朱民：全球金融市场趋同性加强

• 2003年趋同度只有10%；现在高达70-80%；
• 中国金融业在全球的代表性并不高；GDP占10.2%，资产只占8.2%；
• 亚洲债券市场虽表现好，但太小；银行占资产55%，股票占32%。

卢锋：经济易热难冷

• 中国体制转型下特殊的扭曲因素，对经济增长产生过度的助推力；
• 官员选用体制和地方竞争机制：扩大投资多上项目，冲破预算约束；
• 独一无二的城乡分割土地制度：农地一旦投入城市建设，产生几十倍的增值溢价；

陈志武：现代技术催生民主法治

• 现代交通运输工具和网络：增大了政府不受约束而侵犯民间财富的能力；
• 金融技术：全国金融机构一体化，城镇银行的信贷也受到国务院、发改委的统一调配，权力一旦失控将造成巨大伤害；
• 在世界范围内，除极少数国家，民主、法治都是19世纪、20世纪才有的；需要对由现代技术、现代金融技术带来的权力进行制约；

The doctor’s office as union shop

• increasing trend for physicians to become employees, rather than self-employed.
  
• Obama administration driving this trend: reducing the reimbursement for certain office-based specialists while enhancing related payment to hospitals;
• Doctors now in training appear willing to forsake income for a better quality of life and are less interested in the entrepreneurship required to run a private practice;
• (if doctors unionize) their right to strike?

 

Home prices turn up across region

• Guerneville, the most, jump 38.4%; Oakland, 35%; San Francisco 28.3%; San Jose 21.2%;
• social media employee — “Our gold rush right now is in social media.”
• market become tougher for buyer; impossible for entry-level buyer to compete; outbid by investors who often offers all cash;

The State Tax Reformers

• Nine states now have no income tax; instead, raising sales tax;
• income taxes are a direct penalty on saving, investment and labor; sales tax hit consumption;
• Louisiana and Oklahoma, with big energy production, another option: replacing the income tax with revenues from oil and gas extraction taxes, drilling leases and royalty payments;
• union-dominated high-tax model: California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and now Minnesota;

Euro Zone’s risk in currency wars

• hit 14-month high: $1.35;
• ECB: the only traditional inflation hawk in town — BOJ continue print money, raise inflation target; Fed open-ended bond purchases until unemployment falls;
• (BNP Paribas) fair value at $1.32; it is only slightly overvalued now.
• problem is: one rate may not suit all —  as world demand for euro-zone export grow sluggishly, making price is more important; each country has its own exchange-rate pain threshold, $1.22 for France and $1.16 for Italy due to lack of competitiveness and flexibility;

《娱乐、明星与政治》

• （一般）美国学术、传媒、文化和娱乐界左倾，支持民主党自由派，好莱坞更是宣传美国自由派政治理想的急先锋（大片中黑人总统的形象十多年前就已出现）；
• 俄罗斯Pussy Riot因“煽动宗教仇恨”被判决；普京辩驳：“这三名妇女被投入监狱，西方人就谴责，而《穆斯林的无知》的制作者纳库拉·贝兹利·纳库拉也被收监时，他们却缄默不语了。”
• （美国）塑造精神世界、道德价值、政治观念的三大力量：宗教，联邦最高法院，娱乐工业；
• 但人们并非像反对宗教人士和法律人士的政见那样来反对娱乐明星的政治表态，（其实认为）他们没有资格高度专业地对政治问题大放厥词；
• 但这就是他们应该噤声的理由吗？

《新民，一个未竟的使命》

• 中国队宪政观念的表达与对西方的看法有关，“优越性”；但挪用（而不是研究）西方并不讨论其“学术和理性”，而是思考“日常合理性”；
• 从而激发出关于“民”的思考：公民的锻造 — 现代国家；
• “重构”西方和“重述”中国传统 — “新民”，从心理层面真正面对西方，又不能彻底与自己的文化割断；
• 梁启超的新民事业 — “满街都是睁眼瞎”成了最大障碍；
• 梁引述中国的古典并不是为了使其支持新民计划，而是提醒国人不能忘了对古人君子的效仿；孔子、曾国藩等是策略上为了克服国人不适感、自卑感的解剂；
• 革掉满足政府是一回事，革命以后又是另一回事，梁对人民的失望，革命青年则是极度乐观；中国民众缺乏政治能力，但革命本身便是最好的锻炼；
• 五四的“新青年”在思想路线上产生分歧，为孔孟预留的位置被连根拔掉；
• 劳工庶民的胜利 + 巴黎和会的冷水 — “新文化运动”转化为反帝爱国的“政治运动”，工人和农民成了主角，最先作为启蒙对象的下层取代了启蒙者；

黄荭：《没有谁的日子》

• 我依然从容。依然不爱哭。依然相信明天会更好。只是，没有你的日子，我不习惯。
• （荣格）我是谁的梦？在这个梦里，我做了一次旅行。我在山丘的小路上漫步，阳光明媚，四野开阔。之后，我走近一座小教堂。门开着，我走进去。让我讶异的是祭坛上既没有圣母像也没有十字架，只有一簇美丽的花束。但我在祭坛前的地上看到一个瑜伽师，面朝我，打着莲花座，正在冥想。待我走近细看，我发现他的脸就是我的脸。我惊恐地离开，醒来时脑子里还在琢磨：“啊！如此看来，是他在冥想的时候想到了我。他做了一个梦，而那个梦就是我。”故而，等他醒来的那一刻，我将不复存在。

John Taylor: Fed policy is a drag on Economy

• kept extending the near-zero federal funds rate and it will remain in the place for several more years.
• search for higher yields: take on questionable investments; bank roll over rather than write off bad loans;
• foreign central banks follow the easy money policy — global increase in money risks commodity booms and busts;
• (respond) increase aggregate demand; but micro analysis shows not.
• Fed is imposing an interest-rate ceiling on the long-term market by saying it will keep the short rate unusually low —  reduce the supply of credit, reduce aggregate demand and increase unemployment;

The web-deprived study on McDonald’s

• McDonald’s, Starbucks, free access to wi-fi, for students who cannot access internet connection at home to do assignment;
• “21-century skills”. but school close at 5, public library close at 6.
• high speed internet and advanced wireless network aren’t subject to rules such as the ones that required carriers to make traditional telephone service available to everyone;
• “No one disagrees with the concept of 100% connectivity, the rub is how do you get there in a way that doesn’t distort the market.”

Adviser Optimism Raises Cautionary Signal

• Investors Intelligence Advisory Sentiment Index: determine market risks by measuring the level of optimism or pessimism;
• Currently, the index is showing a strong level of optimism among advisers.
• has to be cautious — too many people are ignoring the short-term risks inherent in stocks.

How the digital age is turning the financial planning industry upside down

• the past: large firm their own proprietary solutions; independent firms and advisers struggles; 
• changes: increase in bandwidth; the emergence of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), software packages able to “talk” to one another;
• impact: no longer good to build their own proprietary software; advisers now have more flexibility to change which firms they affiliate with; 
  
• the rise of the “middleware” programmers and integrators specialized in the software that is built for advisory firms. like designing “Apps”;

Home Prices Help Advance Economy’s Slow Recovery

• rose 5.5% from November a year ago;
• Case-Shiller report track 20 metropolitan cities, only NYC shows decline; Phoenix 22.8%, San Francisco 12.7%;
• in 2013, rising taxes and dysfunction in Washington make less optimistic;
• Home ownership rate 65.4% from 65.5% last year; but 69.2% in 2005.

CNN makes flurry of changes

• Managing director Mark Whitaker stepping down, replaced by Jeff Zucker;
• past: focus on hard news, while other rivals more opinionated;
• now pull back international reporting and focus more on stories of people talk about on any given day;
• (Zucker) “News is more than just about politics and war.”

She is elegantly shaped

like a beautiful castle

firm, defensive, and sophisticated inside

or perhaps not.

And she is sharp, straightforward

in a way of suddenly getting hurt

at the very first moment but soon

recovered if you are strong enough

or just swallow the truth.

And she is dangerous

being nothing by default

nor can be trained easily

therefore I am always and still wondering

if this machine is that fast to process the inputs

or just simply filter them out

in, I would rather say, sometimes

a smart way.

The Economic Observer Issue 605 28-01-2013

• Caterpillar write down Zhengzhou Siwei due to accounting fraud; two former shareholders of Siwei bought the company cheap and sold to Caterpillar high; “Americans cheating American”;
• Chinese urbanization: “establishing cities by rescinding townships”; “removing mountains to build cities”; but local government still put much pace and relied on land sale for revenues; must carry out a deep reform of the existing land management system;

张丹红：欧洲人事竞争德国为何屡败

• 德国人原则至上：前联邦银行行长韦伯坚决反对购买希腊国债，辞职拒接欧洲央行行长；央行首席经济师斯塔克抗议央行越来越依赖于政治而辞职；
• 法国的掣肘：竞争更露骨、执着和具外交手腕（拉加德接替卡恩IMF职位）；
• 成功进入欧洲决策层的德国人努力忘却本国利益（不愿在外界引起民族主义重新抬头的嫌疑）；
• 将本国利益交由同属北欧阵营的荷兰、芬兰去维护。

Treasury Gets A Citibanker

• nominated treasury secretary Jack Lew, took CAI job in 2008;
• “The greatest irony is that given Mr. Lew’s crisis-era resumé, he bears a remarkable resemblance to the bankers who President Obama says created the financial crisis and deserve federal investigation.”

B&N Aims to Whittle Its Stores For Years

• now 689 stores wit 674 college stores; in ten year will have 450 to 500 stores;
• Random House (the world’s largest publisher) ‘s ebook sales count for 22% from almost nothing five years ago;
• bookstores serve for different purposes from other retail outlets, people could not sit and chat in bedbath&beyond;

How trust deficit is hurting the economy

• trust breaks down, economy is damaged; 
• (Gallup) 25% trust in newspaper, 21% in television, only 13% to congress;
• food industry spending 30% more time meeting with regulators today than they did few years ago;

Noonan: Lessons Conservatives Need to Learn

• Mr. Mickelson is not alone in thinking paying more than half salary in city, state, county and federal taxes is unjust;
• (Obama) “He has no talent for or interest in sustained, good-faith negotiations, he has no real sense of alarm about the great issue of the day, America’s debt. He’s a chill presence in a warm-blooded profession.”
• changing the economic balance between rich and poor — redistribution;
• Compare to Franklin Roosevelt, Obama has the same seriousness of intent but nothing like the base of support: (FDR) 58% to 30% in 1932, 61% to 36.5% in 1936; (Obama) 53% to 46% in 2008 and 51% to 47% in 2012.

Travis Kalanick: The Transportation Trustbuster

• Co-founder of Uber, a limo service company (search map in app and call limo nearby, charge more), putting premium on customer satisfaction;
• facing “cease and desist” from transportation agency, not “beg for forgiveness” approach (they are legal);
• “there’s been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture that if you ask for permission upfront for something that’s already legal, you’ll never get it. There’s no upside to them.”
• have supporters sent 50,000 emails and 37,000 tweets;
• Uber Amendments: set floor on the company’s rates — anticapitalist taxi protectionism (put it into populist terms);
• “My politics are: I’m a trustbuster. Very focused. And yeah, I’m pro-efficiency. I want the most economic activity at the lowest price possible. It’s good for everybody, it’s not red or blue.“

世行：城市化须依赖财产税及长期信贷

• 发展中国家快速人口迁移，基础设施建设融资成为问题；
• 缺少国内信贷市场，市政债券缺乏透明度；
• 应协调公共和私人融资缓解财政负担；土地销售和财产税均可发挥杠杆效应；

德意志银行：2013年中国GDP将持续上升

• 大中华区首席经济学家，马骏；推动经济恢复的三个理由；
• 社会融资总额比例的增长；利润的恢复（消化产能过剩的过程基本结束）；出口的复苏（2013下半年预计同比增长12%；美国上半年解决债务上限问题，欧洲二季度会进入环比正增长）；

陈龙：谁来为银行系统再注资？

• 银行股盈利能力强但估值低 — 市场预期银行有大量不良贷款尚未暴露；
• “4万亿”过程中的不良贷款从哪来的？
• GDP考核机制下，各地投资冲动一直非常强烈，但受限于资金、土地和审批；“4万亿”后，闸门全部打开，多年难遇的“机会窗口”，“大干快上”，“弯道超车”；
• 三个明显的受益者：中央政府（经济恢复，国际声誉）；地方政府（财税受益，政绩）；银行（竞争重视的也是规模，也有官员晋升的因素）；
• 但银行的扩张动机受三方面限制：倒闭风险（政府的隐性担保）；存款不足导致放贷资源不够（作用也不大，央行被动超发，大银行网点优势）；政策限制（为反通胀，政府也采用各种手段遏制扩张冲动）；

Donald Boudreaux and Mark Perry: The Myth of A Stagnant Middle Class

• All the gains of the growth have gone to the very top — wrong!
• average hourly real wage remained unchanged from at least 1964;
• Problem 1: CPI overestimate inflation and underestimate the quality of product and service — healthcare;
• Problem 2: fringe benefits, such as health, pension, leave and rest, amount to 31% of total compensation;
• Problem 3: average wages held down by women and less-skilled workers;
• some other measures of middle-class living standards: life expectancy (5 years more); falling spending on “basics” (food, automobile, clothing); ability to consume (routine air travel, electronic products), close to that of the rich;

Chris Bray: What a ‘Militia’ Meant in Revolutionary America

• “Today, we are presented with a false choice in which either the government bans assault weapons or an unfettered individual right makes it possible for a monster to spray bullets into schoolhouses. The forgotten middle ways of our nation’s earlier days, that world of mutuality, excluded more people than it included, and its shortcomings are well known. But it also had real strengths, and the benefits of a strong civil society are lost to us when we expect government to address and solve our every problem.”

Highlights from the EO print Edition.604, Jan 21, 2013

• housing price greater concern than inflation in 2013;
• Change overseas investment model, net loss of $26.8 million in 2011;
• PE & VC investing in pollution-related companies: atmospheric monitoring, fixes for pollution, produce technology that reduces emissions;
• Luxury brands shifted to 2nd and 3rd tier cities, market in first-tier is becoming full;
• Oil giants lobby to raise crude oil windfall tax threshold, because of rising costs of mining crude oil; if successful, save more than 50 billion yuan in taxes.

• 进球的是曼朱季奇和托马斯穆勒，他们分别是板凳席上的最大牌——戈麦斯和罗本的对位球员，事实上，本场拜仁队内状态最好的也是他们。队内竞争最激烈的却恰恰发生在强者之间，这或许也是海帅比较不爱换人的背后因素之一；
• 克罗斯更多更积极的回撤、拿球、组织，削弱了小猪的组织作用，马丁内斯的传控型踢法与拦截专业出身的古斯塔沃相比，进一步缩小了小猪的拿球空间；拜仁中场中路的硬度在面对力量型球队时会经受另一番考验。
• 本场阿拉巴这一侧的防守始终是一个隐患，这名小将发展下去也许就只是个翻版的马塞洛，A科尔和埃弗拉之流，不敢奢望了。

李大卫：软实力不是软的实力

• 刘小东《在和田》，百子湾美术馆，“现场绘画”方式；
• 文学电子刊《渐近线》，汉英双语《天南》，人民文学《路光》；
• 软实力与硬实力成正比的反例：江户时代日本，浮世绘视为废纸，作为出货欧洲的包装材料，却影响了一代梵高、莫奈之流；其“失去的二十年”，漫画却被全球接收；19世纪末的美国；

李锦记：专注的刺猬

• 已经默默传承了125年；
• “思利及人”；
• 产品多元化方面谨慎，不上市，由家族成员牢牢控制；
• 吉姆柯林斯《从优秀到卓越》：狐狸知道很多事，但是刺猬知道一件大事，狐狸同时追求很多目标，但刺猬只专注一点。然而，刺猬并不愚蠢；它们拥有穿透性的洞察力，能够看透复杂事物并且识别隐藏的模式。刺猬注重本质，而忽略其他。

张晋蜀：《联想：变黑莓为红莓？》

• CFO黄伟明：“我们在评估所有的机会，包括RIM和很多其他公司”；
• 智能手机的开山鼻祖，安全可靠，但忽略消费者市场；
• CFIUS不会批准；

总统宣誓完成，精选仍将继续

• Organizing for Actions：有效利用支持者为各议题游说；解释总统的政策以及民主党在一些主要议题上的态度；
• 寻找超越奥巴马个人宣传的策略；

叶翔：高通胀小概率

• 日本“流动性陷阱”：过去14年货币发行量7倍，物价却下降5% — 货币发行量是通胀的必要而非充分条件；
• 供不应求 — 需求拉动型通胀；供求大体平衡 — 成本推动型；我国目前为后者，最重要动力为劳动力价格上涨；
• 撇开上述因素，流通渠道的有限性与消费较快增长的矛盾，商品供大于求，商品销售服务却供不应求 — PPI连续十个月下跌（生产过程中采购品的物价状况），却迟迟不能传导到终端消费；

Markham Nolan: How to separate fact and fiction online

• Managing Director of Storyful.com
• “The job of the journalist [during Hurricane Sandy] was filtering. … Instead of going and finding the information and bringing it back to the reader, you were holding back the stuff that was potentially damaging.”
• Twitter, Youtube, real-time database for journalists;
• “Algorithms are rules; they’re binary. [But] truth is never binary. Truth is a value.”
• “Truth is emotional, it’s fluid, and above all, it’s human. No matter how quick we get with computers, no matter how much information we have, you’ll never be able to remove the human from the truth-seeking exercise.”

Ryan Smith: The Reality That Awaits Women in Combat

• former marine infantryman in Iraq;
• introducing women: more or less effective?
• hygiene, watch the opposite sex in awkward position, humiliating enough to relieve yourself in front of your male comrades;
• societal norm is reality and is important to the maintenance of society; unit cohesion could be harmed by violation of societal norms.

Jet Bush and Clint Bolick: Solving the Immigration Puzzle

• their book “Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution”
• fixing border security is shortsighted, intertwined with other aspect: current immigration system is fair and workable?
• not only law enforcement, but law itself: patched over since 1952;
• evolved border-security problem: Mexicans leaving (U.S. bad economy), now threat is drug cartels, human smuggling;
• “chain migration” — family preference, does not promote nation’s economic interests;
• roughly 250 applicants for one visa each year, absence of meaningful avenue of access increase pressure for illegal immigration;
• need all types workers, especially high-skilled; other countries are luring away students, workers, and entrepreneurs;
• immigration replenish American spirit.

Bjorn Lomborg: Climate-Change Misdirection

• book “The Skeptical Environmentalist”
• scary examples in Obama’s inaugural address is wrong: droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, have been declining, despite global warming;
• exaggerating the threat concentrates the resources in wrong areas.
• hurricane: better building codes, ending subsidiaries for hurricane insurance to discourage building in vulnerable areas;
• high cost of climate policies, $250 billion annually, but reduce temperature only by immeasurable one-tenth Fahrenheit by the end of this century;
• existing green energy is inefficient, should stop subsidizing it and pour money to discover more efficient, future solar panels;

Nicholas Eberstadt: Yes, Mr. President, We Are a Nation of Takers

• author of “A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic”.
• government transfer increase twice as personal income; welfare spending account for nearly two-thirds of federal spending; this leap is not due to the aging of population;
• moral hazard embedded in the explosion of social-welfare program: become transfer programs, not insurance program (meant to pay for themselves);
• dramatically increase in reliance of Social Security’s disability programs: “musculoskeletal problems” and mental disorders are among the most;

How Apple Bit Holders, Too

• Complex (always favors seller) restructured products, like “naked” put options but not obliged to be pre-approved by specialist in brokerage firm, sold to retail investors;
• 8.03% annual rate, eight times what the average short-term bonds offer at the time; no such thing with high yield and low risk;

Colin Stokes: How movies teach manhood

• Bechdal test: there are at least two women; they talk to each other; about something other than a man;
• few passes the test, out of top 100 movies in 2011, only 11 passes.
• one out of five women in U.S. has been sexually harassed.

《当年日本何以不能征服中国？》

• “乳娘心态”：甲午被日本击败后才震动朝野，民族苏醒；
• 与以往朝代北方蛮夷入侵不同，同时也受世界大格局影响（德国纳粹的失败）；
• （沟口雄三）中日“公私观”差异：（中国）“公”含“平等”的意味，较正面，反之“私”是邪恶的，负面的；（中国）“公”很远，“天理”，（日本）“公”守住具体的符号如“天皇”或“国家”；
• 日本更像欧洲的封建制度，世袭制度和刻板的职业和等级意识；而中国自秦以后废除了封建制度，平民化的社会结构，“公”“私”界限不分；
• （周作人）日本地理位置好，对君感情深厚：对国土的感情相当单纯真挚，而中国民众心理飘忽，文化也很难视为纯粹（流质易变，兼容并包）；
• 健朴的日人跳入中国这张曲折有致、随意开合的文化之网即手足无措，难以从身体和心灵上控制中国。

沈志华：《转折还是选择》

• 1956年春光大地，“百家齐放”，1957年却阴霾天空，原因在于：中国对社会主义社会及其主要任务的认识；中苏同盟关系的估计；
• 阶级斗争后，开始着手解决执政党与人民群众的关系问题：“整风运动”，克服官僚主义，宗派主义；但矛头直指高层导致开展新一轮的“反右派”运动；
• 斯大林去世后，社会主义阵营内中国大有取代苏联之势；赫鲁晓夫（改善与西方关系，集中精力解决经济发展问题）的方针被摒弃，苏联专家的意见也退居其位；
• 1957年，令人失望的选择；真正的转折在80年代才到来。

金雁：《国家机器上的“癌变”——东欧的秘密警察是怎样形成的（上）》

• 经典作家（马克思、恩格斯）的语境里，革命成功后遵循宪政民主是顺理成章的；
• 1947年冷战爆发，捷克“布拉格政变”，匈牙利“辉煌三年”的结束，波兰“民主制度的终结”；
• 坚持理想和保住权力是一对矛盾：畸形的无限膨胀的专制机器延伸到社会每个角落，靠制造恐惧来维持其正统性，并通过宣传教化使人们放弃自己经自身判断而来的信仰；
• 暴力镇压，言论钳制，不断扩张的公权力挤压个人的私生活，把自己神圣化，把外部世界妖魔化，强调服从性和组织性。

刘瑜：《像一滴水一样》

• 2012年12月去看望高华；
• 延安整风：中国式思想改造的缘起；与它国不同，毛时代不需要秘密警察，人人之间的相互监视和自我监督就已足够；
• “配方”：资源的垄断式供给＋全面改写历史前提下的信息封闭与观念灌输＋在群体中孤立个体＋强力威胁；
• “程序”：封闭的学习文件→组织群体对个体进行批评与攻击→自我羞辱式的检查与“交心”→必要时的惩罚甚至暴力惩罚→纠偏阶段受害者的感激涕零；
• 领袖的每一次胜利，都是由围观者们的冷漠、嫉妒甚至贪婪推波助澜；
• （《一九八四》）历史是不断被改写的；思想改造的成功恰恰依赖于对党史的“重塑”；
• “据说高华的很多文字，是在深夜的厨房里，就着昏暗灯光写出来的。我想象那个画面，觉得异常动人，仿佛看见一个地质学家在翻山越岭，搜寻过去留下的遗迹，试图告诉我们这里曾经有一个湖泊，那里曾经有一个冰川。《一九八四》里，男主角温斯顿发现一个和自己一样怀疑伪造历史的“同类”时无比惊喜，他举杯对那个人说：“为了过去”。不知道高华老师是否读过这本书，如果读过，读到这里他也许会心有戚戚。是的，不是为了“美好的未来”，不是为了“欣欣向荣的今天”，他的努力仅仅是“为了过去”，为了一就是一、而不是零或者二、不多不少正好是一的过去。”

 

The great innovation debate: innovation is slowing and governments need to help it along

• biggest impediments is government: officialdom tends to write far more rules than are necessary for public good; the West’s intellectual-property system is a mess because it grants too many patents of dubious merit.
• productivity is most stagnant in public sector: unions;

Jack be nimble: Jack Lew, a successor to Timothy Geithner

• Geithner, a central banker and a crisis manager; Jack, spent most of his career with budget issues, a budget technocrat;
• main task: currency relations with China, and collecting taxes;
• Jack is not an outsider, like from Wall St, to repair relations with business and with Republicans, but an insider and is more liberal (less warm relations with Congress);

Obama picks his soldiers: Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, John Brennan as director of the CIA

• Obama is looking for: experience, caution, and view that the world is messy and opportunities for wielding unilateral American power is limited;
• Mr Hagel, few friends in his own party, most “antagonistic” towards the state of Israel in history;
• long-standing preference for engaging with Iran, seen as tantamount to appeasement;
• slim down a “bloated” Pentagon offends those who think the defense budget should be sacrosanct;
• disliked by Republicans, a stern critic of the Iraq war;

The fraying knot: declining marriage rates and “marriage promotion”

• falling marriage rates , with them come rising out-of-wedlock birth rates;
• poverty is a cause, not a result of low marriage rates;
• government should help create more jobs, and to ensure access to family-planning services to keep unwed birth rates down; rather then to promote marriage as a route to economic success;

Slamming on the brakes: politics of traffic lights

• official response was prompt and surprisingly conciliatory; rare for Chinese officials especially the police to yield to public opinion;

Long overdue: ending “laojiao” system

• important questions remain about what might replace it;
• but others see encouraging signs in the decision;

Battling the censors: protests calling for press freedom

• Southern Weekend’s supporters has been unusually bold; some party leaders may worry that even a modicum of political liberalization could open the floodgates to demands for far-reaching change;
• public response: even as activists delivered their daring speeches, backed up by massive online support, most white-collar workers from nearby office buildings walked past paying little attention;

From guard shack to global giant: Lenovo become the world’s biggest computer company

• “protect” two huge profit centres — corporate PC sales and China market;
• vast distribution network in China, offers lessons for other emerging markets; put a PC shop within 50km of nearly every consumer, cultivate close relationships with its distributors;
• “attack” new markets: in India, one-way exclusivity for retail distributors; acquisitions in Germany, Japan, Brazil; buy back smartphone arm;
• tiny problem: the “attack” part is largely unprofitable;
• different from other Chinese firms: little or no official interference; English the official language; foreigners look like they belong;
• some way to go: reliance on one market, China; crumbling PC mountain but Mr Yang shows an unfashionable faith in PCs (85% of Lenovo’s revenues), “PC+” approach;

France v Google: Free, a French ISP, set ad blocks by default

• whether to pay the ISP directly for the connection to its subscribers;
• (for French finance ministry) how to force Google to pay more taxes;

Home truths:

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