The first two decades of the century witnessed a steady increase in technology integration (or less decoupling), but China’s dependence on the U.S. increased (decreased) during the first (second) decade. Decoupling in a technology field predicts China’s growing dependence on U.S. technology, which, in turn, predicts less decoupling further down the road. Decoupling is associated with more patent outputs in China, but lower firm productivity and valuation. China’s innovation-oriented industrial policies trade off the inherent conflict between indigenous innovation and firm competitiveness.

https://voxchina.org/show-3-261.html

1. Patents that are important for innovation in that they shift the knowledge frontier have become much less important on average, reflecting an overall decline in innovativeness and increase in crowdedness of patenting in China.
2. There is positive growth in the number of breakthrough patents in China (those with the greatest importance), but this growth has declined steadily over time.
3. Knowledge within China has become more important than knowledge outside China for driving the direction of innovation in China.
4. Knowledge produced by Chinese entities within China has become more important than knowledge produced by foreign entities within China.

https://voxchina.org/show-3-405.html

All major asset classes in China have significant higher volatilities than their counterparts in the US market, but they do not always yield larger returns. Small-company stocks, short-, medium-, and long-term treasury bonds outperform their US counterparts, while large stocks underperform and long-term enterprise bonds yield similar returns.

https://voxchina.org/show-3-282.html

Liberal commentators, like Krugman and others, tell us that MAGA wants to destroy science, that scientific facts disrupt their political prejudices, that what we are witnessing is nothing more than a celebration of ignorance. They call it a war on science. It may indeed be a war, but it is not science that is the target. The dramatic reorganization of the conventions of scientific research that we are currently witnessing instead fulfills a very different aim, namely, to continue to disenfranchise socially and economically marginalized populations and communities. So let us call this what it has always been: class war. To that end, science as such is not the object of antagonism; the people are. Science has simply become a preeminent tool for political and economic oppression. For this is all that science is: a craft to be deployed for whatever ends we assign it.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/scientific-methods-bassiri?utm_source%3Drss-feed%26utm_medium%3Drss%26utm_campaign%3Dfeed

"As the global gap between rich and poor countries continues to widen, one out of every three countries in the world is spending more repaying creditors than on health or education"

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/financing-for-development-seville-conference-how-to-fix-global-debt-architecture-by-carlos-cuerpo-and-joseph-e-stiglitz-2025-07

In chasing distant utopias, we often overlook the paradise within reach. We dream of changing the world, but forget that a community rebuilt on love, mutual care, and shared responsibility is itself a transformed world. If we create spaces where people feel seen, safe, and supported, we have already succeeded. These are not distant goals. They are near at hand—doable, tangible, and transformative. It is only when we stop searching for miracles elsewhere that we can begin to build them where we are.

https://rwer.wordpress.com/2025/07/01/how-capitalism-shapes-our-world-and-how-we-can-reshape-it/

Il governo Meloni ha trasferito 43 milioni di euro dal fondo destinato alle vittime di mafia, estorsione e usura all’organizzazione delle Olimpiadi invernali di Milano-Cortina 2026. La norma è contenuta nel decreto Sport appena pubblicato. I fondi serviranno a finanziare sicurezza, ordine pubblico e logistica dell’evento.

https://www.editorialedomani.it/politica/italia/antimafia-fasulla-milioni-fondo-vittime-clan-mafia-giochi-milano-cortina-cka7y80u

"The Democratic Party’s organizational abandonment of rural counties is a dramatic recent trend. Before 2016, fewer than 10 percent of rural Texas counties lacked Democratic Party chairs, barely higher than in urban areas. But following Donald Trump’s initial presidential victory, Democrats let their rural organizing infrastructure collapse. By contrast, Republicans maintain chairs in every single county in Texas and do not have a corresponding vacancy problem in cities.

Across the United States, only 4 percent of rural counties lack Republican chairs. In other words, Democratic vacancies in rural counties are six times higher than Republican vacancies — and growing. Democrats, intimidated by the red tide washing over rural America and stumped on how to appeal to rural voters, are simply throwing in the towel."

"Democrats’ strategic retreat carries real electoral consequences. Willbanks and Shepherd’s analysis found that counties without Democratic chairs experienced up to 8 percentage-point drops in voter turnout, up to 10 percentage-point declines in campaign contact, and up to 8 percentage-point decreases in Democratic vote share for statewide races. Statewide races, of course, include races for federal representatives. By ditching rural voters, the Democrats are actively undermining their own legislative power on a national level."

"The party’s attitude of defeat also underestimates its own potential. Erica Etelson and Anthony Flaccavento, cofounders of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, argued in the Nation that Democrats actually have a decent shot of performing well when they do run in red rural districts, provided they run relatable and attractive campaigns. Of fifty candidates they interviewed in 2022, “all significantly overperformed the partisan lean of their district or state.”

The highest performers were those candidates whose messaging focused on economic concerns alongside specific local issues — not standard national-level Democrat rhetoric with its emphasis on blue team versus red team dynamics. Given the systematic economic underdevelopment and exploitation of rural America and the profound strain on rural infrastructure, there are plenty of rural issues that lend themselves well to progressive economic messaging that steers clear of culture-war issues and national partisan mudslinging.

The New Deal garnered support in rural areas by combining tangible local improvements — immediate relief, good jobs, and improved infrastructure — with an inspiring vision of national renewal. Where the New Deal offered an expansive vision of American possibility, today’s Democratic messaging has contracted into a defensive posture centered almost entirely on opposing Donald Trump at the expense of an independent and inspiring policy agenda. This focus reinforces one of rural voters’ deepest grievances: that their local concerns are invisible to politicians consumed with the dramas of Washington and other distant power centers."

"The Democrats and the broad left can’t afford to abandon rural America. What is needed is a year-round presence in rural communities, systematic development of local candidates who understand rural concerns, and policy agendas that address the economic realities facing small towns — from health care access to agricultural policy to broadband infrastructure. Most important, progressive politics needs to articulate a vision of shared prosperity that includes rural America rather than treating these communities as obstacles to progress."

https://jacobin.com/2025/06/democrats-rural-america-elections-trump/