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With China's economy contracting China is now reviving the sidewalk trade with hawker stalls, food trucks, and other types of sidewalk retailers. Chinese premier Li Keqiang says small entrepreneurs at the micro level are as important as larger business to keep unemployment low. Li says these small traders are as important "as vital to China as bigger and more high end businesses." He is now promoting these smaller business enterprises and individual business owners saying "we will support you," and praising food stalls for their contributions in the past before China industrialized to "human culinary culture."  Only when the economy took off and large companies emerged were these small businesses forgotten. This reverses the Communist party's instructions to close street vendors. Li says that in Chengdu, population 14 million, 100,000 jobs were created in a few weeks by allowing 36,000 street vendors back on the streets.  In fact the informal economy plays a big role in India and other countries in Asia and Latin America, Africa. ...

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Singer and Kanter provide a detailed account of Margarethe Vestager, her personal upbringing with two parents who were ministers of the Church of Denmark, her studies for a Masters degree in Economics at the University of Copenhagen, serving in the Danish Parliament, experience as Economy minister, that have given her a sense of quiet confidence that is rare in European politicians. A Danish talk show host sees her as quite unemotional. When approached about this as a kind of toughness Vestager is taken aback, saying that she is just doing her job, and takes her responsibility to ensure competition is fair and open in the interests of consumers quite seriously. She has her lighter moments with knitting elephants, and is not hesitant to post a picture of the talk show host napping in a park in Denmark on her social media site. She comes across as a politician who is not so serious as to lose sight of enjoying her work, as she rises early and takes the morning jog to the IMF headquarters in Washington D.C. She says all the late night meetings her parents had as ministers with people going through difficult times from all parts of society gave her a sense of how an informed society should function....

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Misperceptions in the North about the South before the Civil War in the US. The Republican party started in the North primarily with the idea of opposing slavery and all it represented in taking America away from the ideals of 1776 and 1787. The Republicans underestimated the resistance the South would put up in the impending war.

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This report in the New Yorker provides a good glimpse at the problems of global warming and limiting climate change goal of 1.5 degrees centigrade. Sally Ann Ranney co-founder of the American Renewable Energy Institute answers questions from the New Yorker magazine. Limiting climate change warming of the planet to 1.5 degrees centigrade by 2100 is a goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement. In the absence of this the global warming would be 2.7 degrees centigrade by 2100. For this 1.5 degrees centigrade goal to be reached fossil fuel use and carbon emissions have to be cut by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. 

The ice pack in the Arctic is part of a planetary cooling system and its accelerated melting is a good sign of the danger the planet faces. Ranney answers a number of these questions.

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The U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Yellen tells a Boston Fed conference on economic opportunity and inequality: "The extent and continuing increase in inequality in the U.S. greatly concern me. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity." Yellen pointed out that the high inequality impedes economoic mobility which impairs the recovery. Income disparities of this type reduce the country's economic potential, said Yellen. Recent housing gains have helped restore losses of housing wealth with more gains at the bottom. Yellen emphasized the need to invest in education and opportunities for business ownership as ways to improve economic mobility. Low inflation or deflationary trends with lower oil and food prices, give the Fed more flexibility to reduce the numbers of the long term unemployed or part time employed for lack of full time work, a critical goal for the Yellen Fed....

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Slovenia is a small country of 2 million nestled in the mountains between Italy and Austria, part of the former Yugoslavia. Problems of bad debt at the major state owned banks, including Nova Banka Ljubljana, stem from a series of large management buyouts for home improvement chain Merkur, supermarket chain Mercator, the largest brewer and a major construction firm. Easy lending by state owned banks, corruption, cronyism and fraud have led to a large number of non-performing loans after a credit boom during 2000-2010. The bad debt at 6.8 billion euros is 19% of GDP in 2013. Protests in the capital Ljubljana in 2013 led to the fall of the centre right coalition government, the resignation of the opposition party leader and the appointment of a new opposition leader to run the government. Cuts to benefits and austerity measures have left the public in Slovenia seething about the economic mismanagement. This is another example of how the shift to a market economy after decades of state run economy in communist controlled countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has run into serious trouble because of opportunistic behaviour of politicians, bureaucrats and business....

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Voter turnout of 83.5% in federal elections in Germany in Feb 2025 is the highest since reunification in 1990.  The Free Democrats and the Wagenknecht BSW  fail to meet the threshold of 5% for representation in parliament. The CDU manage 28.5% of the vote less than the forecast 30%, and the AfD is at 20.7%. Scholz Social Democrats drop 9% points from 25% in 2021 to 16.5% and the Greens are at 11.7% of the vote. The Left Parties get 8.7%. German broadcaster ARD cites exit polls showing 82% of voters were dissatisfied with the government coalition, 72% of voters dissatisfied with chancellor Scholz, yet the Greens  voters gave it 45% approval.  In terms of seats in the 630 seat Bundestag  Christian Democrats  208 seats Social Democrats.      121  The Greens                  85  Left Party                       64 AfD                               151        The likely outcome is resignation of chancellor Scholz and new leader for Social Democrats. A CDU SPD coalition Merz as chancellor, with Greens/ Left parties and AfD in the Opposition with equal number of seats.                                                                                                        ...

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Washington Post Analysis and details of Census Bureau trade information in September 2025 -showing the country by country and product tariffs by US and which tariffs are waiting for final trade agreements. China, India and Switzerland, Mexico face high tariffs. UK, EU, South Korea, Japan have made trade agreements with the US, China, India Swiss are still to finalize trade agreements leading to the uncertainty. The North American Trade Agreement is being renegotiated leading to uncertainty for Mexico and Canada which have both benefitted from trade with the US to detriment of US manufacturers.  China has huge surpluses that keep growing over time to $1 trillion ($992 billion) a year in 2024.  DJT Tariffs are designed as a bold step to remake the international trading system so that it does not work to the benefit of other nations gaming the system over decades as US administrations Clinton, Bush, Obama, paid no attention. Trade Deficits and the National Debt are a problem not just the National Debt. On the National Debt Republicans have pushed through cuts in parts of the budget where costs had escalated tremendously. ...

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Why Rachel Reeves type of strict financial rules will hurt Labour. DJT in the US relaxed the borrowing limit to $5 trillion, and has designed his One Big Beautiful Act to have parts of it to boost the economy and investment. Reform UK gains on both sides with Reeves efforts to cut benefits losing Labor voters and it's struggles on migration hurting it on the other side with conservtaive voters who voted Labour. With the Conservatives in disarray, Labour has to keep its focus on improving the lives of Britons.  Today it does not matter whether you are Social Democrat or Christian Democrat or Socialist, what matters is to have common sense policies that help te vast majority of people even in unconventional ways by breaking the rules or fixed ideas about what can be done. DJT and Merz are on the Christian Democrat side, Denmark's PM Mette Frederiksen is Social Democrat, what matters is to have a culture and policies that help the people and stands up for ordinary people in the Nation. ...

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This piece by Kanter in the NYT gives an account of Jean Claude Juncker's background as a political leader in Luxembourg. His father worked in the steel industry and was active in the trade union movement at a time when farming and steel making supported the economy of Luxembourg. In two decades under Juncker Luxembourg was transformed into a banking and insurance center with one of the largest per capita incomes in Europe. As a Brussels insider Juncker, according to British public opinion, is an odd choice to head the EU when it is trying to make its administration more democratic and less distant from the average person in the EU. Britain's prime minister Cameron says Juncker "was never on any ballot." The reason for Juncker's candidacy is that he is supported by the centre right parties in Europe, which also lost support in the recent elections. The Socialist and left parties fared worse in the election, but both centre right and left parties lost votes to third parties and nationalist parties such as the Marie Le Pen's nationalist party in France and the Independent party in Britain. Even chancellor Merkel of Germany initially hesitated to support Juncker, but confirmed him as her choice when German public opinion showed it favored the selection based on the largest party in the European parliament making the choice. This puts Britain and Cameron at odds with Germany, with the Swedes and the Dutch calming their doubts about Juncker and going with Germany. Little is mentioned in the media about the other candidate, an SPD leader from Germany representing the socialist and Left parties. ...

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In 2025 about $75,000 is considered income yearly for 2 adults and 2 children as the bottom rung of the middle class in America. About half the 70 million children in America, 35 million children are in conditions that involve need for food assistance and other aid, where the sense of income security, healthy food security, that was seen in the 1950's to 1990's the post war industrialization period is now missing in the closing days of the deindustrialization period of America in 2020-2025. WSJ's Dan Frosch provides this report from Binghamton, Broom county in upstate New York. At one time this area was part of the industrialization age in post war America. IBM offices were located here in Endicott. These office buildings of IBM are now being demolished. Instead of industry the economy depends on the University of Binghamton and the university attracts out of state students who bring in new investments in housing. Lower income yet middle class families face higher divorce rates with more single mothers struggling on incomes where they are on the border line for food assistance, and as wages creep up lose food and other aid. At income levels of $39,000 these families struggle to feed children. The poverty rate which declined during covid assistance period was already up in 2023 as government aid phased out under Biden and is now up further. A quarter of children in a once proud industrial region of America in upstate New York near Syracuse, now face poverty conditions. Life is a constant struggle to pay the rent, falling behind on utility or other bills and not having enough for food and other basic needs even at $39,000 year because of the inflation and cost of living having jumped in the last 5 years.   ...

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See the BBC reports on the DJT meeting with European leaders at the White House August 18, 2025, for Ukraine peace settlement. An astonishing day showing the learning curve of DJT, Zelensky, and the European leaders down to the last detail, a communication that was planned to the details, with DJT and Zelensky both reading from carefully prepared remarks, so that everything would go right, no missed chances. DJT also talks to Putin during a pause inthe meeting to brief him on the talks he had with European leaders. Though the media reports this as not expected it was all part of the plan so that DJT could play the role of someone the Russian president could trust, as well as DJT playing the role of someone the Europeans could trust at the same time- not an easy task but done with a sense of seriousness by DJT knowing that the peace depended on winning trust on both sides.

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Isaacson tells the story of Musk and paying $44 billion for Twitter, how all these birds have to go. Of Musk seeing the words "psychological safety" at Twitter and being take aback. Mental wellbeing, worklife balance were not his thing, says Isaacson. A failed acquisition, conversion and renaming of Paypal, led Musk to Twitter as a way to create a site that does all things including payments and social media. Contrast Musk with Carlos Tavares, CEO of European EV automaker Stellantis who makes worklife balance part of his way of running the company, and one sees a shocking contrast in a war of ideas of what is the most productive and what makes productive employees.

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Mr. Lindner of the FDP withdraws from negotiations leading to a stalling in the talks for a Jamaica coalition in Germany. FDP won 11% of the vote, the CDU about 32%, and the Greens 9% in the recent election. The CDU needs the FDP to form a coalition government as the Social Democrats have turned down requests to join the CDU in a future government. The SPD party sees no advantages in joining a coalition because it lost more of its worker base support by working with the CDU. If no coalition is formed a new election could be called by September 2018.

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"No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people." FDR said this  on October 31, 1936, it could also be president Biden.The current Media and Hollywood efforts to choose presidential candidates of their choice runs contrary to "We the People," contrary to views of ordinary Americans, of voters, workers and families. President Kennedy was told he should not take the nomination because he was too young. Kennedys' response was that it was he not Humphrey that went to state after state and won the votes in the primaries, no one else made the effort to run in the primaries in each state. President Biden has the support of 14 million in the primaries. George Chidi from Atlanta reports that undecided voters number about 1 million in the swing states and most are much older than the average. Most may feel insulted by talk about age when they are in the same category.  A 102 years old Lockheed engineer in Atlanta suburbs says he is a Republican but will not vote for Trump. There is also the women's vote in Georgia and Atlanta suburbs with abortion ban as the issue as it was in Kentucky and Kansas. How many vote will also be a factor, making energizing the base a key factor. The idea that one party is doing better than the other is refuted clearly by some of the people in Georgia shown here, and the age factor does not get the prominence the Media have given it, as long as the government is functioning well. Media has failed to look at the policy details of each candidate in a colossal failure that calls for alternatives. Older voters who are the major part of the 1 million or so voters in swing states that are undecided also say that the fact is that with both the candidates- as it is with administrations that are led by young presidents seen as too young to lead (JFK) the opposite of today- many of the decisions are made with an experienced group of advisers around the president. Many if not all also realize that the vast experience of an older president is also an asset. Much of Biden's legislation for chips science, infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction Act have not happened in Germany, France or the UK, and would not have happened in the US without the ability of president Biden to get the bipartisan support from being the one with the most experience in Congress in a long time. The result is the hundreds of thousands of jobs created each month and a growing economy, inflation down from 9 to 3% as the first step to further cost of living action to support ordinary workers and families. Only LBJ comes close and he signed landmark legislation for Medicare and Medicaid, and for civil rights into law 60 years back. By removing America from the wars that Reagan and Bush started and Obama and Trump failed to end president Biden has given the US an opportunity to inspire and lead the free world in a way that has not happened in many decades and build a growing economy, a bright future for the Nation. ...

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A humorous story on how Lady Hale delivered the unanimous decision of the UK Supreme Court against the prorogation of parliament by prime minister Boris Johnson, with a pun on the word pro-rogue-ation. And some ideas on how this was received by all sides. The decision was not popular in Britain and was seen by the royals and people around Queen Elizabeth as bad advice given to the Queen by the prime minister. Much of the behaviour of Boris Johnson and adviser Dominic Cummings is based on polls showing them winning over Labour seats in northern England that voted for Brexit in a general election to give the Conservatives a majority. Labour leader McDonnell has said that they have miscalculated. Labour party continues to emphasize that the real issue before the country is failing infrastructure, inequalities, lack of opportunity, jobs and the economy, not leaving the European Union. Labour's strategy is to wait out the general election for a couple of months so that voters can judge from the actions the competence of the Boris Johnson government to run the country for 5 years. ...

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This report in NYT suggests that coronavirus in New York is becoming endemic. Endemic means chronic instead of the acute crisis situation in 2020. This is because hospitalizations are not filling up ICU's the way they did in 2020. The burden of the coronavirus pandemic is now on people who are unvaccinated and people under 45 years.  New York has a higher rate of vaccination than the rest of the country. About 76% of people ages 12 and over in New York are vaccinated. Yet the 24% of younger people who remain unvaccinated is a part of the population that has fears about getting vaccinated which are harder to overcome. As many of these younger people also spend more time outdoors, and are part of the community, more likely to be in contact with families, relatives and friends indoors in winter, and less likely to wear masks and follow social distancing the pandemic, one could see another surge in the winter of 2021.  Another problem could be that some portion of the population of vaccinated has not taken booster shots by the middle of winter which would create a population of a third of the people even in cities such as New York that remain unprotected. The emergence of another difficult variant could also be a complicating factor. In this way chronic or endemic may still be elusive where masking, social distancing and other preventive actions are not taken. For the community as a whole there will be the risk to upward mobility from the people who risk losing jobs because of fears of the vaccine.     ...

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Spain's Mariano Rajoy loses a no confidence motion in parliament and resigns as prime minister in May 2018. He is replaced by Pedro Sanchez of the opposition Socialist Party. It has only 84 seats in the 350 member parliament making his government short lived and paving the way for new elections. Rajoy came in after the 2009 financial crisis assuming the prime minister position in 2011. He has governed throughout the period of the economic crisis and high unemployment in Spain during the eurozone debt crisis, the collapse of the housing boom, the banking bailout and austerity programs in Spain. Economic growth resumed gradually since 2013.

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What will the workplace of the future look like? What has happened during the pandemic that will change the way we look at work and life? These questions are answered in this WSJ report. There will be a greater mix of people of all ages, it says, as people live and work longer. Companies competing for workers will offer travel, sabbaticals, parental care, and flexibility for remote work around the world depending on an employee's needs and preferences. Some software firms already offer 60 days of remote work overseas, as travel is seen as broadening and good for mental health. Meditation, mindfulness, mental health assistance are seen as part of services companies will give employees.

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China's president expresses the need for greater cooperation between China and Germany during Scholz's Beijing visit and says "we jointly oppose the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons." Scholz for his part said "it is right and good that I am in Beijing today," that in times of change bilateral meetings were all the more important. China's president Xi said that "in times of change and turmoil" nations of influence should work together for world peace. This is the first time after the covid lockdowns that Chinese leaders are meeting a leader from a large western nation, and this is generally welcomed in China.

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Lonely Planet and other travel books contributed to all the travel overcrowding we see today. Tony Wheeler a co-founder has some advice- "go two streets over" and you can avoid a touristy spot for other attractive options. The Washington Post's Andrea Sachs talks to Lonely Planet travel books cofounder Tony Wheeler who started the company with his wife Maureen in 1972 after trips from London to Turkey and Iran by car. Their first book was Across Asia on the Cheap and started a new period of travel using hostels and cheaper accomodations and distant locations not travelled before by earlier generations such as Brazil and Argentina, distant parts of Asia and Africa. Wheeler is now 76 and lives in Melbourne and London. He sold his company in 2011, and it is now run by Red Ventures.

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John McDonnell, the future Chancellor in a Labour administration accuses the banks of creating "grotesque levels of inequality."

"If we have to take action we will. People are offended by bonuses." 

"It's become part of the culture and so separate, distinct and isolated from the rest of the real world economy, that people are so offended by it. It's a reflection of the grotesque levels of inequality that people find so offensive."

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UCLA replaces a traditional requirement for English majors of one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton. Shakespeare now joins the "Empire" and becomes part of Imperial studies even though the empire came long after Shakespeare. The new requirement is for a total of three courses in four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexual Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. How do you get a degree in English without Shakespeare, is the question posed by critics of the change.

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State owned shipbuilder Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin), defaulted on a $600 million loan in December 2010. Inflation is running close to 12% in December from a year earlier, and the Vietnamese currency, the dong, has lost a fifth of its value since mid- 2008. Vinashin borrowed heavily with the idea of becoming a leading shipbuilder, and nearly collapsed in mid 2010 with $4.4 billion in debts. Top executives were arrested for mismanagement of the company. Vietnam faces a problem faced by other emerging market economies in the past- it has only small foreign exchange reserves, which may be why it decided to let Vinashin default. The $14 billion the IMF reported for Vietnam as of September end 2010, is not enough to cover the short term debt of about $6-$7 billion and a wide trade deficit of $12 billion according to a credit markets strategist at UBS AG in Singapore. Experts say Vietnam has not learned from the lessons of other emerging market countries in Asia that faced a financial crisis in the 1990's. The central bank estimates credit will go up by 28% in 2010 over 2009. The government is focussed on growth, and experts are pessimistic about any changes at the coming party congress or in policies of the government. The Communist party promotes officials on the basis of their ability to hit growth targets and meet five year plans- with little regard for inflationary effects and corruption. One government official says the only thing the Communist party understands is growth and this is why little change can be expected. ...

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Murphy and Sanders on the 12 million Missing Votes in 2024. Where did they go? Two US Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders answer questions about the 12 million Missing Votes - the difference between Biden's 81.2 million votes in 2020 and Harris's 71.5 million in 2024 plus about 2 million from the population growth over 4 years of that group. Does any one position on guns, climate,  culture or gender, immigration, make it right? What about common sense, the facts on the ground, people's unease about some things going too far in one direction. Murphy- “We don’t listen enough; we tell people what’s good for them. “When progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base.” Working class voters are conservative when it comes to cultural issues. Should any party belong to one position on cultural issues- as some people have unease about going too far on cultural issues such as transgender, that things are changing too fast.   ...