma Thompson's grandson Ballinger Kemp.

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How quickly the wind's direction has changed. For decades since 2000 American companies moved operations to China for manufacturing upto a point where there was over concentration and risks in the supply chain seen during the pandemic and as US- China relations diverged on issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ukraine. This report looks at the US companies shift to looking for ways to shift operations to India, Vietnam and other locations.

In an annual survey 30% of American Chamber of Commerce in China companies out of 360 respondents are shifting their operations for manufacturing to other countries from China. About 25% of tech and R&D companies said they had already begun moving their supply chains out of China.

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Dave Shiflett, who helped Trump write the book "The America We Deserve," in 2000, describes his experiences working with Trump during that period. He says Trump is very different now with his strident tone and disdain for Bush and Clinton as candidates representing dynasties from the past, and willingness to use fear of terrorists for electoral advantage, calling some other candidates pathological liars. At the time in 2000 Trump preferred a civil tone. Now Trump revels in making statements about other candidates, women and journalists. He is taking full advantage of the public's dissatisfaction with political correctness and the lack of credibility of elites running the country, says Shiflett. What he finds disturbing is Trump calling good, hardworking people "losers," with no consideration of the advantages he has enjoyed.

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The inspiring story of Joan Poh, only the second rower to compete for Singapore in an Olympics. She rises at 5 am to workout as she also works as a nurse in a 10 hour shift at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. She has missed meals as she does her training in the midst of work as a nurse. She returned to working in nursing after a call from Singapore government for frontline medical workers in April of 2020. She sees sport as a dream, a luxury that one has to work for. Puts in 100% as a nurse and when rowing 100% as a rower.  At 5 foot 5 inches, 30 years old,  she is much smaller than other rowers, and uses her technique and training to compete. She is the oldest of 3 children who grew up in a 1 room apartment in Singapore. Without resources she learned to row on a long boat by joining a dragon boat rowing team when she was 17, then learned to scull in 2015 at age 25. In 2019 she took extended leave from her hospital to train for the Olympics in Australia. A Canadian who won Olympic Bronze in 1996 and 2000 coaches her free from Vancouver Island in Canada, using videos and workout programs, and went to Singapore when Poh qualified for the Olympics to train her in person. She looks at competing not just as medal winning, and sees this as one step in building a team in the right direction. She sees creating opportunities for others, and overcoming her childhood situation growing up struggling for resources. She says early on it was for her not wanting her lack of resources to decide what she could do. As she puts it - to always aim for a strong start even though one started with not such a good start. ...

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Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report, looks behind the unemployment numbers and points to U-6 the real measure of under utilized labor and of workers working part time because of a lack of full time work, and says this is at about 15%. Add the eight million who quit looking and it is 19%, says Zuckerman The unemployment rate of 8.1% does not reflect the eight million workers who have quit looking. The long term unemployed, workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks is at 40.7%, or 5.2 million workers. Fewer Americans work today than in 2000, even though the population has increased by 31 million. Only 96,000 jobs were generated in August 2012. Something is seriously wrong and the right steps have not been taken.

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Under the Volcker Rule setup during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, banks total investments in private equity, hedge funds and similar higher risk funds cannot exceed 3% of high quality capital. During the financial crisis investment banks were highly leveraged leading to the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and the precarious financial condition of other banks. Goldman has pared down about 60% of such investments. Remaining are $4.8 billion in private equity investments, $1.2 billion in real estate, and about $1.1 billion in both credit and hedge funds. Regulators have given the bank till July 2017 to comply. As banks recovered from the impact of the crisis, the tearing of the social fabric that happened with high unemployment in some groups especially older white men, has remained six years after the crisis- as evident in the U.S. election campaigns this year. As a result the mood has shifted for tighter regulation and both party platforms, Republican and Democratic, now call for reinstatement of the Glass Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from investment banking as part of the lessons learned from the Great Depression. Volcker, was chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve during the Carter administration, known for taking a tough line against inflation. He was the principal driver of the move to restrict banks from risky activity, and faced considerable opposition from banks during the 2009-2013 period when the rule was being formulated.  ...

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Swiatek is 24 years old and has already won 3 titles consecutive years in the French Open. She goes into the Wimbledon finals against Anisimova of US on July 12, 2025. Her game incudes a sports psychologist which helps her with the toughness needed in the game, and she has supported athletes for Mental Health Day. She is a keen reader which helps her relax, listens to some music to get her going before games, and likes polish recipe pasta with strawberries. She lives in Raszyn, a suburb of Warsaw. Her entry into the sport of tennis was for following her older sister who retired after injuries at the age of 15.  Her father is a rower who competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and wanted his daughters to join an individual sport, and her mother an orthodontist.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India's central bank, left rates unchanged in October 2012. RBI Governor Subbarao says inflation could go above 8% by January 2013. High global oil prices and a weaker currency are adding to food price increases to push inflation higher. The RBI lowered its growth forecast to 5.8% from 6.5%. Mr Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Advisory Council said the RBI will not lower rates till January 2013 unless there is a significant tendency for a decline in inflation before then.