It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Canoo finalizes incentive package with Oklahoma, Cherokee Nation
Reuters Mon, August 14, 2023 A view shows a Canoo LTV (Light Tactical Vehicle) electric vehicle, produced for the U.S. Army, at a manufacturing site
(Reuters) - Electric-vehicle startup Canoo said on Monday it finalized incentive agreements with the state of Oklahoma and the North American tribe Cherokee Nation, for an estimated value of $113 million over 10 years.
As part of the agreements, Canoo said it has already started hiring for its vehicle assembly facility in Oklahoma City and the battery manufacturing factory in Pryor.
The company said the agreement with the Department of Commerce will enable Canoo to receive performance-based payouts and make it eligible for some state tax credit and exemption programs.
Canoo, which will invest more than $320 million at both its facilities in the state, had entered into a long-term lease agreement for the vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City earlier this year.
Analysts expect the startup to report a loss of about $75 million when it reports second-quarter results after markets close on Monday, according to Refinitiv data.
(Reporting by Tanya Jain and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
Republican-controlled states like Oklahoma are rushing to invest in clean energy, even as conservative groups push for more oil and gas
Chris Panella Updated Mon, August 14, 2023
Republican-controlled states across the country are seeing record investment in renewable energy industries.Jason Kozlowski / EyeEm
GOP-controlled states like Oklahoma are seeing major economic investment in clean energy industries.
A solar power exec told The New York Times the "financial opportunity" is drawing people in.
But conservative groups behind The Heritage Foundation are pushing for more fossil fuel production.
Across the US, Republican-controlled states are seeing major investments in clean energy such as wind and solar. But conservative groups are banning together to slash renewables and increase oil and gas production should a Republican be elected president in 2024.
The conservative-led Heritage Foundation's policy playbook for renewable energy seeks to reverse regulations to rein in greenhouse gases, cut federal spending on wind and solar, and bolster oil and gas production. The plan is part of the foundation's Project 2025, a sweeping agenda designed by dozens of conservative groups to "pave the way for an effective conservative administration" should a Republican be elected president in 2024.
No leading Republican presidential candidate has responded on whether they support the project, according to The New York Times, but several officials involved were former members of the Trump administration and their plans match Trump's 2024 platform.
But as The Heritage Foundation pushes back against renewables, clean energy companies and projects are leading the way in Republican-led states. About two-thirds of new clean energy investment is in Republican states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and South Dakota, the Times reported.
A solar farm plan in Arkansas, for example, will be the state's largest and power a major nearby US Steel factory by late 2024, which the company Entergy says will help them meet their sustainability goals and cut the steel factory's greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, the Times reported.
And in Oklahoma, economics takes precedence over politics, as renewables lead to record profits.
"The environmental benefits are nice," J.W. Peters, president of Solar Power of Oklahoma, told the Times, "but most people are doing this for the financial opportunity."
AI is going to eliminate way more jobs than anyone realizes
Emil Skandul Updated Mon, August 14, 2023
The AI revolution is about the crash into the global economy and upend millions of jobs.
Arantza Pena Popo/Insider
A tidal wave is about to crash into the global economy.
The rise of artificial intelligence has captured our imagination for decades, in whimsical movies and sober academic texts. Despite this speculation, the emergence of public, easy-to-use AI tools over the past year has been a jolt, like the future arrived years ahead of schedule. Now this long-expected, all-too-sudden technological revolution is ready to upend the economy.
A March Goldman Sachs report found over 300 million jobs around the world could be disrupted by AI, and the global consulting firm McKinsey estimated at least 12 million Americans would change to another field of work by 2030. A "gale of creative destruction," as economist Joseph Schumpeter once described it, will blow away countless firms and breathe life into new industries. It won't be all bleak: Over the coming decades, nongenerative and generative AI are estimated to add between $17 trillion and $26 trillion to the global economy. And crucially, many of the jobs that will be lost will be replaced by new ones.
The crescendo for this technological wave is surging, and we are at just the beginning of this upheaval that will ripple through the labor market and global economy. It's likely to be a transformation as influential as the industrial revolution and the rise of the internet. The changes could boost living standards, improve productivity, and accelerate economic opportunities, but this rosy future is not guaranteed. Unless governments, CEOs, and workers properly prepare for the upsurge with urgency, the AI revolution could be painful. We didn't see the internet coming, but AI is within view
The adoption of groundbreaking technology is often hard to predict. Take the internet: In 1995, Newsweek published an article titled, "Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana," making the case that books and airline tickets would never be purchased over the internet. Later that year, Bill Gates was asked by an unconvinced David Letterman, "What about this internet thing?" Even three years later, as adoption grew, the economist Paul Krugman famously declared that the internet's influence would be no greater than that of the fax machine. In hindsight, it's clear that the internet's effects couldn't have been any more miscalculated.
Part of the reason for the initial skepticism was that the influence of the internet was uneven and slow at first but quickly grew as more people learned how it worked. "The rule for exponential curves is that they changed the world slowly at first, and then suddenly," Erik Brynjolfsson, a Stanford University innovation economist, told me.
The arrival of AI presents similar unknowns — but the growth curve is becoming clear much quicker. In 2017, McKinsey estimated that robust large language models such as GPT-4 would be developed by 2027. But they are already here. And seemingly overnight, OpenAI's generative AI was integrated into Microsoft products, and in the span of a few months, corporate giants including Amazon, AT&T, Salesforce, and Cisco have rushed to incorporate enterprise-grade AI tools. McKinsey's latest report predicted that somewhere between 2030 and 2060, half of today's work tasks would be automated. Their best guess as to when this will happen — 2045 — is almost a decade earlier than previously estimated. Things are changing fast.And as adoption picks up, so will the downstream effects of the technology. The World Economic Forum estimated 83 million jobs worldwide would be lost over the next five years because of AI, with 69 million jobs created — that leaves 14 million jobs that will cease to exist during that timeframe. Even the people who do retain their jobs will experience a massive shift in how they do their work: The World Economic Forum says that 44% of workers' core skills are expected to change in the next five years.
Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson
Past automation technologies had the most effect on low-skilled workers. But with generative AI, the more educated and highly skilled workers who previously were immune to automation are vulnerable. According to the International Labor Organization, there are between 644 and 997 million knowledge workers globally, between 20% and 30% of total global employment. In the US, the knowledge-worker class is estimated to be nearly 100 million workers, one out of three Americans. A broad spectrum of occupations — marketing and sales, software engineering, research and development, accounting, financial advising, and writing, to name a few — is at risk of being automated away or evolving.
This doesn't mean, however, that there will be a flood of unemployed workers begging for any job. AI will lead to net job creation over the long run, and some roles that seem like they will be affected may actually grow in demand. For instance, ATMs increased the number of bank tellers.
"I do not think we'll see mass unemployment," Brynjolfsson, who anticipates AI spreading faster than other general-purpose technologies, told me. "But I do think we'll see mass disruption, where a lot of wages for some jobs will fall, wages for other jobs will rise, and we'll be shifting around into demand for different kinds of skills. They'll have to be a lot of reallocation of labor and rescaling of labor with winners and losers."
This shift will be so massive that we won't miss many of the jobs that disappear. Before the industrial revolution, the job of a human alarm clock was to wake up workers in the early-morning hours by tapping a broomstick on their window. Thanks to alarm clocks, no one misses this job today. Similarly with AI, there will be jobs that will be conveniently forgotten about.
Permanent mass unemployment can safely be ruled out, but in the short term, the transition will be messy. If one-quarter of tasks across all US occupations were automated by AI, and one-third of workers' workload replaced, it would take only a small segment of the broad white-collar class to simultaneously experience job losses or transitions for it to have a dire impact on the broader economy. This sort of monumental reshuffling requires preparation on the part of governments and businesses. In its most recent employment outlook, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development declared that this AI revolution was creating "an urgent need to act now" to help the economy adapt. Productivity boom
In 1987, the economist Robert Solow famously declared: "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." Solow's "productivity paradox" spotlighted a key puzzle of the emerging computer age. Even with heavy investments in information technology and computing — which were supposedly making workers more productive — official statistics showed that workers were not producing more per hour.
Robert Gordon, a macroeconomist and self-styled "prophet of pessimism," provocatively suggested that the ho-hum productivity figures proved that new technology today was less radical than in the past and that as a result, the world's advanced economies had entered a point of stagnation. The most impactful technologies — the car, the toilet — have already been invented, he argued, and everything else only incrementally improves productivity. Along the same lines, other economists have suggested that the growth rate of new ideas is slowing.
These arguments may seem like a compelling reason to doubt the productivity gains of AI at first, but there's good reason to think that the latest revolution could produce more rapid gains. The internet's mass adoption required software, network protocols, infrastructure, and devices — it took awhile for every home and office to have computers and internet access.
Today, AI's adoption could happen much faster since the technological infrastructure is already in place. Plus, in contrast to hype cycles around crypto or the metaverse, AI is entering maturity. Its user experience makes it uncomplicated, and it already has practical uses, which is why hundreds of millions of people are already integrating the tech into their day-to-day workflows. This is starting to push the technology into companies.
It's also not AI on its own that's game-changing; layering AI on top of preexisting tech can unlock exponential gains — just as the combination of the internet, GPS technology, and smartphones changed our world. Laser weeders that use AI, GPS, and tractor technology can now comb through crop fields in seconds to zap weeds, eliminating the need for herbicides or large hand-weeding crews. And AI embedded within advanced imaging tools have the potential to diagnose and treat cancer.
If the internet made the world flat, then AI makes the world faster. One recent study conducted by Brynjolfsson and his colleagues quantified the productivity of over 5,000 customer-service agents who used generative-AI technology. The results were encouraging: Call-center operators became 14% more productive, and less experienced workers improved their productivity as much as 30%. A study out of MIT found software developers completed tasks 56% faster with generative-code-completion software, and yet another study found that professional-document writing was 40% faster using generative AI.
The small and large compounding effects of productivity growth across many industries are central to the growth trajectory and the long-run effects of AI. Goldman Sachs estimated that over 10 years, generative AI alone could raise annual US labor-productivity growth by just under 1.5 percentage points, "roughly the same-sized boost that followed the emergence of prior transformative technologies like the electric motor and personal computer." If that proved true, it would lead to an annual increase of 7% in global GDP, while contributing $2.6 trillion to 4.4 trillion to the global economy — about the equivalent of the UK economy.
Brynjolfsson, a "mindful optimist," is confident that these productivity gains will accumulate — and show up in the official stats. He told me that he had a bet with Gordon, the pessimist, that productivity growth over the coming years would outpace the 1.4% annual growth projected by the Congressional Budget Office. "In fact, I think it's going to be closer to double that," he said.
While estimates for productivity reflect how workers within firms will become more efficient at their jobs, it also assumes that laid-off workers will find new jobs. As productivity rises, total economic output will increase and GDP will rise. This will create a virtuous cycle, as companies will need to expand operations to keep up with this increased demand, which means they will need more workers. Plus, labor-productivity growth has been shown to raise real incomes, benefiting workers and households. Simply put: Technological innovation, even as it may lead to worker displacement, will help workers in the long run. A widely cited study by the economist David Autor and colleagues found 60% of workers today had jobs that did not exist 80 years ago, suggesting that 85% growth in employment was a result of technology innovation. Future proofing — faster and smarter
That's all great news, but the turbulence of the AI revolution can't be ignored. The rapid pace of AI advancement and adoption makes this shift markedly different from past industrial revolutions. It's not as simple as textile workers being replaced by mechanized looms — workforce transformations are happening to varying degrees across occupations. And this pace of change is bound to outrun any changes in education and workforce preparation designed to keep up with the tech.
America's already antiquated workforce education system already fails to address modern workers' needs, let alone what they may need as AI takes hold. Maria Flynn, the CEO of the Washington think tank Jobs for the Future, said the US was encumbered by a "patchwork of programs that don't blend into a nice-looking quilt." In fact, there are 43 federal employment-training programs whose total budget is $20 billion, or less than 0.1% of US GDP. This is an alarmingly trivial amount for an economy of $25 trillion GDP and over 150 million workers.
To ease the pain of the labor-market upheaval, the US needs to invest more in its workforce — and fast. One approach is to adopt Denmark's model of job security and retraining, known as "flexicurity." The system helps avoid structural unemployment by making it easy for employers to let go of workers and by providing a substantial cushion for those laid off. The program provides unemployment benefits for two years at as much as $2,860 a month for people who are laid off, as well as one-on-one job counseling with retraining opportunities. As a result, the Danes are unemployed for much less time compared with workers in similar countries.
The US once had a similar program, the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which was established in 1974 and administered by the Department of Labor for workers affected by trade and production in other countries. "It was an entitlement program so that any worker who met certain conditions — that their job was displaced due to trade — had an entitlement to receive a package of income support and retraining support," Flynn told me. An expansive and well-funded program geared toward the AI labor-market shift would help ease turbulence for workers by providing relocation grants and wage insurance to temporarily bridge the wage gap when workers find employment in lower-paying jobs.
To retrain people for an AI-based economy, the US could look to Singapore. There, workers above the age of 25 are given $500 in credits to access 24,000 courses in anything from data science to business, and a public-private retraining program makes sure skills training is matched to employers' job classifications. Every year, over 660,000 people make use of the country's national retraining program. For those concerned about productivity lags, these kinds of large-scale upgrades to education and training have the potential to fill in the gaps of a major workforce transition. Singapore's efforts have helped step up the annual labor-productivity growth rate to a respectable 3%.
All these public-sector policies would still need to be complemented by private-sector investment in retraining. In an MIT survey of workers, 50% of respondents reported receiving formal skills training by their employers. Incentivizing retraining through tax credits –– such as those in New York and Georgia –– could spur employers into action and ensure everyone is ready for the AI revolution.
Technology can't be uninvented — disruptive catalysts such as AI require the proactive pursuit of adapting to that change. And making workers resilient to large shocks requires recognizing that this technological wave can temporarily wipe out a large portion of the workforce, or it can be smoothly surfed to calm waters.
Emil Skandul is a writer on technology and urban economics, and a Tony Blair Institute fellow.
Hollywood studios offer new concessions to striking screenwriters - Bloomberg News SAG-AFTRA actors and WGA writers strike in Los Angeles 28
Mon, August 14, 2023
(Reuters) -Hollywood studios have made a new offer to striking screenwriters that includes concessions on issues such as the use of artificial intelligence and access to viewer data, Bloomberg News reported on Monday citing people familiar with the discussions.
The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers has agreed to ensure humans are credited as writers of screenplays, instead of replacing them with AI, the report said, adding that the companies would also share data on the number of hours viewed on streaming services.
Other parts of the offer include a better-than-20% increase in residual payments to writers when their shows appear on networks other than the one they were made for, Bloomberg said.
Netflix Co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos has emerged as a strong force and Walt Disney Co CEO Bob Iger, in recent weeks, has joined him in seeking to reach a deal with the writers, the report added.
The union representing striking Hollywood writers said on Friday it had received a counterproposal from the studios that it would consider, an apparent sign of progress in the more than 100-day-old strike.
The strike by Hollywood writers began on May 2 after talks between the WGA and the major studios reached an impasse over compensation, minimum staffing of writers' rooms and residual payments in the streaming era, among other issues.
The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and Writers Guild of America didn't immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill and Cynthia Osterman)
Biden addresses UAW concerns amid EV transition
Olivia Olander Mon, August 14, 2023 Evan Vucci/AP Photo
President Joe Biden dipped a toe into the contract talks between automakers and the UAW on Monday, reaffirming his support for electric vehicle jobs as a path to the middle class while urging the companies to address the union's concerns over the transition.
"I support a fair transition to a clean energy future," Biden said in a statement timed exactly a month before the United Auto Workers contract with Detroit automakers is set to expire Sept. 14.
He went on to list things that are key union priorities, including honoring the right to organize unions, providing jobs "that can support a family," and ensuring that industry "transitions are fair and look to retool, reboot, and rehire in the same factories and communities at comparable wages, while giving existing workers the first shot to fill those jobs."
The talks pose a delicate balance for Biden and Democrats between their priorities of transitioning the nation to electric vehicles and courting support of the UAW, which has expressed anxiety about a range of economic concerns, including federally subsidized work going to non-union battery plants.
In separate statements, both the union and General Motors welcomed Biden's comments, while stressing different aspects.
UAW President Shawn Fain said the union agreed “with the president that the Big Three’s joint venture battery plants should have the same strong pay and safety standards that generations of UAW members have fought for."
Biden's statement didn't directly address the joint battery plants by name.
Meanwhile, GM issued a statement saying the company agrees “it is critical for all sides to work together on a fair labor contract — a contract that provides job security, supports good wages and benefits for our team members while enabling companies to compete successfully domestically and globally.”
The union has yet to make a presidential endorsement, despite a flood of other labor support for Biden.
A senior administration official told POLITICO last week the UAW has no expectation Biden would discuss specific demands but that the union would like to see the president's support of their perspective in the transition to a clean energy economy.
"Companies should use this process to make sure they enlist their workers in the next chapter of the industry by offering them good paying jobs and a say in the future of their workplace," Biden said in his statement, referring to the transition away from fossil fuels.
The UAW's economic demands, released publicly this month, specifically ask for protections in the case of plant closures, as well as major pay raises.
The union has also said it wants workers at jointly owned battery plants, key in the EV transition, to be brought up to comparable wage and safety standards as union workers. A recent letter from Senate Democrats suggested the automakers include those facilities in national contracts; the UAW hasn't explicitly made that demand.
US Labor Unions Not Backing Down as Strikes Loom: Kiplinger Economic Forecasts
Kiplinger Mon, August 14, 2023
Labor unions like the Teamsters and United Auto Workers are using leverage and strike threats in negotiations with employers for better pay and benefits.
No matter the job market, unions facilitate bargaining on behalf of their members. To help you understand what is going on and what we expect to happen in the future, our highly-experienced Kiplinger Letter team will keep you abreast of the latest developments and forecasts (Get a free issue of The Kiplinger Letter or subscribe). You'll get all the latest news first by subscribing, but we will publish many (but not all) of the forecasts a few days afterward online. Here’s the latest...
Labor unions are flexing their muscles in a way they haven’t done in years. In negotiations over pay and benefits, labor leaders aren’t being shy about their demands. They know they have leverage in many industries where workers are scarce, and they feel that this is the year to bargain hard.
Some early wage talks have set the tone: The Teamsters’ tentative deal with UPS, which will avert a crippling strike, if the members of the union vote to take the deal, as we expect. Workers are in line for $7.50/hour more in pay, which will be phased in over the multiyear contract.
Then there’s United Airlines’ pilots’ union, which scored up to a 40% pay hike in their new deal with the airline earlier this summer. FedEx pilots recently rejected a rise of up to 30%, after seeing that. American Airlines has upped its offer to its pilots by $1 billion as it seeks to match what UA agreed to. Southwest’s pilot union is also threatening to strike.
Any pilot strike isn’t imminent. Federal law requires long talks before pilots actually walk off and cause major travel and shipping disruptions. But most airlines will have little choice but to sweeten pay substantially.
The biggest contract up for negotiation next is the Detroit autoworkers’ deal. The United Auto Workers union is in talks with GM, Ford and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, and the new UAW president is making no bones about wanting a big raise for his members, along with other concessions. Among them: Reinstating adjustments for cost-of-living increases, and ending Detroit’s tiered system of wages and benefits.
Odds are good that at least one of the Detroit Three gets hit with a strike after the current UAW contract expires on Sept. 14. The union has a hefty strike fund and is willing to use it to drive a hard bargain. Its leaders know how much car prices have risen in recent years. Right or wrong, they think Detroit can afford a big pay hike. Strikes by smaller unions are also brewing or popping up. 1,400 workers at a locomotive plant in Pennsylvania have walked off the job. So have some healthcare workers.
Other unions are threatening to join in with sympathy strikes. For instance, UPS pilots, who have their own union, were willing to walk out to help the Teamsters. And some traditionally open-shop industries have seen organizing pushes. More than 340 Starbucks stores have organized. Some Amazon warehouse workers have tried, as well. Most have failed so far, but that may not be the end of the story.
Is all this the start of a renaissance in private-sector unions? Not exactly. Membership is way down from a few decades ago, and that is unlikely to reverse. But the unions that remain are going to play hardball. That, in turn, means wages figure to keep rising faster than normal, making inflation slower to fall.
The EPA is investigating how California manages its water following complaints from tribes A woman walks along the banks of the American River flowing by the American River Parkway in Rancho Cordova, Calif., Friday, April 8, 2022. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has opened an investigation of how the California State Water Resources Control Board manages the state's water. Native American tribes and some environmental groups had filed a complaint alleging the state's policies discriminate against tribes and other communities of color.
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
ADAM BEAM Updated Mon, August 14, 2023
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — President Joe Biden's administration has agreed to investigate how California manages its water after some Native American tribes and environmental groups complained the state's policies are “rooted in white supremacy.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week it would investigate the California State Water Resources Control Board. The board, whose members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, sets rules for how to use much of the state's water, including 211,000 miles (339,572 kilometers) of rivers and streams.
Federal law requires the board to review those rules every three years. But the board hasn't kept up with that timeline for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento San Joaquin Delta Estuary. The estuary is one of the largest in the country and is home to threatened species of fish. It also irrigates California's powerful agriculture industry while providing drinking water to 25 million people.
The tribes say the state is relying on outdated rules that have led to overgrowths of toxic algae and cyanobacteria, which prevent the Single Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe from performing their cultural, religious and subsistence practices. Little Manila Rising, a nonprofit based in Stockton, says the algae blooms “spread like a lime green film across the surface of the water ... giving off a smell of slowly rotting grass” and preventing communities of color from using the waterways to escape the heat during the summer.
California's water is governed by a complex system based on seniority that does not recognize Native American tribes' historic uses of the state's rivers and streams. Attempts to update the water rules usually end up in court, a process that can take a decade or more to resolve. The board has delayed reviewing the rules in part because Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration has been privately negotiating with big water agencies on what the rules should be.
Newsom wants the water agencies to voluntarily agree on those rules to avoid lawsuits. Last year, those negotiations had a breakthrough when some of the state's largest water agencies signed an agreement with state and federal officials. But Native American tribes and other communities of color say they were not included in the negotiations.
The agreements "are an embodiment of the injustice that’s at the core in many respects of our water rights system,” said Stephanie Safdi, an attorney with the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic who is representing the tribes and environmental groups.
The EPA's Office of External Civil Rights Compliance will handle the investigation. Anhthu Hoang, the office's acting director, said the decision to investigate does not mean the state is guilty. Hoang said the office is a “neutral fact finder” and said the board will have 30 days to respond to the allegations in writing.
The board hasn't done that yet. Ailene Voisin, a spokesperson for the board, said the board “will cooperate fully with the investigation and believes US EPA will ultimately conclude the board has acted appropriately.”
Federal law requires the water rules protect certain beneficial uses of that water. The board is considering adding two tribal beneficial uses to these rules: tradition and culture and subsistence fishing. The board plans to release a report on that proposal this year.
“The State Water Board deeply values its partnership with tribes to protect and preserve California's water resources,” Voisin said. “The board's highest water quality planning priority has been restoring native fish species in the Delta watershed, which are central to the lifeways of many tribes.”
Safdi said any resolution of the allegations must include a “quick and timely update” of the rules done through an “open and public and inclusive process that isn't centered on these exclusionary negotiations with water rights holders.” She also said these rules would need to be updated before the state completes major water infrastructure projects, including building a new reservoir and a tunnel to divert water to Southern California.
China suspends youth jobless data after record high readings
THEY DISAPPEAR PEOPLE AND DATA
Laurie Chen and Albee Zhang Updated Tue, August 15, 2023 Construction workers take a nap in front of a wall of a construction site
during their lunch break in Beijing
By Laurie Chen and Albee Zhang
(Reuters) -China suspended publication of its youth jobless data on Tuesday, saying it needed to review the methodology behind the closely watched benchmark, which has hit record highs in one of many warning signs for the world's second-largest economy.
The decision announced shortly after the release of weaker-than-expected factory and retail sales data sparked rare backlash on social media amid growing frustration about employment prospects in the country.
It also marks the latest move by Chinese authorities to restrict access to key data and information, a trend that is unnerving overseas investors.
Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said the release of data would be suspended while authorities look to "optimise" collection methods.
"In recent years, the number of university students has continued to expand," Fu said. "The main responsibility of current students is studying. Society has different views on whether students looking for jobs before graduation should be included in labour force surveys and statistics."
This issue, as well as the definition of the age range currently set at 16-24, "needs further research," Fu said.
In recent months, China has restricted foreign users' access to some corporate registries and academic journals, and cracked down on due diligence firms operating in the country, a vital source of information on China for overseas businesses.
"The declining availability of macro data may further weaken global investors' confidence in China," said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, adding that youth unemployment was expected to have risen in July.
At the height of its COVID-19 outbreak late last year, China abruptly changed the way it classified deaths from the disease, a move that fueled criticism abroad and at home.
Tuesday's move has also been met with scepticism at home as young Chinese face their toughest summer job-hunting season.
The most recent NBS data on youth unemployment, published last month, showed the jobless rate jumping to a record high of 21.3% in June.
Some 47% of graduates returned home within six months of graduation in 2022, up from 43% in 2018, state-run China News Service reported last week, citing a private-sector survey.
"If you close your eyes then it doesn't exist," one user wrote on microblogging site Weibo, where a hashtag related to NBS' decision received over 10 million views.
"There is a saying called 'burying your head in the sand'," wrote another user.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen and Albee Zhang; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Sam Holmes and Gerry Doyle)
Liquid Hydrogen Will Not Save The Internal Combustion Engine No Matter How Hard Toyota Tries
Collin Woodard Mon, August 14, 2023
Liquid hydrogen powered Toyota GR Corolla
Recently, Toyota entered a hydrogen-powered GR Corolla in the 24-hour race at Fuji. But it wasn’t powered by a hydrogen fuel cell like you see in the Toyota Mirai that uses hydrogen to generate the electricity that actually powers the car. Instead, it used a liquid hydrogen combustion engine. In theory, it gives you the sound and driving characteristics that enthusiasts love about internal combustion engine cars but doesn’t release any harmful emissions.
So a liquid hydrogen combustion engine is basically the best of both worlds, right? All Toyota needs to do is spend a few more years perfecting the technology, and the racing world will be saved from the scourge of electric cars that are too heavy and too quiet. Then, after building out the hydrogen fueling infrastructure, it’s only a matter of time before passenger cars are also freed from their need for big, heavy, expensive batteries. Take that, Tesla!
Not necessarily. Barring some major and likely miraculous technological breakthroughs, it’s unlikely that liquid hydrogen combustion engines will ever take over racing, much less end up on the streets selling like Camrys and Corollas. And that’s not merely the opinion of some idiot Jalopnik writer. It’s also the opinion of the internet’s favorite car nerd, Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained fame.
Engineering Explained’s latest video takes a deep dive into the math and science behind Toyota’s liquid hydrogen combustion engine and (spoiler alert!) comes to the conclusion that it’s more of a fun engineering exercise than something that will go mainstream any time soon, even in the racing world. For example, due to how cold liquid hydrogen is, engineering a durable fuel pump is incredibly difficult. In fact, during the Fuji race, Toyota’s team had to replace the fuel pump twice, and each change took about three and a half hours.
Even if you’re not a racing expert, you can probably understand that spending seven hours of a 24-hour race replacing parts is less than ideal, and if every team had to do that, it would make for a much less interesting race. But that’s a big problem, it’s also not the only reason to be skeptical of liquid hydrogen combustion engines in racing. For that, you’re going to have to watch the video below if you want to find out.
Toyota Developed A Liquid Hydrogen Combustion Engine!
More from Jalopnik
Can India Inc extricate itself from China?
The Economist Mon, August 14, 2023
CHINA AND India are not on the friendliest of terms. In 2020 their soldiers clashed along their disputed border in the deadliest confrontation between the two since 1967—then clashed again in 2021 and 2022. That has made trade between the Asian giants a tense affair. Tense but, especially for India, still indispensable. Indian consumers rely on cheap Chinese goods, and Indian companies rely on cheap Chinese inputs, particularly in industries of the future. Whereas India sells China the products of the old economy—crustaceans, cotton, granite, diamonds, petrol—China sends India memory chips, integrated circuits and pharmaceutical ingredients. As a result, trade is becoming ever more lopsided. Of the $117bn in goods that flowed between the two countries in 2022, 87% came from China (see chart).
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, wants to reduce this Sino-dependence. One reason is strategic—relying on a mercurial adversary for critical imports carries risks. Another is commercial—Mr Modi is trying to replicate China’s nationalistic, export-oriented growth model, which means seizing some business from China. In recent months his government’s efforts to decouple parts of the Indian economy from its larger neighbour’s have intensified. On August 3rd India announced new licensing restrictions for imported laptops and personal computers—devices that come primarily from China. A week later it was reported that similar measures were being considered for cameras and printers.
Officially, India is open to Chinese business, as long as this conforms with Indian laws. In practice, India’s government uses a number of tools to make Chinese firms’ life in India difficult or impossible. The bluntest of these is outright prohibitions on Chinese products, often on grounds related to national security. In the aftermath of the border hostilities in 2020, for example, the government banned 118 Chinese apps, including TikTok (a short-video sensation), WeChat (a super-app), Shein (a fast-fashion retailer) and just about any other service that captured data about Indian users. Hundreds more apps were banned for similar reasons throughout 2022 and this year. Makers of telecoms gear, such as Huawei and ZTE, have received the same treatment, out of fear that their hardware could let Chinese spooks eavesdrop on Indian citizens.
Tariffs are another popular tactic. In 2018, in an effort to reverse the demise of Indian mobile-phone assembly at the hands of Chinese rivals, the government imposed a 20% levy on imported devices. In 2020 it tripled tariffs on toy imports, most of which come from China, to 60% then, at the start of this year, raised them to 70%. India’s toy imports have since declined by three-quarters.
Sometimes the Indian government eschews official actions such as bans and tariffs in favour of more subtle ones. A common tactic is to introduce bureaucratic friction. India’s red tape makes it easy for officials to find fault with disfavoured businesses. Non-compliance with tax rules, so impenetrable that it is almost impossible to abide by them all, are a favourite accusation. Two smartphone makers, Xiaomi and BBK Electronics (which owns three popular brands, Oppo/OnePlus, Realme and Vivo), are under investigation for allegedly shortchanging the Indian taxman a combined $1.1bn. On August 2nd news outlets cited anonymous government officials saying that the Indian arm of BYD, a Chinese carmaker, was under investigation over allegations that it paid $9m less than it owed in tariffs for parts imported from abroad. MG Motor, a subsidiary of SAIC, another Chinese car firm, faces investment restrictions and a tax probe.
A convoluted licensing regime gives Indian authorities more ways to stymie Chinese business. In April 2020 India declared that investments from countries sharing a border with it must receive special approvals. No specific neighbour was named but the target was clearly China. Since then India has approved less than a quarter of the 435 applications for foreign direct investment from the country. According to Business Today, a local outlet, only three received the thumbs-up in India’s last fiscal year, which ended in March. Last month reports surfaced that a proposed joint venture between BYD and Megha Engineering, an Indian industrial firm, to build electric vehicles and batteries failed to win approval over security reasons.
Luxshare, a big Chinese manufacturer of devices for, among others, Apple, has yet to open a factory in Tamil Nadu, despite signing an agreement with the state in 2021. The reason for the delay is believed to be an unspoken blanket ban from the central government in Delhi on new facilities owned by Chinese companies. In early August the often slow-moving Indian parliament whisked through a new law easing the approval process for new lithium mines after a potentially large deposit of the metal, used in batteries, was unearthed earlier this year. Miners are welcome to submit applications, but Chinese bidders are expected to be viewed unfavourably.
In parallel to its blocking efforts, India is using policy to dislodge China as a leader in various markets. India’s $33bn programme of “production-linked incentives” (cash payments tied to sales, investment and output) has identified 14 areas of interest, many of which are currently dominated by Chinese companies.
One example is pharmaceutical ingredients, which Indian drugmakers have for years mostly procured from China. In February the Indian government started doling out handouts worth $2bn over six years to companies that agree to manufacture 41 of these substances domestically. Big pharmaceutical firms such as Aurobindo, Biocon, Dr Reddy’s and Strides are participating. Another is electronics. Contract manufacturers of Apple’s iPhones, such as Foxconn and Pegatron of Taiwan and Tata, an Indian conglomerate, are allowed to purchase Chinese-made components for assembly in India provided they make efforts to nurture local suppliers, too. A similar arrangement has apparently been offered to Tesla, which is looking for new locations to make its electric cars.
Some Chinese firms, tired of jumping through all these hoops, are calling it quits. In July 2022, after two years of efforts that included a promise to invest $1bn in India, Great Wall Motors closed its Indian carmaking operation, unable to secure local approvals. Others are trying to adapt. Xiaomi has said it will localise all its production and expand exports from India which, so far, go only to neighbouring countries, to Western markets. Shein will re-enter the Indian market through a joint venture with Reliance, India’s most valuable listed company, renowned for its ability to navigate Indian bureaucracy and politics. ZTE is reportedly attempting to arrange a licensing deal with a domestic manufacturer to make its networking equipment. So far it has found no takers. Given India’s growing suspicions of China, it may be a while before it does.
