Does anyone know or better yet have resources on how the real wages (wages adjusted for inflation and buying power) have evolved for different percentiles of the national income share of Germany or the USA? As I understand it real wages are calculated from the income of an average citizien. This ignores outliers like people who's total incomes increased a lot and thus can average out many people who's total income decreased only a little.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/economy/p/1478990/halloween-candy-prices-up-15-giving-american-families-a-jump-scare

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/60404850

Archived

Indonesia is the world’s largest nickel producer, accounting for a dominant share of global output and making the country increasingly central to the global critical-minerals supply chain.

[...]

Indonesia's rise as a nickel power is inseparable from its resource nationalist downstreaming strategy. Jakarta restricted exports of unprocessed nickel ore and pushed companies to process the mineral domestically. The policy transformed Indonesia from a major raw-material supplier into a global processing hub.

But Indonesia did not build this transformation alone. Chinese capital, technology, and industrial expertise became deeply embedded in the country's smelting and refining ecosystem. Today, Chinese firms control about 75% of Indonesia's nickel-refining capacity, illustrating the depth of this dependence.

This creates Indonesia's central paradox: Jakarta has greater control over the resource, but much of the capacity required to convert that resource into higher-value products remains connected to Chinese investment and technology. Resource nationalism therefore has not eliminated dependence; in some respects, it has created a more sophisticated form of it.

[...]

Indonesia is now trying to change that equation. President Prabowo Subianto's government has tightened oversight of strategic commodities and is seeking greater control over how resources are priced and traded.

In August 2026, Prabowo announced plans to launch the Strategic Minerals and Commodities Exchange that would establish domestic reference prices for strategic resources including nickel, with operations expected to begin in January 2027.

[...]

He argued that Indonesia should move beyond being merely a resource exporter and become a price-setter. These policies have created friction with Chinese investors. In May 2026, Chinese companies operating in Indonesia warned that reduced nickel quotas, higher taxes and revised pricing arrangements were making operations more expensive. The China Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia raised concerns directly with the Indonesian government, with several major Chinese-linked companies also facing the impact of these policy changes. But this is where the story moves beyond Indonesia and China.

[...]

The United States increasingly sees Indonesia as important to its effort to build more diversified critical-mineral supply chains. In February 2026, Washington and Jakarta signed an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade containing a section 5 intended to align Indonesia with the U.S. on sanctions, export controls, investment security, and measures targeting third-country economic practices, strengthening bilateral economic-security cooperation on critical minerals.

[...]

This does not, however, mean that Indonesia has chosen America over China. Calling the relationship a US–Indonesia “alliance against China” would oversimplify Jakarta's strategy. The agreement is fundamentally an economic and strategic partnership, while Indonesia continues to maintain substantial economic relations with Beijing. The distinction is crucial. Indonesia does not necessarily need to replace China; it needs alternatives to China.

If China remains Indonesia's dominant source of investment, processing technology and industrial partnerships, Jakarta's ability to impose tougher terms has limits. But if American, Japanese, Korean, European and other investors can provide additional capital, technology and markets, Indonesia acquires greater room to negotiate. This is the essence of Jakarta's strategy: diversification as leverage.

[...]

Indonesia's nickel policy is therefore not simply about who mines nickel or who owns a smelter. It is about who gets to set the terms of participation in the value chain. Indonesia may not be choosing between Beijing and Washington. It is attempting something more ambitious: making both compete for access while Indonesia strengthens its own position. The success of that strategy will ultimately depend on whether Jakarta can convert its geological advantage into industrial and technological capability. The real prize is not simply higher revenues from nickel but the ability to decide who participates, under what conditions, and how much value remains within Indonesia.

[...]

Census of every prose-only duty line in the US Harmonized Tariff Schedule: 550 of 23,193 HTS lines carry no numeric rate, only sentences like "the rate applicable to products provided for in preceding subdivisions". The article sorts them into six resolution patterns and shows how to compute each effective rate from primary sources. Maintained as part of a free tariff-data project; the full table with source timestamps is here: https://exportsonar.com/guides/nonstandard-duty-rate-text-guide.html?src=lemmy-dbzer0

Every one of the 7,045 eight-digit US lines covered by the Section 301 China actions carries the same incremental rate - 25 percent - but the map underneath is anything but uniform. We rebuilt the full map from our structured extract of the Chapter 99 trade-action schedule, cross-checked against the USITC REST API on October 13, 2026:

• Organic chemicals lead with 692 taxed lines, followed by machinery (chapter 84) at 671, electrical machinery (chapter 85) at 448 and fish (chapter 03) at 269.
• The three legal anchors split unevenly: U.S. note 20(e)+20(f) holds 5,906 lines (83.8 pct), note 20(b) 856 (12.2 pct), 20(c)+20(d) 283 (4.0 pct).
• Fifteen chapters carry zero lines under the three 25 pct actions - including the entire apparel-and-footwear complex.
• Since the action rate stacks on the base rate, the page also publishes the base-rate census under the 25 pct layer.

Chapter-by-chapter map, free, no signup: https://exportsonar.com/guides/section-301-line-exposure-map.html?src=lemmy-dbzer0-g23

Happy to share details about the data pipeline; corrections welcome.

For nearly a decade, any shipment worth $800 or less entering the United States cleared duty-free under the Section 321 de minimis exemption (19 U.S.C. §1321(a)(2)(C)). That carve-out quietly carried cross-border e-commerce logistics through three administrations — and it is now suspended for shipments from every country, in every quantity, by every transport mode.

I maintain a free tariff-data project and we rebuilt the full 2016–2026 timeline from 21 dated legal instruments (Federal Register notices, executive orders, Public Laws), each linked to its primary source and cross-checked against the live CFR — including the August/September 2025 executive orders and the October 2026 final rule that made the suspension permanent-looking in the regulations:

https://exportsonar.com/guides/us-de-minimis-section-321-timeline.html?src=lemmy-dbzer0

Happy to answer questions on how the data pipeline sources and timestamps each instrument.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/economy/p/1455712/warren-launches-new-trumpflation-tracker-new-dashboard-will-be-updated-monthly-for-ameri

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index reveals how much money is at stake as the ultra-wealthy leave.

https://archive.is/20261006130711/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-04/billionaire-exodus-from-uk-leaves-160-billion-hole

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/economy/p/1450051/trumps-deportation-agenda-is-worsening-affordability

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/economy/p/1440744/disability-employment-tops-40-for-first-time

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/economy/p/1439158/economy-adds-just-29000-jobs-in-september-wage-growth-slows-to-3

• Job growth slowed sharply, with just 29,000 jobs added in September and the three-month average falling to 51,000.
• Wage growth weakened further, reaching 3.0 percent year-over-year and 2.6 percent annualized over the latest three months.
• Health care and social assistance drove job growth, accounting for 23,000 of September’s 29,000 new jobs.
• Evidence of AI-driven job losses remains limited, with declines concentrated in sectors such as insurance, publishing, and motion pictures.
• The labor market is weakening beneath the headline unemployment rate, with fewer workers quitting voluntarily and several disadvantaged groups seeing higher unemployment.
• There is little evidence of an AI-driven productivity boom so far, with estimated productivity growth only slightly above recent trends.