LyrArc Article Gist
In a very real sense US and NATO Europe has failed by blanket applying the principle of national sovereignty without recognizing that there are general rules that have to make room for some exceptions or nuances in cultural and historic linkages as in the case of Ukraine's most eastern regions along Russia's borders. Only about 30% of American public in Pew Research poll sees Russian war in Ukraine as a threat to the US, among Republicans it is only 19%. Remember this is during the third year of the war with staggering losses on both sides when prolonging the war makes no sense.  If the American public were properly informed by the media that Zelensky's popularity has dropped to 16%.  That the eastern regions of Ukraine near the border speak Russian and share a common culture, and had voted for Russia oriented parties before the war began -not in 2021 but in 2013 with the Maidan movement in Lviv near Poland leading to the whole of Ukraine except parts of the east nearest to Russia moving towards the west- it might look at the larger picture and seek a settlement which accepts Russian commitments to peace with these regions as part of Russian Federation. The staggering losses on both sides cannot justify the conflict and it is not in the America's, India's, China's, or Europe's interest to damage the Russian economy or further damage Ukrainian infrastructure in a war that changes little in the winter of 2024-2025.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China has two ports in Panama and significant investments in port and maritime activity that give it an advantage over the US in its own backyard. The Panama Canal was one of the bold endeavors of the twentieth century. In Path Between the Seas, David McCoullough describes this feat of engineering, the lives lost to malaria, the efforts it generated to find a cure for malaria, and the indomitable spirit of McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt that every American can rightly be proud of.  It was handed over by president Carter to Panama, in the way Clinton handed over entry into the World Trade Organization without protections and written agreement for level playing field in trade in the 1970's and in the 1990's when US had no idea that American business would create from these beginnings in phases supply chain partner, competitor, and adversary for America.  In 2025 Americans can look back and see that American interests were not protected in a period of so called "American triumphalism" under Carter, Clinton, Bush, Obama that has since disappeared with the loss of American manufacturing and destroying the small factory towns across America- and also France and EU nations- that depended on manufacturing for jobs and standard of living.  DJT is simply charting the long road back for America to the Bold Endeavours and Spirit of American adventure that Americans see in themselves as a nation founded on the frontier since Washington's days in the Pennsylvania country in the 1750's. The Spirit the led to the founding of the new nation through a protracted war on the frontier with the British. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Rachel Ensign's WSJ report shows huge disparity in incomes and spending that has happened in the US even with the best efforts and intentions of the Biden administration in 2020-2024. US cumulative excess savings by income for the bottom 90% are a mere $291 billion compared to $1.2 trillion for the top 10%, 4 times as large. As a result about half of consumer spending comes from the top 10% in incomes says the WSJ. (Moody's Analytics). It provides clues on why Biden and even less so Harris failed to convince Americans, the middle class, blue collar workers, and others that large social gaps, income disparities and wealth disparities gap were being bridged under Democrats. And makes it harder for Republicans and Democrats alike to address such huge gaps built up over time by outshoring jobs and manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis from banks speculation, the pandemic and supply shock cost of living crisis. As the $2.6 trillion in pandemic assistance from Biden faded people in the bottom 80% dipped into savings to pay for rising cost of living as supply chain bottlenecks and price gouging sent prices of groceries, housing, apartment rentals, cars up significantly. This has'nt happened to the top 10% or even the top 20% who continue to spend in the same way as before prices went up. Something like this is also happening in Europe and in China, India fueling and anti-incumbency mood, and dissatisfaction with governments. The Net Worth of the top 20% has grown by 45% or $35 trillion since 2019 compared to $14 trillion for the bottom 80%. (Moody's Analytics) ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This Editorial Board article of the WSJ says the EU's embargo on Russian oil raise the cost for Putin's invasion of Ukraine and demonstrate Europe's resolve. The new round of sanctions by EU will ban the imports of Russian oil by sea as well as insurance for shipping companies that transport it globally. About two thirds of Russian oil comes by tanker. Germany and Poland will also stop pipeline oil imports from Russia, only Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia will continue with Russian pipeline oil. The result- an effective embargo on 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. How effective is this if Russian oil is rerouted through other countries to reach China, Western Europe and the US? The WSJ says don't underestimate the impact especially when it is combined with the ban on insuring ships that carry Russian oil. The higher insurance rates and costs of shipping will limit Russian oil exports. Europe makes up half of Russian oil exports and WSJ says the rest of the world can't use up all that oil. Russia exported $180 billion of oil in 2021, a large amount of this will no longer be available to Russia to finance the war. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Thomas Piketty is France's and Europe's best trained economist today with highly popular books, one on Capital, and one on Capital and Ideology. Piketty was trained at the London School of Economics, where Greens leader Annalena Baerbock of Germany was also a student, and today he is professor at LSE. His research has shown that for economic growth to happen after the pandemic European societies need to take the lead and build fairer societies where everyone has a decent living and a fair share of the pool of resources in each country. Piketty is respected by leaders that range from Biden and Scholz in US and Germany to president Xi in China. Biden's Families and Workers plan and Scholz's plan for dignity of workers and working class, and the Common Prosperity campaign of president Xi for greater investments in education, healthcare and housing are all inspired by Piketty and by the socially conscious background of these leaders. Prime minister Modi's plans for Jal Jeevan, cooking gas, to ease the burden on hundreds of millions of Indian women, for farmers with small land holdings in agriculture to improve output and use less chemicals, and for investments in infrastructure projects, housing, are also coming from similar concerns for growth and fairness. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Trade economists from Ivy League universities, are still peddling the old theories on trade from textbooks that make no sense and have got America in this huge mess that it is in where other countries are ripping America off with unfair trade practices. These economists have turned a blind eye, turned their backs to the great damage done to industrial towns and communities across America for two decades with the loss of manufacturing. Take Irwin's point that the US would have to monitor rates on 13000 tariff line items. This is ridiculous because the US simply needs to monitor the key products such as semiconductors, oil and gas, LNG. In just one negotiation with India the US having a trade deficit DJT states of $100 billion with India- terrible trade. By opening up supply of LNG and oil US can fill India's needs for Oil and LNG and cut the deficit to zero. Who came up with this idea. Indian PM Modi and his trade team. Once it was known that the status quo was unacceptable India came up with its own ideas lets import what we get from Russia from the US. Yes we had discounts from Russia but that was when oil prices were high. DJT's effort to get oil prices down by increasing US production will make it possible for India to get this oil at similar prices. India is a much bigger economy now than during Covid 5 years back India can do this. US and India win-win by doing joint aviation production deals and US gains with sale of F-35 stealth fighters. It is just common sense. Sadly, much of this is common sense that is beyond Ivy League Economics departments at American universities.  Reciprocal Tariffs make a lot of sense because this is how fairness is done- for China, for India. In the case of Mexico, Canada, China, on stopping flow of fentanyl- this reciprocal tariff is not a tariff it is as Commerce Secretarty Luttnick pointed out domestic policy of the United States. Which country would tolerate 490,000 deaths from fentanyl over 12 years and not take domesti policy action. It is not that the policy actions are taken it is that these action should have been taken a long time back. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
David Brooks say this is one of the periodic crises of faith America has faced. Its the rise of China. and its not the economic growth rate. Its the deeper spiritual issue that is troubling. The vigor that once was characteristic of the US, the optimism for the future, and the belief that the country is headed in the right direction, these are the things that stand in marked contrast between China and the USA today. 86% of Chinese people believe tht their country is headed in the right direction compared to 37% of Americans. Only one third of Americans believe that the next society changing innovation will occur here , while a majority of Chinese feel confident that it will happen in China. The results are from aNewsweek-Intel survey called the Global Innovation Survey. Brooks says America needs to slow down consumption and reward production, building things and innovative ways. And leaders must make the long term narrative of America's story convincing. See the link to Michael Porter's essay in Business Week on a strategy for America in the October 30, 2008 issue of Business Week, that Brooks cites as a way forward....

LyrArc Article Gist
In this essay in Der Spiegel, Charles Hawley says that the Trump movement has become a movement of patriotic downtrodden whites, with a whole range of interests-of extreme right talk show hosts, Tea Party politicians, white power supremacists, those left out by globalization in the working class especially in the midwestern states. The danger he says is that this movement of which Trump has become a part, rejects the narrative on which America is based of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers establishing a country based on principles of "the inalienable rights of man," that have evolved through the years to include black people, women, and minorities.  To put this in perspective, president Obama writing for The Economist magazine in October 2016, puts this movement in a different context- that of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Know Nothing Movement of the 1800's, the anti-Asian sentiment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, periods when anti-immigrant or anti-foreign sentiment gained prominence. Obama's view is that it is not fundamentally economic. In this he is right in that some of the forces on the far right do not stem from globalization. Yet he would be missing a great deal if he did not address the economic problems for the middle and working class that have given such views the support of a broad segment of the population, especially in some midwestern and older industrial states compared to say the economy of California or New York. Obama is aware of the problems in his essay as he points to the problems of workers trying to get a decent wage, of job losses through globalization, and the aggravation of these problems by the financial crisis of 2008 when some of the potential physicists and engineers as he calls them went into the financial sector to create faulty mortgages. Yet he goes back to the free trade and global networks of supply chains as having reduced global poverty, without showing a keen awareness of how it has through a combination of events and decades of policy indifference to manufacturing communities in the U.S.- as documented by experts and shown in Lyrarc, with David Autor and Gordon Hansen in the WSJ, 2016- 08-16. A Gallup Study, WSJ, 2016-05-16, supports Obama's assertion by showing that many of Trump supporters are actually self-employed and not in economic distress. Yet the movement would not have taken its proportions without the merging of different groups particularly largely disadvantaged working class voters, and fortunately Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, have a better sense of this than the president. It is by their efforts that income and wealth disparities can be tackled in a way that restores the social fusion of all parts of society- in Hillary Clinton's emphatic words in the final debate by "growing the middle," growing the middle class. This is the task of the next decade, or possibly two decades. (For Gallup study see WSJ, How Economic Anxieties Explain Trump's Appeal- And Where They Fall Short, Nick Timiraos, 08-16-2016. And for Autor, Hanson, see Tallying the Toll of U.S.-China Trade, Justin Lahart, 08-27-2011)   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
President Trump wants to see China lower fentanyl exports to the U.S. because of a worsening opioid epidemic. The trade disputes extend into areas that have no direct connection but affect the U.S. and Mr. Trump's commitment to tackle this issue.  This report says president Trump expressed dismay on this issue.

LyrArc Article Gist
Zhou Xiaochuan, is head of the People's Bank of China since 2002. For a long time Zhou has tried to convince party leaders in China to make financial sector changes. The new leadership of Jinping-Li Keqiang has now adopted most of the road map and priorities drawn up by Xiaochuan. The first is bank deposit insurance, which would especially protect small depositors and provide a basis for new private banks to compete with large state owned banks, creating competition in the financial sector. By supporting creation of privately owned banks impetus could be given to loans to the private sector to rebalance the economy away from state owned banks and state owned enterprises. This is a key goal in the road map drawn up by the think tank Development Research Center (DRC) which has the backing of premier Li Keqiang. Competition from new private banks would let banks compete to offer higher rates to depositors, another goal. In a September article for the Communist Party Seeking Truth magazine, Zhou pointed out the pressing need for " supporting private capital to set up private banks and guide them to position themselves in serving small and micro companies." These new companies especially in tech and information technology fields can be the new drivers for growth in the future as the burst of infrastructure building generated growth slows down. The one area Zhou faces resistance is his idea of opening up China to foreign capital inflows and outflows. Here critics,including younger economists, say this protected China in the Asian financial markets crisis of 1997, and would protect China in the event it faces outflows of the type that are happening in India in 2013 after the U.S. Fed's plan to withdraw from its quantitative easing. Xiaochuan sees the flow of foreign capital as another way for capital to flow to new private companies and balance away from the state owned enterprises, and for China's savers to be able to obtain more attractive returns. Zhou says his plan would include the option for China to reintroduce capial controls in a crisis. As China's debt to GDP ratio is set on a trajectory to approach the levels reached in Japan before its banking crisis there is greater awareness from party leaders about the need for prudence. Xiaochuan has worked with party leader Jinping's key economic advisor Liu He for years, and has the support of He and Jinping for introducing deposit insurance as a top priority. President Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang see the need for Xiaochuan's experience and foresight "as a talent who can be counted on," as the sense of importance of changing the economic structure has deepened in 2013. Mandatory retirement for Xiaochuan at 65 was set aside to give him a third five year term, and his road map long ignored by former premier Wen Biao, is now at the top of China's agenda. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the WSJ tackles the issue of Russian hacking during the U.S. presidential election by saying that this should not be seen as a move by Democrats after the election defeat, and yet at the same time supports the Republican Congress's efforts to hold an inquiry into the hacking during the election. 

LyrArc Article Gist
History will see the lack of working on a bipartisan basis from the beginning of the Trump and Biden terms to stop illegal migrants and fight CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) on fentanyl flows as a blot on both parties. A remarkable change has happened in a matter of 100 days in Canada's stance on immigration and fentanyl flows. Trudeau now calling for eradication of fentanyl, his deputy prime minister saying Canada has more fentanyl deaths per capita than the US because of smaller population, and the need to wipe it out off the face of North America. The Canada Conservatives generally support DJT. The Trudeau Liberals have shifted policy to support DJT policies on immigration and fentanyl flows. In general Canada is making a pronounced shift towards support of the US position on immigration.  It is not just DJT policy as closing the border was part of the agreement agreed by Biden in 2024 with Republicans in Congress led by Lankford-Graham-McConnell which was not passed because it was too close to the election. One can only say the Covid pandemic, vaccination shortfalls, failures of supply chain distracted Biden from acting early and similar to DJT on the first phase of immigration action on illegal migrants committing offenses. The release of illegal migrants across the US is something that Democrats will years from now see as a major error in its policies. History will see the lack of working on a bipartisan basis from the beginning of the Trump and Biden terms to stop illegal migrants and fight CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) on fentanyl flows as a blot on both parties. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's breakneck growth was enabled by housing construction, and coal in a way that created problems of climate change. Now China's largest housing developers Evergrande and Country Garden together have a staggering $500 billion in debt and in serious financial trouble in or near default. How will China's government respond? It let Evergrande who had defaulted on debt payments build 300,000 apartments last year, just to protect home buyers. Now it's founder Mr. Xu is taken in for questioning and "illegal crimes." Making sure that the apartments on which people made deposits are built would cost another $72 billion, says Nomura. Yet suppliers, painters, builders and brokers are owed another $390 billion, in one estimate. And foreign creditors are getting together for complicated restructurings. Evergrande had entered wealth management promising 8 or 9% returns and has stopped making payments. All this is affecting public confidence in the future and China's growth story. For decades China depended on housing construction for high growth rates. Now the process is unwinding with both in financial difficulties. This NYT report says that after Evergrande's default, Country Garden failed to make a payment on $200 billion in debt last week and has 400,000 apartments that it sold but has not finished building. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Le Monde publishes the speech JD Vance gave at the Munich Security Conference with it says added context and explanation. It is useful because it is easy to make hasty judgements in one direction or another. The focus here is on immigration to EU and to the US, a sore point. Vance does not mention a bigger sore point - the lack of recognition worldwide to the 490,000 American lives lost in the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US without needed action from CMC Canada, Mexico and China. And business as usual carried on by these countries and the European Union, and a failure to act by the US.  JD Vance said- "And of all the pressings—challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States—also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And, of course, it’s gotten much higher since.And we know the situation, it didn’t materialize in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade." Fact Check- About 14 million of Germany's 84.5 million people are foreign nationals according to Destatis. This is 16.6% of Germany's population. Vance rounds it off to 20% not 17%. In the US there are 47.8 million people who are foreign born or 14.3% of the population in 2023. It increased by 1.6 million from 2022 to 2023, much of it coming from Venezuela and Central American failed states from left parties mismanaging the economy for hyperinflation and from gang violence. In 2022 EU member states welcomed 1.8 million Ukrainian nationals that was only 100,000 in 2021, which is two thirds of the increase. The reason for Vance's doubling. A similar situation happened in the US with Venezuela as a failed state with hyper inflation into 1000 percent inflation leading to migration to other Latin American countries and into the US during the Biden administration. Some of this happened because sanctions made things worse, mismanagement of the economy. A similar migration happened from Syria into the EU member states as a result of the civil war.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
PM Modi asks India's youth to help bring about an end to the leakage of public funds that end up illegally in private hands when these funds are desperately needed to build roads, bridges, housing, logistics centers for exports, airports and ports on a scale similar to the United States and EU nations. Only by doing this and focussing every penny for building infrastructure and international trade under Made in India can India meet the aspirations of 1.2 billion people and set the pace for the 0.5 billion people in other parts of south and south east Asia including neighboring Indonesia- 1.7 billion people. The US and European Union would be grateful that this happens as it secures the future also of the US and the EU nations through a new manufacturing supply chain. With this effort India would integrate efforts for renewable energy and combating climate change with the US, European Union, and the nations of Latin America and Africa on a new scale that is needed. Jobs come with infrastructure and Made in India manufacturing, it is the foundations that have to be put in just as for a house being built. See the pledge and how significant it is in Lyrarc Insights (see left side front page menu) under India - The Way Forward, Bharat and Cina in Sanskrit - the heritage of Vedanta and the Buddha that the Asian people identify with. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
NATO was formed in the days of the Truman administration on 25th July 1949, following the Berlin Blockade, the coup in Czechoslovakia by Soviets, and the efforts to set up pro soviet governments in Turkey and Greece. It accomplished its purpose by pushing back against the Soviet effort securing democracy in Greece and Turkey in the 1950's. Much of this was achieved under Heads of NATO from the US- Gen. Eisenhower, Gen. Ridgway, Gen. Guenther and Gern Norstad proteges of Ike all from West Point by 1964, when Brezhnev was new head of Soviet Union and by 1991 Warsaw Pact of Soviets setup in 1955 was dissolved yet NATO was not. The US interests shifted to Asia - Gen MacArthur leading a UN effort in Korea and the US leading its own effort in Vietnam in the 1960's. The Soviet threat actually receded after 1964 when Brezhnev became head of Soviet Union till 1982. During that period in the 1970's till today the face of NATO as today was from a series of heads of governments of Dutch Stikker in 1970's or other small European states such as Norway Stoltenberg and Rutte Netherlands again in 2025. It could be said that none of these leaders  of small EU countries represented US interests- or even European interests- a point the DJT administration is trying to make. It hurt the US in Venezuela as Russia propped up a regime which led to millions of refugees entering the US illegally. And it hurt Europe as Russia propped up the Syrian regime with millions of refugees entering Germany and destabilizing its political structure. Going back if a new defense institution was set up to replace NATO by the Europeans in 1970's this would have been the right step which would have not led to Russia propping up regimes in the Americas or the Middle East. A goal that is being discussed with Russia by the DJT administration to refocus American efforts in a new direction and pause not just the Ukraine war but also put the US  and Russia in a new direction with the new competition from 3 billion people in China and India. WSJ Editorial Board takes the British position on the Ukraine peace proposals with centuries old skeptical attitude on Russia's intentions. The US government position put forward by DJT is that there are constructive discussions with Russia, and the need to settle the underlying issues behind the conflict. This includes NATO's future. NATO setup in 1949 for Soviets,  on the borders of Russia in 2025 after the end of the Cold War when its rival the Warsaw Pact set up in 1955 of the Soviets was disbanded in 1991. The British position comes from centuries of conflict in Europe and its interests in protecting its Empire till the 1950's remaining unchanged, and cannot reflect American interests in the 21st century as its economy competes with China and India and the EU, and seeks to do this by keeping former colonial powers out of the Americas including Russia, and China.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's central bank says it will stay with normal policy as long as possible and not lower interest rates. The strong stimulus following the 2008 financial crisis led to debt expansion problems in the Chinese economy. This time China is cautious about monetary and fiscal steps even as the economy is slowing with the tariffs imposed on Chinese products by the U.S.

LyrArc Article Gist
Government data show that the German GDP declined by 0.5% in the thrid quarter after declining 0.4% in the second quarter. IMF predicts GDP decline of 0.8% in 2009. Germany's recession look like the worst in Europe except for the UK which has many of the same problems as the US economy. Germany's housing market has seen prices grow by almost zero in the last 10 years and German consumers are not in debt so Germany felt fairly immune to the troubles facing the US and the UK and Spain. But Germany is a big exporter and it has become more dependent on exports in the last 10 years. Exports account for 41% of GDP and CHina sucked up alot of machinery exports from Germany and China is in the midst of a drastic slowdown. In fact for the first time China is seeing a decline in monthly electricity output. And China's GDP growth rate may go from 12% to the range of somewhere around 6% in 2009, considering that Chinese export factories are closing down as the USA its main export market is seeing a rapid slowdown. Its already reached 9% and the slowdown is just beginning as the US market is also at the beginning of its slowdown. As the US market declines further in 2009 China's export factories will face a further decline in orders. Comparing the US at 10%, Japan at 20% and Germany at 41% of GDP one can see how heavily dependent the Germans have become on exports, especially with Asia's booming economies sucking up German exports. New orders for German goods declined by 18% from their peak in November 2007. And this is just the beginnning. So German unemployment is expected to increase. Its true that German banks invested heavily in mortgage related securities and other risky assets abroad, and the international financial crisis has led to a bailout fund of 500 billion euros setup by the German government. But Bundesbank figures show that what is causing the drastic contraction is the drop in investment spending as loan demand has dropped. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
As the founder's daughter Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, is a high profile figure arrested in Canada from U.S. request for extradition in the ongoing U.S. - China tech rivalry.Ren Zhengfei, 74 years old, a former military engineer built Huawei over 3 decades into a leading telecom company.  The CFO was in line to succeed her father as CEO.

LyrArc Article Gist
A shocking fact about oversupply in one crucial industry. Automakers worldwide have the industry capacity to make 94 million vehicles. According to researcher CSM Worldwide the current sales in late 2008 reflects demand for 60 million vehicles worldwide. This is about 34 million extra vehicles and represents about 100 plants. Toyota has already cut production in Japan by 27% in November, the biggest cuts seen at Toyota in 30 years. The numbers for 2009 will reflect a deepening downturn from higher unemployment and lower spending. Not all of this capacity wil be cut as automakers will look for a rebound as customers replace aging vehicles, but as sales decline in Russia, China and emerging markets and in the USA and Europe, some consolidation will take place and many plants will have to close in the US, China, Portugal, Italy and Spain.

LyrArc Article Gist
German elections results in graphics 2025, shown in Deutsche Welle DW.  As in US in Germany 2024 more women and university educated in SPD, Greens more basic education and men in AfD, CDU. People over 60 voted for SPD and CDU, 20-23% voted for AfD in 25-50 year age groups.

The deindustrialization of the US and Germany and France has led to this situation, as jobs were outshored to China under Merkel and Schroeder. Fewer opportunities for people with a basic education and the indifference of governments to these disadvantaged groups under Merkel and Schroeder. The other change is that in Germany in the Eastern parts of the country around Dresden, Jena, Leipzig in Eastern Germany the AfD is now dominant, except for Berlin where the Left and SPD are dominant.

LyrArc Article Gist
Apple faces large hurdles in China with models made locally by Huawei and other Chinese companies that offer similar features at a price about one third less. Chinese buyers are also looking for products that are made locally by Chinese companies. As a result Apple's market share in China has declined from 9% in 2015 to 7% in 2016. The future for Apple does not look bright apart from a core group of Apple fans that look for new product launches every year. Social media comments cited here show the comments about the iPhone 7 that say buyers should not pay $159 for Air Pods, the cordless earbuds. With the economic situation changing buyers are careful to pay so much for the iPhone 7, when it looks so much like the iPhone 6. In India Apple iPhone price are much higher and remain a significant hurdle for price conscious buyers.