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Tacoma brewery caught in controversy as owners’ political donations surface
A political organizer accused the businesses of being “anti-trans” after owners donated to a PAC. The owners say it was about tax reform.
In KC’s River Market, business owners are ticked off about parking tickets
“What the city has done to this downtown area has been devastating to our businesses,” said Arthur Leduc, owner of Kansas City Taco Company.
Shane Strum appointed permanent CEO of Memorial Healthcare System in Broward
Under Strum, Broward Health and Memorial are aggressively expanding into areas where residents don’t have nearby access to care.
Florida Democrats call for attorney general’s impeachment over Hope Florida
Democrats have little power in Tallahassee.
Six Plano restaurants close over serious health violations, rodents and roaches
This inspection database compiled by the Star-Telegram contains results of 113 inspections from Aug. 16-22.
Olive oil shop in Overland Park to close after 15 years. Owner shares next venture
“Thank you for believing in a dream that started with a simple idea and grew into something none of us could have imagined,” the owner said in a message to customers.
It’s official: Cuba finally authorizes Cubans living abroad to own private businesses
The new legal framework published in the Official Gazette is the deepest overhaul of the island’s private sector since small and medium enterprises were legalized in 2021.
Missouri’s gerrymandered map faces final test as Supreme Court weighs referendum
The high-stakes decision could effectively decide the future of Kansas City’s representation in Congress.
Everything to know about college football TV: Changes, plan for UM, new voices
What to know about college football on television this year. A full primer.
DeSantis throws support behind Donalds after contentious Republican primary
DeSantis made sure an event billed as a Florida GOP unity gathering was a celebration of his time as governor.
Yahoo Sports and Apple TV Team Up to Bring “The Cooligans” to a Live MLS Alternate Broadcast
NEW YORK (Wednesday, September 1, 2026) – Yahoo Sports and Apple TV are teaming up this season to deliver an alternate broadcast for select live Major League Soccer (MLS) matches, bringing fans a new way to experience the action with Yahoo Sports experts Alexis Guerreros and Christian Polanco of “The
Man charged in potential hate crime in Lexington. What to know about the case
Here’s what we know so far about the case.
Broward’s Memorial Healthcare System board to vote on CEO position this week
During his tenure, interim CEO Shane Strum has pushed for Broward Health and Memorial to work together.
Fresno’s hot political month: ballot fiasco, racial slur fallout, DA stabbed, recall Bredefeld?
Here’s your guide to Fresno's chaotic August in politics. Each story and topic explained from dueling tax measures to why a senior DA was stabbed at a campaign ad shoot.
Bowling and beer: entertainment venue to move into Sacramento’s Downtown Commons
Located on J Street, the entertainment place will offer a variety of other games, as well as dining and drink options.
Owen Thiele and Jack Innanen on their slow-burn romance in 'Adults' Season 2
The actors spoke about their characters' big moment in the Season 2 finale of the comedy, the alternate ending they taped and where their relationship might go in Season 3.
Vending machine brings free Narcan, health supplies to Raytown. How it works
Jackson County Public Health recently opened its second Bluebox outside of a Raytown business, offering free naloxone and other supplies.
Measles flagged at NC hotel and gas station, health department says
More than 20 cases of measles were recorded in the state in 2025 and 2026, but none have been reported since February.
Massive KC entertainment center closes after 13 years. ‘So many memories’
“Celebrations, milestones, rainy-day adventures, and so many moments that we will carry with us long after the lights go out tonight,” the business wrote on social media.
We need more mega-science projects, says CERN Director-General
CERN's Director-General Mark Thomson advocates for more mega-science projects, highlighting the transformative Future Circular Collider during a Mumbai visit.
Centre County Sports Hall of Fame has 12 new inductees. Meet the 2026 class
The new members of the Hall of Fame include PIAA champions, storied coaches and more.
Contemporary Christian singer, a Dove Award nominee, to play Modesto’s Gallo Center
Limited tickets remain available for the concert.
Lauren Cohan on the ‘horrifying’ idea of Maggie and Negan ever hooking up on ‘Dead City’
Lauren Cohan knows you were worried Maggie and Negan were going to hook up on ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ alternate reality episode.
Folsom Boulevard Flea Market fire destroys 20,000-game collection, businesses
Sacramento Fire Department Capt. Justin Sylvia said the fire started in a barn-style building.
The Cuban sculptor behind a new monument in Miami Springs of city’s founder
He represents “the American Dream,” she said.
Donalds dismisses Jolly’s call for new Hope Florida investigation as ‘politics’
Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor deflected questions about opening a new investigation into Hope Florida
Health officials warn of possible rabies exposure at Durham County events
Two events were infected baby goats were present were held in the county on Aug. 16 and 23.
Openings, closings and more Centre County business news you may have missed
One notable development stemmed from a lawsuit seeking nearly $1.2 million in unpaid rent at a State College high-rise.
‘Part of the Tri-Cities.’ 99-year-old business icon still runs her own shop
Alice Bennett runs the rental business she started in 1955.
York County tax deals spark fierce debate. What will officials do to fix it?
Public officials need a route forward with business incentives, discussing options from going after massive projects to nixing tax breaks.
California legislative leaders, Gov. Gavin Newsom announce utility wildfire deal
“This system needs full structural reform — not a partial one.”
New exhibit to take Sacramento on a trip inside the human body
The traveling exhibition, “Bodies - The Science Within,” features preserved human specimens will arrive in Sacramento this fall.
2 downtown Raleigh additions and Chapel Hill’s first entertainment district
Chapel Hill’s University Place and downtown Raleigh see new openings.
Hope Florida report leaked weeks before voting starts. Will it change the election?
Millions of Florida voters will receive mail ballots in about a month.
Marshall only expensed Florida trips before hurricane damage, reports show
A review by The Star revealed that U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall stopped billing taxpayers for trips to his Florida shortly before it was hit by a hurricane.
‘No recollection’: Hope Florida grand jury hit ‘wall of silence’ in Tallahassee
High-level DeSantis administration officials told the grand jury could not remember details of key conversations about the “misappropriated” taxpayer funds.
Breaking down the findings from the Hope Florida grand jury report
The grand jury said it could “plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes,” the report said.
‘It feels amazing.’ Port Matilda area now has its own coffee shop after community support
“This shop wouldn’t be here without the support that everyone in and around Port Matilda has given us,” owner Salina Swancer said.
NFL ending Pro Bowl. Player honors will remain, but alternates no longer acknowledged
Eighty-eight players will receive the Pro Bowl honor with no alternates, corralling a key aspect of the event that had gotten out of whack.
Jaguars Reveal Awesome New Rivalries Uniforms For 2026
From teal-gloss helmets to neighborhood-inspired prints, Jacksonville’s new alternate look honors the "904" area code and the "Bold City" team’s 1995 roots.
Get ready to celebrate spooky season in Sacramento with Movies Under the Stars
Movies Under the Stars will screen films every Thursday and Friday in October at Old Sacramento State Historic Park.
Flush with campaign cash, Uthmeier gets a boost from GOP attorneys general group
The Republican Attorneys General Association is pumping six-figures into the campaign
Chapel Hill’s first entertainment district is opening this fall
Beginning Wednesday, Sept. 16, 21+ customers will be able to take alcohol beverages to-go and shop among participating stores in the development.
How SC’s Mace, Wilson repaired relationship after bruising start in GOP primary
Attorney General Alan Wilson is the 2026 Republican nominee for South Carolina governor. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace finished fifth in the primary and endorsed Wilson.
The science behind social media bans, and why they don’t work
Explore the ineffectiveness of social media bans for teenagers and discover solutions that promote healthy digital habits instead.
Trump fatigue and immigration crackdowns test Republican hold on Miami-Dade
A recent poll of Hispanic voters in Florida shows that Trump’s popularity has waned over the past two years.
Byron Donalds details affordability plans, defends Trump economy in interview
He said he would also revisit property tax cuts if Florida voters reject Amendment 3 in November.
Man who was found dead behind Beaufort business identified
The man’s body was found by a store employee on Thursday, but a camera showed he arrived on the property Wednesday.
Women’s Equality Day: Miami women are still breaking barriers
Voting gives women the power to choose their leaders. Running for office gives women the opportunity to become them. | Opinion
GOP eliminated NC’s minority business office. Where does that leave companies?
Critics of the shutdown are organizing, and invoking the lunch counter sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement.
GOP eliminated NC’s minority business office. Where does that leave companies?
Critics of the shutdown are organizing, and invoking the lunch counter sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement.
Worried about your teen? Join our conversation about mental health and suicide
Teenagers don’t always show us when they’re struggling. The Charlotte Observer is hosting a talk about what to look for, what to say and how to help.
K-State football announces jersey patch sponsorship with Manhattan business
The Wildcats will have multiple football sponsors this season.
Kentucky GOP donor Kelly Craft named fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics
Kelly Craft, a prominent figure in Kentucky politics, is fall resident fellow for the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.
Charlotte business group’s new growth push looks to leverage ties to the Pearl
Charlotte wants a slice of the action that has been booming in other areas.
Weighted vests gain mainstream traction as midlife adults embrace rucking and bone health benefits daily
“Wearing a weighted vest while exercising increases bone formation and decreases bone resorption.”
For Boise State, EA Sports College Football 25 was quite a financial windfall
The reported sum for the program vastly outdid what other Mountain West schools received in fiscal year 2025, which ended last summer.
Three SLO County businesses make list of fastest-growing companies in the country
The companies hail from San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles and Arroyo Grande and specialize in construction, moving and security systems, respectively.
Rotating detonation engines: the science and the promises
Explore the science, advancements, and potential of rotating detonation engines, promising greater fuel efficiency for aerospace applications.
Florida’s emergency management director joins Jay Collins’ campaign for governor
Kevin Guthrie has overseen the state’s response to devastating hurricanes — and its detention of immigrants.
State health inspections of ICE detention facilities halted by Legislature
The Masuma Khan Justice Act would have allowed the California Department of Public Health to conduct inspections of detention facilities.
Globalinx to purchase Virginia Beach land for colocation data center
The Virginia Beach Development Authority on Tuesday agreed to sell 9 acres of land in Corporate Landing Business Park to Globalinx.
Swope Health serves KC’s neediest. Its CEO faces troubling allegations
Lawsuits accuse CEO Jeron Ravin of reckless spending and retaliation against employees who raised concerns. From David Hudnall:
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: Michigan and KY are ‘roadmaps of hope’
“It’s states like Kentucky and Michigan that are showing that we don’t have to live like this anymore,” Whitmer said in Lexington Saturday.
Belleville business news includes cafés, burritos and big real estate deals
A roundup of the week’s business stories.
Candidate wants lawsuit accusing her of conspiring against Miami judge thrown out
“The message to every Miami-Dade voter, donor, and volunteer is unmistakable: support this judge’s opponent, and this judge will put you in a caption,” the motion reads.
California lawmakers must reject bills that would raise healthcare premiums
“Healthcare needs to be more affordable. But the message isn’t resonating among legislators in Sacramento.”
66,000 WA residents dropped their health insurance this year, report says
The report found that 13.6% of the 286,500 insured through the Washington Health Benefits Exchange in 2025 dropped their coverage.
18th & Vine tour with KC council members highlights preservation and small business
An 18th & Vine walking tour showcases preservation projects, new development and support for Black-owned Vine Street businesses in Kansas City.
Raleigh staple Adventure Landing abruptly shuts its doors after 38 years
Known for laser tag and go-kart racing, this business will permanently close its doors after decades on Capital Boulevard.
KCK abruptly stops key health services. Advocates say it speaks to a bigger need
Local health advocates said they think area collaboration, increased funding could make a difference to health outcomes in Wyandotte.
Florida’s appointed attorney general rakes in more campaign cash
The money into the attorney general’s campaign account included $2,670 from the state’s public financing program.
Johnson County entertainment restaurant closes after 12 years. ‘Deeply grateful’
Another spot plans to open up inside the former restaurant space. Here’s what to know.
NC’s vaccine requirements won’t change under Trump order, health director says
North Carolina DHHS responds to the president attempting to weaken vaccine requirements through an executive order.
Pro-crypto PAC fabricates Miami Herald headlines to attack Florida Democrat
Protect Progress has disclosed spending more than $1 million to oppose Oliver Gilbert’s candidacy in Florida’s 24th Congressional District.
Star Politics: Can Hamilton beat Marshall in Kansas? Here’s the latest on Senate race
We’re exploring whether the Rev. Adam Hamilton gives Kansas Democrats a rare chance to snap their 94-year U.S. Senate losing streak in 2026.
Shoulder-fired missile threat prompted Trump’s plane ruse, source says
A specific threat to Air Force One by a shoulder-fired missile emerged on the final day of last month’s NATO summit in Turkey, according to a person familiar with the matter, prompting the scramble among US officials to devise the furtive plan to sneak President Donald Trump out of the country on an alternate jet.
Science can help kids build Kansas City’s economic future
The Curiosity Cube interactive mobile lab teaches children about the growing need for STEM careers. | Opinion
Sacramento news roundup: climber death, hotel tax fraud, health bill, worker benefits
Here is a quick recap of the top stories from The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday, August 11, 2026.
Health education bill sent to Newsom’s desk after unanimous vote in Legislature
The Ready to Learn, Ready for Health Act proposes updated educational frameworks that include materials on preventive health measures.
Phil LeVota’s indictment tells us a lot about Jackson County politics
The most nauseating thing is how the county executive talks when the rest of us aren’t listening. From David Hudnall:
Sacramento top stories: Heat, coach mental health bill, Tahoe avalanche report
Here’s a quick look at the top stories from The Sacramento Bee for Monday, August 10, 2026.
After GOP stalls confirmation, Gov. Stein moves NC public safety chief to new job
This comes after lawmakers passed a bill adding a way for the Senate to thwart a Cabinet appointee.
Could Boise State football go 12-0? USA Sports’ lead analyst thinks it’s possible
“Simply put, they are expectation-wise probably the leader in the clubhouse on who should win this conference,” Ryan Leaf said.
UNC researchers are using Palantir to build a massive collection of health data
The data collected so far “includes more than 535,000 whole genome sequences.”
Measure C renewal takes wild turns in Fresno. Here’s a recap of the political mess
A recap of a wild four weeks in Fresno politics over a transportation tax plan.
What’s that construction in Modesto? New housing, sewer lines and more
Progress is continuing on the Bridges development in the Kiernan Business Park, the River Trunk Pump project and JS West’s new headquarters.
Who passed health checks in Wichita KS? Pizza, ice cream, fine dining & more
See Wichita-area restaurants, stores & hotels that passed health inspections. Sixty-two locations made the latest list.
Here are The Observer’s top 25 NC football recruits. Where will they play in college?
In all, 16 of the top 25 are headed out of state, including the state’s top player. How many are going to Duke, NC State or UNC?
NC House GOP leader blasts State Health Plan’s new network. Others have concerns
NC lawmakers are “alarmed” by the new network, Majority Leader Brenden Jones says.
100 old rat feces. What else was found at these Sacramento-area restaurants?
Sacramento County Health Inspectors cited five eateries for health food violations over a one-week period between July 30 and Aug. 6.
Developer unveils plan for massive performing arts district in rural Johnson County
The 335-acre site sits at the northwest quadrant of 175th Street and Interstate 35. More details are expected to come later this month.
Did saving the pharmacy help Costco’s business center plan? What KC leaders say
The City Council made a final decision on Costco’s zoning request for its plans to convert the midtown store into a business center.
Triangle bar concept dedicated to women’s sports gains high-profile backing
Two sports fans aim to open a bar featuring women’s sports, with support from Her Court Collective and Duke’s Kara Lawson.
Sacramento sees business expansions, openings and closures in July. Here’s where
The region saw some popular restaurant chains open new locations. Also in July, midtown and downtown saw restaurant closures.
UNC Health says new scheduling system won’t pay nurses less. Why it has critics.
The health system says it is not a “bidding model” and calls those claims “misinformation,” but that hasn’t stopped online outrage.
Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. 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