New York Times: September 24

The World Is at War With Covid. Covid Is Winning.

Residents of Troubled Supertall Tower Seek $125 Million in Damages The condo board at 432 Park Avenue is suing the developers for construction and design defects that have led to floods, faulty elevators, and electrical explosions.

Wonking Out: This Might Be China’s ‘Babaru’ Moment Some of us are old enough to remember when all the

Very Serious People

insisted that the fallout from the U.S. subprime debacle could be contained too. ........... Some of us still remember the Japanese bubble economy — or as the Japanese themselves called it, the “babaru economy” — of the late 1980s, when prices of many assets, above all commercial real estate, went completely crazy.

At one point it was widely claimed that the land under the Imperial Palace was worth more than the whole state of California. Then everything crashed.

............ the bursting of the Japanese bubble didn’t lead to a financial meltdown. But it

was followed by a prolonged period of economic weakness

............ Thanks to low fertility plus low immigration, Japan is a shrinking society. ........ Japan has been able to maintain more or less full employment only through constant economic stimulus: ultralow interest rates and persistent budget deficits that have pushed the national debt above 200 percent of G.D.P. ............ Negative population growth means that there’s little demand for new housing or new office buildings .........

Japan has become a country awash in savings with few places to go

......... China’s macroeconomic situation bears a striking resemblance to that of Japan around the time the Japanese bubble burst. ......... Chinese demography is looking remarkably Japanese. The working-age population peaked in 2015 .......... China, like Japan in the bubble years, has a highly unbalanced economy, with weak consumer spending and extremely high investment ........... Investment spending that exceeds 40 percent of G.D.P. perhaps make sense in an economy with a rapidly growing population — especially one in which millions of rural residents are moving to the cities — that is also catching up to wealthier nations in its technological advances. But China no longer has that kind of demography, and while it is still behind the West (and Japan) in overall technological prowess, productivity growth is slowing. .............. Evergrande may not be the moment of truth, but it is a sign that this moment is coming. And

what we don’t know is whether China has the kind of social cohesion that has allowed Japan to slow down gracefully without a social and political crisis.

Global Equity and the Covid Vaccine
Joe Manchin Got the Voting Bill He Wanted. Time to Pass It.
The Endless Catastrophe of Rikers Island
Meng Wanzhou agreed to the deal in a Brooklyn court hearing.

Trump Had a Mob. He Also Had a Plan.
Farewell, Angela Merkel. You Were Once the ‘Leader of the Free World.’ “Bye, bye, Mommy.” ........ Across the country, the departure of Ms. Merkel has brought out affectionate nostalgia, tinged with a drop of irony. Yet there’s also fatigue, verging on irritation, a twitchy restlessness to see her off and start afresh. As with most farewells, feelings are mixed. ......... The qualities that ensured her success — her caution and consistency, her firmness and diligence — are now, at the end of her tenure, leading some to regard her departure with relief. The Germany Ms. Merkel made, in nearly two decades of steady stewardship, is ready to move on. ...... She steered Germany through a series of crises — the financial crash in 2008, the euro debt crisis that followed, the migration crisis of 2015 and, of course, the pandemic. She brokered a truce, albeit a brittle one, between Russia and Ukraine, helped to negotiate Brexit and saw Donald Trump come and go. Each event had the potential to sunder the world. In part thanks to Ms. Merkel, none did. ............... Under great pressure, Ms. Merkel was a conservative in the best sense, retaining the country’s prosperity, cohesion and purpose.

Her great achievement was not what she built, but what she managed to keep.

.......... How will it navigate the increased rivalry between America and China? To what extent will it embark on a more autonomous defense strategy? And how will it combat the rise of the far right? ......... And though the share of renewable energy grew to 45 percent during her time in office, many experts agree that on its current trajectory, the country will not meet its goal of being carbon-neutral by 2045. Despite being seen abroad as the “climate chancellor,” Ms. Merkel has taken only very minor steps toward confronting the defining issue of our time. ............ Ursula Weidenfeld, an economics journalist and the author of a recent biography of the chancellor, has likened Ms. Merkel’s Germany to the Shire in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”

Peaceful and prosperous, soothingly old-fashioned, self-satisfied to the point of delusion and naïve in a likable yet unnerving way

: The analogy is apt. .......... she fostered its peculiar detachment from the world and its unwillingness to change, innovate or even discuss different ways forward. ........... The chancellor also became stuck in her ways. Humble and unpretentious, she saw herself as a servant to her country. But in return for her service, dedication and competence, she came to expect — demand, even — blind trust. She has grown increasingly impatient with the forever chatter of Germany’s political class. .......... Ahead of one of the endless meetings with Germany’s 16 governors during the pandemic’s first wave in 2020, she reportedly complained about the “orgies of debates on reopening the country.” .......... Just a couple of years ago, Ms. Merkel was garlanded as the “leader of the free world.” Against the chaos and disruption of Mr. Trump, her sober, judicious style was widely envied.

14 Classic Recipes You Should Know by Heart Commit a few — or all — of these dishes to memory, and you’ll always have a delicious meal at the ready.

Can Macron Lead the European Union After Merkel Retires? Emmanuel Macron, the French president, would love to fill the German chancellor’s shoes. But a Europe with no single, central figure may be more likely.

For India’s Military, a Juggling Act on Two Hostile Fronts Tensions with China and Pakistan stretch a cash-starved military, while the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban removes a potential ally.

Hong Kong Is Holding Elections. It Wants Them to Look Real. China has already determined the outcome, but the government is pressuring opposition parties to participate to lend the vote legitimacy. ........ The legislative election, set for December, is the first since the Chinese government ordered sweeping changes to Hong Kong’s election system to ensure its favored candidates win. Some opposition groups have pledged to boycott in protest, and the largest of them, the Democratic Party, will decide this weekend whether to follow. But

Hong Kong officials have warned that a boycott could violate the city’s expansive national security law. After all, an election doesn’t look valid if the opposition doesn’t show up.

........... In late 2019, months of fierce antigovernment protests helped fuel an unprecedented landslide victory by pro-democracy candidates in local elections. ......... The Chinese Communist Party was determined not to see a repeat. After imposing the security law last summer to crush the protests, it quickly followed up with election changes that allowed only government-approved “patriots” to hold office. In addition,

the general public will now be allowed to choose just 20 of 90 legislators.

Most of the rest will be chosen by the electors picked last Sunday — all but one aligned with the authorities. ........... officials’ determination to make the elections look as credible as possible — even if that requires intimidating the opposition into running. .......... The purpose of the vote was to form an Election Committee, a group of 1,500 that under Beijing’s new rules will select many legislators, as well as Hong Kong’s next top leader. According to the government, the committee is a diverse microcosm of Hong Kong society. But

fewer than 8,000 residents — 0.1 percent of the population — were eligible to vote in the Election Committee poll, all drawn from a list approved by Beijing.

......... many of the opposition’s leaders have been arrested, are in exile or have been disqualified from holding government posts ........ At times, the authorities’ dedication to the veneer of public engagement verged on absurdism. The weekend before the Election Committee vote, the Central Liaison Office, Beijing’s official arm in Hong Kong,

ordered the ranks of the city’s billionaire tycoons to staff street booths and extol the virtues of the new election system

. .......... That was how Pansy Ho, the second-richest woman in Hong Kong, found herself hawking leaflets on a 92-degree day. Raymond Kwok, the billionaire chairman of one of Hong Kong’s largest developers, stayed only a few minutes, enough time to be photographed handing out fliers, before leaving. .....

There were more police deployed to guard polling stations — over 5,000 — than electors.

China Detains Business Chiefs as Its Corporate Crusade Expands The seizure of the top two leaders of HNA Group comes as speculation swirls over whether Beijing will bail out another troubled giant, Evergrande. ........ Those punishments are taking place against a broader backdrop of pressure on corporate practices that the Chinese Communist Party increasingly regards as dangerous to the economy and its own grip on power. ........... Severe troubles at HNA and Evergrande are taking place against a backdrop of broad measures by Beijing that are leaving the country’s once freewheeling private sector feeling increasingly besieged. ........ Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, has ordered businesses to pay greater heed to the government. Legislation approved two years ago requires domestic and foreign companies alike to share extensive information about their operations in China with the government.

All but the smallest domestic and foreign companies must have Communist Party cells now.

............ The government has cracked down hard this year on the tech sector. On Friday, China stepped up its restraints on cryptocurrencies, labeling as illegal all financial transactions that involve them and issuing a nationwide ban on them. Antimonopoly measures are transforming online retailing. And days after the Didi Chuxing car-hailing service conducted an initial public offering in New York at the end of June, Chinese regulators pulled its apps from app stores and suspended new user registrations. .............. A goal of “common prosperity” has begun to supplant a previous tolerance for a private sector that grew rapidly but sometimes borrowed recklessly. .......... HNA became a symbol of the mercurial rise and profligate spending of China’s first wave of private conglomerates with strong political backing. It acquired large stakes in Hilton Hotels, Deutsche Bank, Virgin Australia and other businesses, and at its height employed 400,000 people around the world. HNA struck 123 deals in three years, only to begin running into trouble in 2017 in repaying the debt incurred to pay for its acquisitions. .......... HNA, Evergrande and other large, private Chinese companies that grew quickly only to face financial collapse in the last several years are often referred to in China as gray rhinos. The term refers to obvious dangers that are ignored until they suddenly become very dangerous, and had been taken up by Chinese officials. .........

Beijing has remained tight-lipped so far while emphasizing that no Chinese company is too big to fail.

............... The billionaire investor George Soros recently argued that an Evergrande collapse would set off a broader economic crash, while another billionaire investor, Ray Dalio, argued this week that an Evergrande default was “manageable.”

An Insider Details the ‘Black Box’ of Money and Power in China A memoir by a well-connected businessman offers insights into the Communist Party’s thinking as it tightens its grip on the private sector. ............ To build a logistics hub next to Beijing’s main airport, Desmond Shum spent three years collecting 150 official seals from the many-layered Chinese bureaucracy. To get these seals of approval, he curried favors with government officials. The airport customs chief, for example, demanded that he build the agency a new office building with indoor basketball and badminton courts, a 200-seat theater and a karaoke bar. “If you don’t give this to us,” the chief told Mr. Shum with a big grin over dinner, “we’re not going to let you build.” ................. how government officials keep the rules fuzzy and the threat of a crackdown ever-present, limiting their role in the country’s development. .......... He was once married to Duan Weihong, who was close to the family of Wen Jiabao, formerly China’s premier. Ms. Duan, also known as Whitney, was a central figure in a 2012 investigation by The New York Times into the enormous hidden wealth controlled by Mr. Wen’s relatives. Ms. Duan disappeared in September 2017, though Mr. Shum said she had reached out shortly before the book’s release to urge him to stop. ..................... Mr. Shum’s book has come out just as the future of China’s entrepreneurs is in doubt. The government has cracked down on the most successful private enterprises, including Alibaba Group, the e-commerce giant, and Didi, the ride-hailing company. It has sentenced business leaders who dared to criticize the government to lengthy prison terms. ............. “The party has an almost animal instinct toward repression and control,” Mr. Shum wrote in the book.

“It’s one of the foundational tenets of a Leninist system. Anytime the party can afford to swing toward repression, it will.”

...................... China’s business types have played an important role in lifting the country out of poverty and building it into the world’s second-largest economy — something the Communist Party is reluctant to admit. .......... “In China, power is everything, while wealth doesn’t amount to much,” Mr. Shum said in the interview.

“The entrepreneur class is a suppressed class under the party, too.”

.................. China’s Foreign Ministry said the book is full of smearing and baseless allegations about China. ......... Many businesspeople believed they could shape a liberalizing China. They sought protection of property, an independent judiciary system and a more transparent government decision-making process to better protect people — wealthy and otherwise — from the party’s power. Some raised serious issues during the government’s parliamentary sessions. Others backed nongovernment organizations, education institutions and investigative media outlets. That period was short-lived. ......... the tightening process started after the 2008 financial crisis but accelerated after Mr. Xi took the party’s helm in late 2012. ...........

“Economy used to be the first order of business,” he said. “Since Xi, there’s no doubt that politics became the driving force behind everything.”

........... Many businesspeople have managed to move at least part of their assets abroad, he said. Few make long-term investments because they are too risky and difficult. “Only idiots plan for the long term,” he said.

Ancient Footprints Push Back Date of Human Arrival in the Americas Human footprints found in New Mexico are about 23,000 years old, a study reported, suggesting that people may have arrived long before the Ice Age’s glaciers melted.

A Tour of China’s Future Tiangong Space Station
What a Fungus Reveals About the Space Program One thing’s for sure: Escaping the dung heap doesn’t come cheap.