LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the Economist magazine points out that income per head has gone up only 40% over 30 years of democracy and economic liberalisation. And most of the benefits from NAFTA trade agreement have gone to northern Mexico where most of the factories have been built. Southern Mexican states like Tabasco were badly neglected. Lopez Obrador's party Morena is an allusion to La Virgen Morena of Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint, and also to a term used to describe darker skinned Mexicans. Obrador was born south of Mexico City and sees his goal as bringing industrialisation and infrastructure to the south. He vows to pave every road in Oaxaca and offer price guarantees to southern farmers. And even northerners are excited about him because of his nationalist instincts, and corruption and violence under president Pena. The disappearance of 43 student teachers in gang violence was a terrible incident in the wave of violence under president Pena which has horrified Mexicans of all classes.  Under Pena Mexico is tied with Russia in the Transparency International Corruption Index at 135th place and it is more blatant in Mexico than ever. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Immigration and drug flows became an explosive issue in the US by 2016, yet between 2016-2024 Venezuelan people outflows added up to 7.1 million migrants including about 1 million to the US, as Venezuela collapsed and Russia intervened to keep the regime.   None of this could have happened with major powers US Russian cooperation. The Monroe Doctrine of president Monroe, 1824, warned European powers to not restore colonial influence in the Americas. By 2024 Syria sent 14 million of its population to Europe, and Venezuela sent 7.7 million migrants to Colombia, Brazil, and the US, as their economies and democratic institutions collapsed. Missing was working cooperation with another military power Russia. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Western financial interests, failed to grasp the importance of US Russia cooperation and mutual respect. Obama denigrated Russia as insignificant because of its GDP.   Russia intervened in failing states but gained little, straining the good relations mutual respect from earlier periods of its history and interactions with the US.  DJT tariff on all importers of Venezuelan oil affect China to which Venezuela sent 55% of its oil exports over half a million barrels a day. It also affects India and other importers. These importers say experts, will shift to Russian crude preferring it to heavy oil from Venezuela. This is a sore point for Americans affected by violent crime from Venezuelan gang members reflected in recent election results. This also affects the sense of safety in American neighborhoods and in towns across America. The Linken Riley Act was passed in the US Congress as action on this issue. People in China, India, and in Europe, and some even in Silicon Valley in the US fail to grasp the way this has affected communities across the US when after decades of deindustrialization and shipping jobs overseas by American business, these communities are affected by a sense of lack of safety in their neighborhoods. There is also a failure to grasp the harm done by migration of 7.7 million people from Venezuela, almost a fourth of the country's population, because of mismanagement of the economy and crippling inflation, and the failure of democratic institutions to function effectively. A failure to grasp the extent of the economic and human disaster in Venezuela. DJT says- "Venezuela has been very hostile to the US and the Freedoms which we espouse...Venezuela has "purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals".    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Samsung's decision to focus on LCD Displays and improve existing technology, citing lack of demand for higher priced OLED Displays, leaves LG Display as the sole maker of next generation OLED Displays. OLED Displays allow the screens to be very thin and to be made in flexible forms with better colors. In this WSJ interveiw, Han Sang-beom, the head of LG Display division says how LG reached the decision to take the risks involved in making the large investments required. He says LG Display already has about 2 years of experience ahead of other companies which he sees as important to keep in preparing for the future market. He cites progress in reducing panel defects and production efficiency, moving up the learning curve, which is similiar to its early experience in developing LCD's. LG Display's strategy is to keep this lead for capabilities that will be needed for the new wearable devices, automobiles and new types of products. It sees other competitors who are developing OLED panels moving into manufacturing to help solve the problems related to cost reduction and product competitiveness. LG Displays production plans are for the second OLED plant with capacity for 26,400 sheets of mother glass a month to be ready by the end of 2015, following the first plant of 8000 sheets. Each sheet makes six 55 inch TV screens. LG's existing small screen business is highly dependent on demand from Apple. LG Display plans to continue focus on LCD mobile product screens while developing new flexible OLED mobile screens....

LyrArc Article Gist
The Blinken Wang Yi meeting at the G-2- in Indonesia is the first high level meeting between US and China since March when the Ukraine war started. In the press briefing after the meeting Blinken said "more than four months into this brutal invasion the PRC stands by Russia." He pointed to Beijing support of Russia at the United Nations, dissemination of Russian talking points through Chinese state media and joint military exercizes with Moscow. One aspect of the relations that is beyond the control or good intentions of the two countries top diplomats is the tit for tat response that began with the presidency of Donald Trump. Trump may have seen this as a way to talk to the voter base fed up with two decades of one sided trade with China with manufacturing shipped out to China and local communities of families and workers in regions across the US losing jobs and in decline. Much of this shift was done by US companies during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations over two decades. The strident tone adopted by Trump was met by tit for tat responses in Chinese media till the pandemic when it assumed a new aspect of Chinese origins of the coronavirus. The result is that Sinophobia in the US is met by a response in Chinese media and in the thinking of the Chinese leadership under Jinping that now sees the relationship as having already shifted during the pandemic. The paradox in this is that the US in its effort to get other countries on its side is only beginning to make an effort of get America's own companies and large business investors on its side. Most American companies are still continuing trade and business with China as before.  The same situation exists with the shift of manufacturing from Japan and the European Union to China, with the loss of jobs and decline of local communities that depended on manufacturing. Japanese and European companies are acting in ways that are similar to American companies. Having managed the shift of manufacturing from European Union and Japan to China these companies have done little to change this business situation in 2022 carrying on as before. This is the paradox of the current situation that business both in the US and EU, and Japan is not on the side of their governments, even as their governments attitude to China, particularly now after the pandemic and the Ukraine war has shifted drastically. Alongside this is the popular opinion that has shifted gradually over the last 10 years in the US and EU, first in these very local communities that lost manufacturing to China, and then across broader sections of the public, and now across whole regions of America, Britain, the EU and Japan. This shift in popular opinion has little interest in the way business conducts business overseas or governments conduct diplomacy in nuanced statements. As a result neither the governments of the US, EU and Japan or the business of the US, EU and Japan are in control of this shifting situation that has its momentum and pace operating quite independently of governments and business. And public opinion across America, Europe, Japan, and also in India is moving in an entirely new direction.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Problems with China's one child policy are becoming more urgent. New census figures show China's birth rate has dropped to below the replacement rate. Based on the national census in 2010, the figures show the total population at 1.34 billion. The average annual population growth rate for 2000-2010 is 0.57%, which is half the rate of 1.07% in the prior decade. This data suggests a total fertility rate, the number of children a childbearing woman can have at just 1.4, way below the replacement rate of 2.1. This is also happening as the population is ageing rapidly and the gender balance is being skewed because of the bias towards males under the one child policy. The percentage of the population above age 60 is 13.3%, up from 10.3% in 2000. The percentage of the population under the age of 14 declined from 23% to 17%- a big drop. This means that the demographic dividend China experienced is being exhausted. Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Centre for Public Policy, is one of those trying to get the governmet to change its one child policy. He says the demographic patterns in China were changing even before the one child policy came into effect in 1980. The total fertility rate of 2.3 in 1980 had gone down significantly from the 5.8 in 1950. Indonesia and other countries in Asia also saw signficant drops in the total fertility rate without a one child policy. A large Chinese bureaucracy has formed around the one child policy and it is reluctant to admit the need for change, but policymakers are now paying attention to the facts from the census. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Internet content and communications provider Yahoo, is losing ground. Compared to a 4% growth for the Internet overall, Yahoo's increase in unique vistors was 4%, according to comScore in the 4 months of 2010 to April. Total minutes dropped 11%, and page views dropped 13% in same period, compared to double digit increases for the Web. Yahoo CEO, Bartz, lacks a background in journalism and content development. And AOL is pursuing a similiar strategy. Yahoo agreed to acquire Associated Content which aggregates content from bloggers, and it is making trials with local content in Detroit and Cleveland for user engagement. Bartz plans to revamp the email interface. Analysts sense that the repair job will be tough for Bartz as Yahoo's image has suffered.

LyrArc Article Gist
Stewart points out that Japanese government efforts to prop up stock prices by buying stocks in 1992 failed after 2 years when the fundamentals did not support the government effort. Experts say that even if the stock prices recover in China in 2015 after government efforts to prop up prices, this will be temporary if the economic fundamentals do not support such high valuations. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has a P/E ratio of 37 and the Shenzen Stock Exchange has a P/E of 80, very high valuations. Earnings numbers from smaller companies in China are also unreliable increasing investor risk. Additional issues are the timing of the government's effort to promote a surge in the stock market in 2014-2015. It comes as real estate and housing prices are in a bubble and the economy is slowing rapidly.

LyrArc Article Gist
China's handling of the surging stock market, and use of the market for debt ridden companies to reduce debt loads, is based on an erroneous assumption of how equity markets work. China's lack of experience with declining equity markets during China's experiment with its form of capitalism since 1990, is a serious handicap in 2015.

LyrArc Article Gist
Competition in the Chinese market between Coca Cola and pepsi is shifting from the traditional carbonated beverages to juices, teas and non-carbonated drinks. Pepsi sells pulp based juiced under the name Tropicana Pulp Sacs, and Coca Cola has Minute Maid Pulpy. The Chinese governmet has discouraged acquisitions, and did not approve Coke's $2.4 billion acquisition of fruit juice manufacturer China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. Growth has to be maintained by investing and developing their own products for local tastes and culture. Both Pepsi and Coca Cola plan increased investments in China. Pepsi has 27 plants, five farms, and over 20,000 employees in China and expects to double the number of employees by 2015. Pepsi executives say Pepsi is following a"seed to shelf" approach in China, growing food on farms and developing teas and snacks for local tastes. In China Pepsi has a Lay line of chips with cool-cucumber flavors and Cao Ben le line of drinks based on Yin and Yang, cooling and warming. Pepsi's 13% growth in snack volume and 10% growth in beverage volume for its Asian, Middle East and Africa operations are mainly because of this growth in China and India. By contrast soft drink sales have declined for 5 years in the USA and come under criticism because of high levels of obesity in the USA. Pepsi's strategy is to move further into the interior of China, further west according to Pepsi executives. It plans to invest $2.5 billion in about 12 new food and beverage plants in the interior of China to be built over 3 years. Coke announced a $2 billion investment in late 2009, and is a lead sponsor for the Shanghai Expo. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Did a major U.S. chip maker Advance Micro Devices give away advanced computer chip technology in deals that saved the company as it faced a downturn in business. In Jun 2019 the U.S. Commerce Department issued an order that bars several Chinese companies from getting American technology. In the meantime Chinese versions of AMD chips are rolling off production lines in China, according to this report in the WSJ. It shows that AMD's partner in China, a military contractor, already used those chips to build what could be the world's fastest supercomputer. The AMD deals gave China access to state  of the art x86 chips made only by AMD and Intel Corp. Here the WSJ says AMD's CEO in October 2014 Lis Su, faced AMD's financial difficulties when she joined, with lack of cash, large debt, and declining revenues. Some analysts predicting bankruptcy protection. The deal for China's company Sugon to manufacture the x86 chips included $293 million in licensing fees, and $371 million for selling an 85% stake in its two factories in China and Malaysia to China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co, a state backed financier. The U.S defense Department tried but failed to get AMD to submit the deals to Cfius, the committee on foreign investment in the U.S. that has people from Treasury, Defense, Commerce, Justice and Energy. The Treasury Department ruled in AMD's favor in the closing months of the Obama administration. Defense Department officials say the deals were structured to sidestep U.S. regulations through two interlinked joint ventures. The first venture focusses on R&D and production controlled by AMD, the second on design and sale controlled by AMD's Chinese partner. The second company venture enables China to show that the resulting product was developed locally in China. In another development Sugon publicly announced that it was using the AMD x86 chip to advance China's chip technology advancement just as it had done for high speed trains. Making indigenous an imported technology, designing it at home, absorbing it, and then innovating to make China a leader. By mid 2017 this information reached General Spalding at the Trump White House. Lawmakers wanted to give Cfius committee new powers. By August 2018 Defense department submitted the Sugon deal for review a second time. After the Defense Department's deputy undersecretary for Research and Engineering criticized the whole deal publicly in front of industry executives, Commerce Department stepped in and on June 21 it asked for the unwinding of the deal with Sugon,  imposing new export restrictions to limit access to U.S. technologies. For AMD the cash infusion from China enabled it to get back from near bankruptcy. China gained x86 technology in its bid to make the fastest supercomputer, the U.S. faced with another loss in technological edge, and AMD shares jumped 80% to $30 per share recently. Brian Spegele, Kate O'Keefe, and Yang Jie in Beijing, covered this story for the Wall Street Journal. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This essay in WSJ is from Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, and now Secretary of State in the second term DJT administration. Here Rubio points to his first visit as a return to focus on the American continent, on Central America and South America, which was neglected since the Kennedy administration in 1961 when JFK launched the Alliance for Progress (Allianza para Progreso). Like JFK Rubio visited Central American countries the source in the last decade in addition to Venezuela of much of the illegal migration north to the US. After support for failed dictatorships under the Eisenhower administration, JFK made Latin America a priority. This can be seen in the JFK Nixon debates. 64 Years after the conference in Uruguay's Punta del Este in 1961, America is back to square one with the failed Central American countries from gangs plus crime and from Venezuela's economy collapsing from inflation plus mismanagement with a socialist experiment. Kennedy said-"To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge – to convert our good words into good deeds – in a new alliance for progress – to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty." -- John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 Kennedy said of the Alliance for Progress "a vast cooperative effort, unparalleled in magnitude and nobility of purpose to satisfy the basic needs of the [Latin] American people for homes, work and land, health and schools – techo, trabajo y tierra, salud y escuela." Speaking in the White House on March 13, 1961, JFK said to more than two hundred Latin American diplomats,  "Let me be the first to admit that we North Americans have not always grasped the significance of this common mission." Yet at the same time, "many in your own countries have not fully understood the urgency of the need to lift people from poverty and ignorance and despair." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Felipe Calderon's offers a strong defense of his policy to fight organized drug trafficking in Mexico on the Presidential website, and shifts some of the blame for the violence to the U.S. and previous administrations that allowed the problem to grow.