Humour: News in Cartoon

Chart: The Global Game of Football

Source : Statista

China Land Sales Hit Eight-Year Low as Housing Slump Worsens

China’s local governments raised the least revenue from land sales in eight years, another sign of the nation’s deepening housing crisis that has forced Beijing to pump in more cash.

Incomes from transfers of rights to use state-owned land — where local authorities sell land to property developers — fell 21% in April from a year earlier to 238.9 billion yuan ($33 billion), according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released by the Ministry of Finance on Monday. That’s the lowest figure since May 2016.

“This adds to weak housing sales and investment data in April that showed more evidence of a deepening housing slump — raising urgency for the government to inject more aid. And they did respond,” said Eric Zhu, an economist with Bloomberg Economics.

The real estate bust has depressed household spending in the world’s second-largest economy, and exacerbated budget strains for local authorities who depend on land revenue for a large chunk of their income. Beijing last week unveiled its most forceful attempt to rescue the property market, relaxing mortgage rules and providing tens of billions of dollars for local governments to buy unsold homes.

Questions remain on how officials will put that plan into practice. Other steps suggested at a Friday meeting chaired by Vice Premier He Lifeng include buying back unused land from developers.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists expect land sales revenue to face prolonged downward pressure in the coming quarters or even years.

“Property developer funding conditions remain stretched despite continued policy support, and the policy priority remains on ensuring completions,” which implies less funding for land purchases and new starts, Goldman analysts led by Lisheng Wang wrote in a Tuesday note.

Source : BNN Bloomberg

Infographic: Comparing New and Current U.S. Tariffs on Chinese Imports

Source : Visual Capitalist

‘Climbing the Ladder’ in Life Could Stave Off Dementia

Ernie Mundell wrote . . . . . . . . .

Have you been socially and economically “upwardly mobile” through your life? If so, you may be doing your brain health a big favor, new Japanese research suggests.

Folks who scored high in terms of “climbing the ladder” tended to avoid dementia or develop it years later than folks whose lives weren’t on such a successful track, reported a team led by Ryoto Sakaniwa, a professor of social medicine at Osaka University.

“Thanks to a large and robust dataset, our findings solidify the association between socioeconomic mobility and dementia risk,” he said in a university news release.

The study tracked data from what’s known as the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, which followed almost 9,200 participants aged 65 and over from 2010 to 2016.

Lifetime changes in each participant’s socioeconomic status, for good or ill, was evaluated, and then compared to national data on nursing care for data on dementia diagnoses.

Definite trends emerged: Folks with downward socioeconomic status tended to be more prone to developing dementia, Sakaniwa’s group found.

On the other hand, folks who successfully climbed the social and financial ladder had a lesser incidence of dementia compared to those whose socioeconomic status remained stable.

Lifestyle, illnesses and social factors all played roles in the link between social mobility and dementia risk, the researchers said.

The results were published in JAMA Network Open.

“Our finding that upward social mobility throughout a person’s life correlates with a prolonged period of dementia-free aging means that improving socioeconomic conditions could be a key to dementia prevention and healthier longevity,” Sakaniwa concluded.

Source: HealthDay