1 Japan growth numbers revised down (BBC) Japan has revised
down its growth numbers for the second quarter, raising concerns about a
slowdown in the world's third-largest economy. The government said that economy
grew at an annual rate of 0.7% during the April to June period. That is down
from its earlier estimate of 1.4%. Slowing exports and subdued domestic demand
have hurt Japan's growth.
"This is a very significant revision. It means that
overall production and investment in Japan was lower than the government had
previously estimated," Martin Schulz of Fujitsu Research Institute said. "As
a result, the economy is slowing much faster than expected."
Japan's economic growth has been impacted by both
international and domestic factors. The export sector, one of the biggest
drivers of growth for Japan, has been hurt by slowing demand from key markets
such as the US and eurozone. At the same time, growth in Asian countries, such
as China and India, which had been faring better than western economies after
the global financial crisis, has also slowed further hurting the sector. Analysts
said that this weakness in exports has had a knock on effect on corporate
investment and dented growth.
2 Hosiery setback tells China slowdown tale (Tania Branigan
in The Guardian) The foolish man built his house upon sand; the wise man built
his house on a rock. The ambitious entrepreneurs of Datang chose a sturdy nylon
and wool foundation. "People always need socks," points out Xu Leile,
whose company clothes the feet of the British and US armies, European hikers
and pampered pet dogs.
Thanks to Xu and hundreds more like him, "Sock
City" – north-west of Tie Town, east of Sweater Town – epitomised China's
economic success story. The obscure settlement in eastern Zhejiang province
became an export-driven boomtown, producing as much as a third of the world's
sock supply and thriving even through the financial crisis in 2008 and the
subsequent global recession.
Last year, Datang made roughly two pairs of socks for every
person on earth. In Xu's spacious new factory, the shelves are stacked with
huge reels of red, blue and orange thread. But ask Xu about the future and he
grimaces. "I'm very worried. This year is much worse than 2008-9," he
says. The biggest of his rivals to have gone under in May – the Anli Sock
Group, which produced 60m pairs of socks annually – could prove to be "the
Lehman Brothers of Datang", according to Fan Jianping, chief economist of
the State Information Centre.
Failures such as Anli's and a slew of disappointing data in
recent weeks are raising fears far beyond China that a slowdown in the world's
second largest economy is turning into a hard landing. In the face of Europe's
woes and the weak US recovery, Chinese growth has become more important than
ever: the ripples are already being felt globally, with commodities analysts
blaming tumbling prices on falling demand from China.
3 America’s shadow unemployed (Catherine Rampell in The New
York Times) The number of people not in the US labour force — that is, neither
working nor looking for work — rose by almost 600,000 in August. Most of the
Americans who are “not in the labour force” are categorized as such because
they are retired, stay-at-home parents or otherwise not interested in holding a
job. But there are also a lot of people who really want to work but have
decided not to bother looking for jobs because they think the job market is too
discouraging or because they are too busy with training, family
responsibilities and so forth.
This group of people who want to work but aren’t looking are
sometimes referred to as the shadow unemployed. Their share of the not-in-labour-force
population has generally been rising since the recession began almost five
years ago. In December 2007, when the recession officially started, 5.9% of
people counted as “not in labor force” said they wished they were working. As
of last month, that share was 7.8%.
One possible reason the share of people out of the labour
force who want work isn’t higher is that school enrollment has risen sharply
since the 1990s. A lot of out-of-the-labour-force Americans — particularly
young people, and particularly young women — have resigned themselves to not
finding a job anytime soon and have decided instead to invest in improving
their skills while they wait for the economy to improve.
4 What work is really for (Gary Gutting in The New York
Times) Is work good or bad? Even apart
from current worries, the goodness of work is deep in our culture. We applaud
people for their work ethic, judge our economy by its productivity and even
honour work with a national holiday. But there’s an underlying ambivalence: we
celebrate Labour Day by not working, the Book of Genesis says work is
punishment for Adam’s sin, and many of us count the days to the next vacation
and see a contented retirement as the only reason for working.
We’re ambivalent about work because in our capitalist system
it means work-for-pay, not for its own sake.
Most of us inevitably see our work as a means to something else: it
makes a living, but it doesn’t make a life. What, then, is work for? Aristotle
has a striking answer: “we work to have leisure, on which happiness depends.”
This may at first seem absurd. How can we be happy just doing nothing, however
sweetly?
Everything depends on how we understand leisure. Is it mere
idleness, simply doing nothing? Then a
life of leisure is at best boring, and at worst terrifying. No, the leisure Aristotle has in mind is
productive activity enjoyed for its own sake, while work is done for something
else. The point is that engaging in such activities — and sharing them with others
— is what makes a good life. Leisure, not work, should be our primary goal.
5 Legacy of Verghese Kurien, India’s milkman (The Wall
Street Journal) India has always won well-deserved praise for the stunning
agricultural advances of the 1960s known as the “Green Revolution.” But just as
groundbreaking was the “White Revolution” that turned India from a
dairy-deficient nation into the world’s largest milk producer. The man who
carried out that transformation, Verghese Kurien, passed away early Sunday of
age-related ailments. He was 90.
Mr. Kurien pioneered a cooperative model of dairy farming
that cut out exploitative middlemen and trading cartels, giving producers
control over procurement, processing and marketing. It wasn’t just social
service, but big business: The tiny enterprise he founded eventually grew into
the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., a firm with $2.5
billion in annual revenue in the last fiscal year. It collects dairy product
from 3.2 million producers nationwide.
Along the way, he built an iconic brand, “Amul,” that
markets not just milk but everything from cheese to ice cream to probiotic
yogurt. The company has had an innovative advertising strategy, too: its
playful cartoons in billboards and newspapers celebrate major national
achievements and often poke fun at celebrities. Rahul daCunha, whose company
produces the Amul ad campaign, said Mr. Kurien “mixed two great qualities as a
leader – valour and vision.” He not only had the idea of the White Revolution,
Mr. daCunha says, but “he had the strength of character to fulfill it”.
6 The milk and the Greek in Kurien (My article in The
Economic Times) He’s the father of India’s White Revolution, alright, but
Verghese Kurien has also been an early bird among the multitude of Kuriens from
Kerala who have made the name popular across the country. Kurien’s tale in
Anand may be inked in milk, but the surname he carries has some Greek in it as
well. The name has its root in the Greek ‘kyrios’, meaning master, Lord, power
or authority, from which comes the word ‘kyriakos’, meaning ‘of the Lord’.
The ‘Cyriacus’ name in Ancient Rome is considered the
equivalent of the Greek ‘Kyriakos’, and both these names may have come to
Kerala via Syria and through the multiple trade relations that the state had
with European nations. Over a couple of thousand years, Kerala has a legion of
Kuriakoses, Cyriacs, Kuriens and Kurians, which are different versions of the
name with the kyriakos root. And they may all owe a bit of their name’s
popularity to Amul Kurien, who left Kerala in his teens and made that surname
as popular in the PMO in Jawaharlal Nehru’s time, as with the small-time dairy
farmers of Anand, Gujarat.
The other Kuriens of the country may have been in the shadow
of the milkman, but many of them have been hardly lesser mortals. The Rajya
Sabha vice chairman happens to be seasoned Congressman PJ Kurien, and senior bureaucrat
PH Kurien recently shook up the international pharma world when, as Controller
of Patents, he granted the first compulsory licence in India in relation to
Bayer’s patented drug, Nexavar. The decision is expected to make the drug’s
generic version available at a mere Rs 8,900 as against the Rs 2.85 lakh for
the patented variety for a month’s course.
Down south, TK Kurien of Wipro is a star in the tech
industry, though fewer people may know economist John Kurien. And fewer still
may know the amazing story of Mangalathukarottu Mathai Kurian an assistant
education officer from Kanjirapally in Kottayam district, who fathered 17
children, nine of who joined government service.
Verghese Kurien may be the most popular Kurien in the
country, but there is someone who is senior to him by nearly a decade, and is
the Arch Corepiscopo of the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church in Kerala, namely
Kurien Kaniamparambil.
Finding it all a bit Greek? Never mind, just raise a glass
of milk to it.
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