G-8: RIP?

Adolf Hitler is confronted with the financial crisis

(please cut-and-paste to see the following video clip -- God curse this 'new and improved' HTML page, I can not embed link like in the old version)

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=bNmcf4Y3lGM

...SR

Re: # 146 true the basic fundementals are still strong. Also during the days of great export-led inflow of cash Indian govt was not profiligate and was restrained in expenditure (this has always been the situation with the Indian Govt (both pre and post '47)). India (as a state) has always been a slow and steady spender...The Sensex is a mixed index (from my pov) it has a volatile compoenet with FIIs and a non-volatile component whic is local. If you subtract the volatile component youwill se that the growth in the index is there and almost on track (according to some brokers and analysts in Mumbai).
Wait and see till then lets all suck a few egss (T)

Anil # 139,
The only way India could retain 8% growth, is by spending high on infrastructure. It could be a good time, because cost of raw materials is low. However, the govt is already running a hugh fiscal deficit, so has little room to spend.

anil#139:

Manmohan Singh's prediction is feasible, although the politician in him may have exaggerated a bit because of the impending elections. As nkg has rightly pointed out, the effect of the global crisis on India is significant but not crucial and affects only those sectors that are heavily dependant upon exports, such as diamonds and IT (although Infosys, etc. seem to continue hiring as scheduled, so they must know what they are doing). India's stock market has been brutally savaged (I know it to my personal loss) but that is a reflection mostly of the FIIs pulling their funds out and not a measure of the underlying economy. India's financial institutions are strong, with the exception of ICICI which is now paying for its aggressive growth of previous years. India still needs huge investments in infrastructure and agriculture and the loss of exports should be compensated to some extent by the much lower costs of imports of oil and commodities.

Re: # 139
Kal...
"and Saudi's don't want to put barrel for anything short of COD (Cash On Delivery)...."
If you look from the humanitarian angle, Saudi Arabia, the beacon of light of Ummah, is realy pushing Pakistan to pure submission. If US Govt. stops funding GWOT, arab money will keep on pouring through non Govt. channels and Pakistan will be pure Islamic country...I would not have disliked that, if they would have accomodates indian moslas as well and keep the focus on western countries. Jihad against West, for drawing cartoons; the most henious crime ever committed on the face of the planet....jihad against west for eating pork....and enjoy 72 arab virgins in afterlife...

nkg, may be I am the only one who thinks so but 'softening borders' is no different than handing over Kashmir to Pakistanis.

It may actually be much worse than even that. Not sure how it is all supposed to work, but depending upon how they are managed, 'soft borders' could turn out to be disastrous for India in the next twenty years or so.

anil ji, what I see happening in India is a bit of pull back, not exactly to the old days, but more caution against abandoning all controls, or following the mythical 'Western model' to the letter - which is a good thing.

There will be more focus on making sure Indians do things 'their way.' That will mean some slow down. I am not sure 8% is doable. But Indian economy will not tank.

Re: # 139
Kaal...
"Catch 22 for India is that it cannot remain focused when Pakistan is unstable..."
Pakistan is now international headache...India should not bother much about it. India should try to soften border in kashmir to move goods from India (automobile, electrical equipments) and Pakistani made handcrafts to India....that should be the best CBM....

Re: # 139

"India can transition through this economic crisis..."
Yeh. Crude price slumped to US$55. US$ is INR50....Lot of positive turns...Inflation dropped to 8%
Only the stock exchange is nosediving....let it be...
Citibank etc.. are retrenching people from its paylist...SBI is recruiting 40000 employess (good old days of PUC) and expanding their branches in remote areas....Garment sector is recovering little bit....let us see, whether internal market can boost indian economy...

Pakistan is doing good....
http://www.dawn.com/2008/11/21/top5.htm

Kaal:

In times like these, everyone is interested in securing their musical chair. Chinese comment was the most indicative, which said that if it can keep "its economy stable" then the world economies will benefit. This was in response to the questions that would China step up to stabilize the Global economies.

If G7 must become G20 so be it. G20 as a platform could also signal more lip service to "Things Global", and in reality more consolidation of Individual economies. This is more likely scenario. Zardari's dashes to "Pakistan's Friends", and what they yielded is a very clear indication that China does not want to put a penny in the Pakistani bowl, and Saudi's don't want to put barrel for anything short of COD (Cash On Delivery).

Question I am interested in can you believe Man Mohan Singh's statement that India can transition through this economic crisis, and have 8% growth in GDP. May be Dost Sahib and others can discuss it. India needs this growth rate to bring its citizens out of poverty and in to the middle class faster than its GDP can grow.

Catch 22 for India is that it cannot remain focused when Pakistan is unstable, and Pakistan's questionable ability to get out of all the mess it has inside and outside, and remain stable. Kashmir is not an issue in Pakistani mess, but many old hand Pakistanis may not let Zardari to work faster than Musharaff on Kashmiri issue.

Chalta, NIC has the following report which seems unnecessarily gloomy in its tone. But it's conclusions are pretty straightforward:

"The US will remain the single most important actor but will be less dominant."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7741049.stm

Re: # 133
chalta...
"On a global basis, if you look at large emerging markets like India and china, domestic flows constitute the bulk of the investments in the capital markets...."
not that simple..BSE index dipped from 21000 to 8000 within 1.5 years. The ground situation in India is not (GDP PPP) that bad....who are responsible for such slump? Institutionalised FIIs....

Re: # 116
bull...
"invariably, i almost, always see the north indians float towards pakistanis, more than they float towards south indias.......they find punjabi and sindhi pakistanis, easier to communicate and relate to, then south indians......"
unless until you bring the arabic moon god and his/her preferred caveman....

Re: # 114
bull...
"...yes, true, which is why i stated, "...i have also used the same term for africa, i.e. africans......because african nations, much like south asian nations, are also artificially created nations, by colonists......"
There was no single country as india before Brits captured power....north india was (including pre-islamic IVC) was part of union of 16 countries....during nandas,guptas and mauryas most of places north of vindhyas were under same empire....buddhist and jain texts described each of them and various dynasties in these countries....

so the stone engraving of pashupatinath, dancing girl wearing bangles etc...similar to temple architecture of tamilnadu and karnataka proves nothing!!!!!

Chalta, US' primary is nowhere threatened, not anytime soon. Probably DM was suggesting that G-20 is a recognition of the incresing need, in order to solve global problems, to bring on board, in some fashion, a larger number of countries than just the original 8.

Lets take Neembu for example. For all the brow beating and randi rona about corporates and wall street etc, her pension fund still allocates towards Alternatives and open market positions as part of running a balanced portfolio. over 90% of americans are vested in someway,directly or indirectly in the stock market. Now compare that to how many americans are invested in the auto industry, eithe directly or indirectly.

On a global basis, if you look at large emerging markets like India and china, domestic flows constitute the bulk of the investments in the capital markets. FII flows while significant over time are becoming less and less as percentage of the total. And these markets are highly regulated, no shorting, strict rules on derivative trading, lack of rating prowess for corporates etc etc...yet when the markets here sneezed, both countries caught the flu. Russia had to shut down the exchange for two days.

so going to back to DM's point about death of the G8, I think the demise is a bit premature. And unilke the postulates provided by Romair, which come form a world is flat perspective, and offer really no tangible evidence of what the world will look like other than chinkoos and muslims and indians will be mroe in number...the reality of global leadership is firmly placed in the hands of the US for decades upon decades to come.

chalta, who? Start with neembu! :)

Ultimately, such people will not be able to make any fundamental change (and we can all be grateful for that), but there will be a struggle to change/modify the system.

Going back to your original point, numbers within a system may not matter much. You are right. So long as the system remains intact, real power will remain in the hands of a few - those have asymmetric information advantages, are creative and innovative.

The only threat comes from people who reject the system itself, who have alternative vision.

Kaal, who would be doing this?

As far as the second point...gains are always made based on asymmetric information....so I don't see how that is relevant. Individual greed is not a bad thing. People can ofcourse argue about that.

Bubba yaar, Urdu is now integral to Pakistan, so hopefully nobody will take it out of Pakistan. We are just speaking hypothetics. :)

Besides, where there is a will, there is always a very good argument to serve it. If need arises, one can even counter-argue that Urdu is the original language of Pakistan - sort of mother lanugage of Punjabi and Sindhi. No Indian would buy that either, but some Pakistanis will. These are all political decisions, and have little to do with facts on the ground or any real history of any place.

chalta, IMO, there will be two challenges. There will be efforts to show that (1)people don't own the casino, and (2) risk assessment issues are related not to natural difficulties posed by incomplete information and operations of mass psychology but to individual greed.

These are the accusations you will hear. But I don't see any real risks of the instruments themselves being abolished in the long run. I confess, I am not an industry insider.

Re #113, majumdar,
Who is Sir Alex, and how is he a muslim?

Re: # 117 Posted by KaalChakra on November 20, 2008 3:35:30 am

[Hyptohetically, take Urdu out of Pakistan completely, and there is nothing common left between someone say from Madhya Pradesh and any Pakistani. NO?]

No, please don't take that. It is only Urdu that has brought some decency amongst these pakis. It you can take away anything from these pakis take away the insane punjabis (except for Hamid mian) who are constantly on some kind of self-praise. I say take away paki paindoos, and we might get back some sanity and world respect for the pakis. while you are at it, take away those paki-waki arabs-wanna-be's also.

No no no kaal, it is not about beating the house....the metaphor of the casino was merely a way to show that the system for wealth creation is going to change from human intervention in production of goods and services to trading of ideas where values can be assigned to those ideas. Unlike a casino where the house always wins...in this scenario the equity owners of the casinos are people themselves....it has already started....people investing in exotics through pension funds...was the beginning...stock exchanges themselves going public allows for greater participation for folks in this paradigm.

This recent correction in asset values calls for a deeper review of risk not abolishing of the instruments.

Re: # 120 Posted by _arjun38 on November 20, 2008 4:05:07 am

[everything coming out of capt clueless is from his south...]

couldn't 've said it better

LOL, tree bhai, this is not at all how INDIANS think. We are speaking specifically of Romair's beliefs. :)

-----------

DM ji, in fact, Microsoft has followed the strategy of (combining some inhouse innovation and creativity) with taking simply taking over creativity and innovation wherever the latter existed.

from your discussions one can draw the conclusion that north india shall become a part of pakistan.
get rid off these south indian(dravidians) like pakistan got rid off bengalis.
i like this idea.

nkg#99:

"indian offices of MicroSoft, Intel, HP, IBM, Google are doing good quality work."

That is indeed the problem that I was referring to. We have a saying in Punjabi:
saari umar tunakay assi maaray, guddi lokaaN di charH gayee!

Loosely translated, it means that while we worked hard, someone else gets the big reward.

#116 bulleye: Given your vast experience in dealing with Indians, could you please confirm certain things I have heard about Indians:

1. I hear before going to bed they take off their heads and put them on the bedside table.

2. They have shifty eyes, teeth going in different directions, and feet pointing backward.

3. They lay eggs instead of bearing children. The only other mammal known to lay eggs is a platypus, so I assume they are distantly related.

4. At PMA kakul, they teach you to count to 10, since that is the minimum number of indians each fauji should take on in order to have fair and square fight.

Thanks in advance for your confirmation.

capt clueless disproves the north-south theory...

his head(north) is indistinguishable from his rear(south)...

and just as infosys et al are from the south, everything coming out of capt clueless is from his south...

"The world is heading towards being a casino...and those who can bet correctly will win. It has nothing to do with how many people a country has."

Chalta, that is one of the smartest things I have read on chowk. But IMO, it covers only half the picture (as do all views on innovation that focus on creativity and knowledge alone).

One way to win in the Casino is to bet correctly more often than others. The other is try to bring the casino down, to get other players thrown out of the casino, or to build something else in place, or to take over the ownership simply through threat or any other means - trade in something they want.

Granted, that seems beyond absurd because that is not how the Casino system works wherever it works today. But think of technological innovation. One can either innovate oneself, or simply take over other's innovations using some other means of power (money, mostly but not always).

Ok..so here is my view on what will humans do. We will either trade those things made by machines, who made us redundant as part of the production cycle, or we will trade the derivatives of those the things we trade. The fastest growing segment of the global GDP is....drumroll...financial services!!! innovation is not just limited to tangible items but also to esoteria like derivative products.

We have gone through a massive correction brought about by one type of derivative instrument.but we are still trading weather derivates, futures contracts in commodoties and currencies, options on equities, clos, heck I just saw a structured note by BNP with the underlying corporate debt of AAA rated companies at quite a significant yield.

The world is heading towards being a casino...and those who can bet correctly will win. It has nothing to do with how many people a country has.

Someone posted an article by Bhagwati below...his kaleidoscope of comparative growth theory is much much better than the world if flat mantra espoused by friedman types who think numbers matter.

Romair, that is because Pakistani Punjab and Sind CHOSE to be culturally ruled by North India by adopting a north Indian language their supreme language!

Hyptohetically, take Urdu out of Pakistan completely, and there is nothing common left between someone say from Madhya Pradesh and any Pakistani. NO?

majumdar #: "Barrister sahib's contention is not that IVC people were Muslims....IVC people and that the people and culture of today's India has nothing to do with these IVC people."

...yes that is his theory.....partially correct, if one takes all of india - south and north, and only part of pakistan - punjab and sind.......however, partially incorrect, if one takes into account all of pakistan - sind, punjab, nwfp and baluchistan, and only part of india - north india.......

i think aitezaz hasn't travelled enough in india, nor interacted with a whole lot of indians......there are, in fact, very few people in south asia who have interacted with pakistanis and indians on a large scale level for extended amounts of time (i am starting to realize i am one of the few, who have).....hence all analyses seem to have some holes......

...here is what i have seen.....

take a group of politically neutral south indians, north indians and pakistanis (from its north india side, i.e. sindhis and punjabis (and mohajirs)......and put them in a room.....

....the pakistanis will not float towards south indians, since they have little in common, and most pakistanis don't even know there is such a place like south india.....they think all india is like north india......

......south indians will not float towards pakistanis either....

.......what is interesting to see is where the north indians will float towards (assuming it is a cultural and not a politically charged environment).......

invariably, i almost, always see the north indians float towards pakistanis, more than they float towards south indias.......they find punjabi and sindhi pakistanis, easier to communicate and relate to, then south indians......

the gujurati (or gujjus as they are known in india) and mumbaiwallas can related to pakistani mohajirs......the indian punjabis and dehliwallas can relate to pakistani punjabis.......as can the sikhs.....(i am not including bengal in north india, here)......

primarily because they are culturally, historically (and via dna) part of the same group.....

i am still thinking of a name for this theory......perhaps i will call it my shah rukh khan vs. rajnikanth theory.....i.e. rajnikanth is hugely popular in south india, while shah rukh is not......shah rukh khan is hugely popular in north india and in pakistan, while rajnikanth is not popular in either north india or pakistan.....

romair, according to many people Sindh and Punjab do share more with Northern parts of India than with Baluchistan and NWFP. In that sense Pakistan sits on a basic divide.

But Pakistan will not fall apart. Differences between Baluchistan and NWFP on one hand and Sindh and Punjab will be bridged by Islam, and as people on both sides begin to lead more Islamic lives, any civilizational differences will disappear too.

Why do you see Pakistan falling apart?

majumdar/kaalchakra #: "Same could actually be said about Africa which you lump as one entity.."

...yes, true, which is why i stated, "...i have also used the same term for africa, i.e. africans......because african nations, much like south asian nations, are also artificially created nations, by colonists......"

"an interesting view. Do you count Baluchistan and NWFP as part of that South Asian geographical region?"

...it is quite difficult to define the boundaries of south asia......i suppose one can draw them wherever one wants......since they are geographic boundaries.....

.....if you are talking from a civilizational point of view (i.e. my ashoka vs ghaznavi theory), then south asia is a group of multiple civilizations.......

so, geographically there is no answer to your question......

civilizationally, nwfp and baluchistan are different civilizations......different from the other two civilizations in pakistan, i.e. sind and punjab.......

basically, if we start from an abstract point of view, from pakistan to sri lanka and bangladesh, south asia, perhaps (i need to do more research), can be divided into the following abstract regions (which have, absolutely nothing to do with present-day boundaries of pakistan, india etc.)

1. most of sri lanka
2. south india : northern tamil tip of sri lanka to the narmada river (roughly) in central india)
3. north india : north of narmada river, moving northeastward to indus river in pakistan and northwards to himalaya ranges (passing from pakistan's northern areas to nepal)
4. afghania : northwest of indus to the pushtu speaking regions of afghanistan.....
5. bengal - east of where narmada river stops to the easter edge of bangladesh

these, then, further divide into civilizaitions, based on various criteria.......

pakistan is, thus, quite a bit like belgium.....it is a combination of the edges of two civilizaitons - north india and afghan......punjab, kashmir and sind from the former and nwfp and baluchistand from the later, plus some persian influence on baluchistan........

much like belgium is an artificial country, consisting of a part of netherland (flemish) and a part of france (with a small part of germany thrown in)........

the other theory is the aitezaz ahsan theory that their is enough to distinguish pakistan, civilizationally, from all of north india.......i.e. it is an extension of the historic indus valley civilization......however, he admits, in his book, his lack of knowledge of nwfp and baluchistan's history, and doesn't take these two provinces into account......

in any case, what is a fact is that there is no historical civilization, which maps, in any form or manner, to present day india and pakistan......these are artificial entities created as a by-product of as much land as could be conquered by the british....had they conquered persia and anglicized it, it would be considered a part of this also.....had they not conquered, say, tamil nadu, it would be a separate country today......

had they not come, at all, then south asia would have split into its historical mean - i.e. a group of countries, with their own civlizations - marthas would have had their own country, punjabis their own, nwfp would be a part of afghania, bengal would have been its own empire........etc.

Nkg moshai,

Barrister sahib's contention is not that IVC people were Muslims (although there is a possibility that they cud be proved to be Muslims like Sir Alex was) but that Pakistan's people are descendants of these IVC people and that the people and culture of today's India has nothing to do with these IVC people.

Regards

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Kaal bhai,

There is of course another POV- the IVC hypothesis- popularised by Aitzaz Ahsan (if I am not mistaken) which basically puts the whole of Pakistan out of South Asia and as a separate civilisation by itself with little to do with "South Asia". The borders of this civilisation by some coincidence is almost identical to the borders of the current Pakistan.

Regards

Kaal bhai,

Do you count Baluchistan and NWFP as part of that South Asian geographical region?

My guess, no.

Regards

Romair, an interesting view. Do you count Baluchistan and NWFP as part of that South Asian geographical region?

Re: # 107
majumder....
africans are divided into large number of tribes ( apart from arab implants)....

Romair,

Same could actually be said about Africa which you lump as one entity. There are actually two Africas- an Arab North and a Black African South/Centre. Although, I dont know enuff about African culture to decide whether there are cultural commonalities among all black African communities, although clearly there is a fair bit of commonality among the Arab Northerners (language, religion, prolly race as well).

Regards

dm...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/srivastava/default.aspx
watch this guy. he is dave cutler in making...that is the way IT transition is going on (into the hand of indians...)

Re: # 81
chalta...
US model is very successful indeed...but india may find it's own set of processes to excell in making great business/industrial houses.....
initial concept of tata nano was to make it like cottage industry/small industry to keep the cost of production very low....

majumdar #: "You keep harping on "South Asian" rather than let's say Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. Any specific reasons for lumping all three into one unit."

...yes very specific reason.......

along with my dinosaur vs. cockroach theory, which applies to the future of the whole world, and my indra nooyi vs. paris hilton, which applies to indians and pakistanis as individuals, i have a few more.......

.....i do not consider south asia to be india, pakistan and bangladesh.....based on the thousands of year history of the region, where it has only been one nation-state for 200 out of those five (?) thousand years.......i feel the current boundaries are a temporary phenomenon, which will disappear shortly, and the entities will again split up to their historical mean......

south asia is a geographical region.....not a nation, or two or three nations......it is many civilizations.......perhaps twenty or more.....the only nation which is also a civilization is bangladesh (half of which is in india)......

so south asia is a geographical region - like europe.......and in the future, it will be south asians, who will migrate outwards......i don't know if they will migrate out as indians and pakistanis, or as punjabis and tamils.....

...i have also used the same term for africa, i.e. africans......because african nations, much like south asian nations, are also artificially created nations, by colonists......

Romair,

# 102

....then again, perhaps south asian, african (and chinese) culture and values.....

You keep harping on "South Asian" rather than let's say Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. Any specific reasons for lumping all three into one unit.

Regards

SR #: "Nation States, as we know them today, are a relatively recent historic phenomenon. Their days are numbered just as are the days of distinct ethnicities.....The world is going to be more and more of a melting pot -- cooking haleem. And if what you are trying to say is this then I agree....."

.....what i am trying to describe is what the world will look like in the future.....based on current statistical trends.....kind of what this article is trying to do.....

.....unless the world becomes one, as in star trek, and earth joins a federation of other planets, more than likely, the world will remain split into various groupings - be it nation states, ethnicities, religions etc......

.....however, it will move towards a pot, in the future.....but this pot will not be a melting pot.....it will be a pot filled with one kind of meat - South Asian and African (and Chinese) - with all the other meats in such small quantities, that they may be insignificant.....

.......up til now, it was industrialization that decided the future of groups.....there are two changing trends: the industrialized countries are, now, demographically, moving in a direction, where they will not have even the bare minimum manpower to support their own growing societies, much less dominate anyone.........the second trend is that technology is becoming ubiquous......something like the Internet would have taken decades to centuries to be adapted in poorer countries, just a few hundreds years ago......now it was adapted within a few years.....everywhere.......

........so the world will be dominated by certain ethnicities......and certain ethnicities and religions will disapper.......unlike before, they will not disappear due to war or disease......they will disappear voluntarily......

........let's say canada ends up with a majority south asian and chinese population.......usa ends up with a majority mexican and central american ethnic population.....uk ends up with a majority south asian population......france with a majority african etc.......let's say japanese, russian, and jewish population becomes so low that they cannot support their own growth......

what happens then......perhaps nothing......perhaps, dost-mittar's grandkids become as canadian as the kids of his neighbor who migrated from ireland......and perhaps hamidm mian's grandkids are as naive and ill-informed as him and most white americans........and perhaps japan and russia function as successful societies with only 13% local population, much like uae does today.......

then again, perhaps south asian, african (and chinese) culture and values become dominant all over the world, much like european/white culture and values are today......

i am not trying to say what will happen when these demographic changes take place.......no one knows that......i am, simply, stating that it will happen.....and people should use this as a major part of their analyses.....

99 contd...
innovation has two parts...
a) identifying a problem b) finding the best of the solutions with or without existing tools/methods available....

finding some unique problem needs investigative mind...coming out with better solution needs thorough understanding on what you are working on and your intellect...indians are good at second part....

Re: # 88
DM...
Chinkus had seen ultimate of social chaos before the impostion of maoist government....once they feel that they need not be chained, they can transition to democracy...

Re: # 80
DM...
innovation does not mean, you do everything from scratch...you have to know the base technology, to innovate something on that...
indian offices of MicroSoft, Intel, HP, IBM, Google are doing good quality work.
Our college graduades or even postgraduates are not employable...but then, indians learns very fast....

OT----
Btw, People don't forget to read my review of Slumdog millionaires on UP...w/ one great clip of the movie too...Rani mirza is just having fun reading the review.

#80 Posted by dost_mittar on November 19, 2008 5:48:14 am


ebay or amazon did not require R&D


A lot of R&D from the IT/comp sci world goes into enabling high availability operations for something like amazon...

You have no idea what kind of work is being done in Intel India, ITIIAM or even google india...

please don't embarrass yourself further by displaying a complete lack of knowledge...

This was a discussion about a book
Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China.
By Philip Pan –

This is what Minxin Pei responding to. And I think he used straw man to counter this. No one is perfect.

Philip Pan wrote (see below) to open the discussion on his book mentioned above. So the context is a little different. Phil Pan's basic argument was economic modernization does not necessarily lead to political liberalization, as China's experience has shown since 1989. Pei argued that it would happen and it is a matter of time. Just remember that China has no experience or very little experience with democracy and other freedoms that come with that.

Personally, I agree with Phil. It would be difficult to get to democracy in China. The Chinese military is a major hurdle and as long as they are insecure about their position Vis-à-vis US and Russia, democracy is just a hope in China, some liberalism but not much after that.

Phil Pan’s article.
“First, I have tried to debunk the common assumption that market reforms and economic growth will inevitably result in political liberalization in China. On the contrary, the Communist Party's embrace of capitalism and the prosperity it has brought to the country have strengthened its hold on power. In effect, a vast experiment in authoritarian capitalism is in progress -- and so far, the results have been terrific for the party, if not necessarily for all the people of China.
Second, I have argued that a momentous struggle is under way for China's future. I described the battles lines thus in the book: "On one side is the venal party-state, an entrenched elite fighting to preserve the country's authoritarian political system and its privileged place within it. On the other is a ragtag collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, artists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open and democratic China." And in the middle, I would add, is the vast majority of the Chinese people, sometimes indifferent, sometimes ambivalent, sometimes afraid.
I watched this struggle unfold on a number of battlegrounds -- over the party's control of history, of the economy, of the media, of the law, etc. -- and I have tried to describe it in the book through the eyes of several individuals who found themselves at the center of it. They include, among many others, a documentary filmmaker, an Internet entrepreneur, a rural party boss, a laid-off factory worker, a crusading newspaper editor, and one of the richest women in China. I chose to write the book this way because I like telling people's stories, but also because I hoped to underscore the idea that political change is not automatic. We sometimes hear people argue that democratization is inevitable in China, that when average incomes rise above a certain level, the nation will magically follow South Korea, Taiwan, and other authoritarian countries that evolved into democracies as their economies boomed. But in reality, political change is a difficult, messy and heartbreaking process, and it happens only because of remarkable individuals who fight, take risks, and sacrifice for it.
These people are often forced to make very difficult decisions, about how when to stand up for what they think is right and when to retreat in silence -- choices that might result in violence and police action against themselves or, perhaps even more agonizing to consider, against their friends and relatives. As we kick off this discussion, I would suggest that you think about what you might have done if you were in the position of some of the characters in the book. Would you have bothered to try to preserve the Cultural Revolution cemetery in Chongqing, as the former Red Guard Xi Qinsheng did? Would you have blown the whistle on the SARS epidemic, as the elderly surgeon Jiang Yanyong did? Would you have challenged the abuses of the one-child policy the way the blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng did? And what would you do if you were one of the lawyers trying to get Chen out of prison? When the government started hiring thugs to beat up the lawyers, would you have stood your ground and perhaps put your client at greater risk? Or would you have backed down and abandoned Chen? Believe me, I've asked myself that last question many times.�

#94 Posted by anil

This was a quote from Minxin Pei
"Most people make the mistake of assuming a parallel process of economic development and political liberalization, which is seldom the case."

He was making a point which is clear from the statement following the above comment. This was relevant to the discussion but may be a little out of place here.

Re: # 93

HP Sahib:

"...Most people make the mistake of assuming a parallel process of economic development and political liberalization, which is seldom the case..."

Most people actually accept that process of economic development and political liberalization are not parallel. There may be some overlap, and strong link that with increasing economic freedom comes political freedom. This statement means that political freedom trails and not being in parallel to each other.

#88 Posted by dost_mittar

Minxin Pei is a Chinese scholar working for Carnegie endowment right now.

“Although I agree with XXX basic argument that economic modernization does not necessarily lead to political liberalization, as China's experience has shown since 1989, I still believe that the complex relationship is not well understood. The key variable here is the time frame. Most people make the mistake of assuming a parallel process of economic development and political liberalization, which is seldom the case. Economic development can occur in a more linear fashion, but political liberalization tends to take place in a non-linear fashion. This process can stall for some time, but take a giant leap forward suddenly without any warning. That's because politics changes due to the build-up of pressures on the governing system itself.

But it is impossible to predict the breaking point beforehand for two reasons. First, the rulers can adjust, tactically, thus defusing the pressure a bit. Second, and more importantly, the tolerance level of the people is a fluid psychological variable. Nobody knows, really, how bad a government can get before it is overthrown by the people. If you think along these lines, you can definitely see that the Chinese government may be a repressive authoritarian one, but it is far more capable and responsive than most of its peers in developing countries. What this means is that it is too early to give up on the prospects of democratic change in China. This process has been stagnant since 1989 and the Communist Party has shown no signs of changing it. But when you read Phil's book carefully, you will see that the pressures for change are accumulating within the system. Although at the moment the Party can contain such pressure through selective repression and co-optation, this strategy will not work indefinitely.�

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert _view&expert_id=27
Minxin Pei is a senior associate in the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on democratization in developing countries, economic reform and governance in China, and U.S.-China relations.

#88 Posted by dost_mittar
Long post on China Situation.

Try this site http://www.clb.org.hk/en/
Sometimes they report whenever there is trouble in China.

The following is a collection of many reports mostly Western sources so the accuracy is not guaranteed.

* on 26 May, police in Chengdu arrested people who witnessed them attempting to steal tents meant for earthquake-relief work; this sparked a confrontation between members of the public and the police

* on 28 June, over 10,000 people attacked government and party buildings and set fire to a police station in Weng'an county, Guizhou province; this action was related to a belief that a local high-school girl had been raped and killed by people with links to the government

* on 5 July, family members of a drowned driver in Fugu county, Shaanxi province attempted to seize the body of the deceased from police; this sparked a riot in which three police cars were smashed and seven people arrested

* on 9 July, several police officers in Yuhuan county, Zhejiang province were injured when over 1,000 migrant workers attacked their building; this was related to problems migrant workers had had in obtaining temporary residence permits in the county

* on 17 July, dozens of people were injured when members of the public clashed with the police in Boluo, Guangdong province; citizens had suspected the police of beating a motorcyclist to death

* on 19 July, rubber-plantation workers in Menglian county, Yunnan province held a protest; police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing two and injuring one.

The numbers below are amazing but may not be accurate.

How many such incidents take place in China each year? The estimate for 2007, collated by weighing a number of sources, is 80,000. But this number is hard to verify. The authorities strictly prohibit reporting on where incidents take place, their causes, the extent of casualties and the outcome of the conflicts.

The riot that took place on 28 June in Weng'an county was even more serious than the protests in Lhasa in mid-March 2008. In Weng'an, over 10,000 people directly attacked the party committee and government building, and the local police station. Images of the chaos spread quickly across the Internet.

After three or four days, however, there was a change in the climate. The Guizhou provincial party secretary Shi Zongyuan made a personal inspection tour of Weng'an and offered his views on the fundamental reasons for the unrest. His comments suggested that these went far beyond the ostensible trigger of the assault on the high-school student. Shi Zongyuan instead cited the way that the process of developing the mining industry in the area, accommodating migrants and relocating residents after their homes had been demolished had repeatedly infringed people's rights.

Shi Zongyuan apologised three times to the people of Weng'an for the situation in their county. The significance of Weng'an is that this is the first time that local officials have been the first to come under scrutiny following a "mass incident" (see Simon Elegant, "China Protests: A New Approach?", Time, 4 July 2008). After the initial riot, Hu Jintao himself - general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and state president - issued a memo on how the incident should be handled. This evidence suggests that the highest authorities were dissatisfied with the initial response to events in Weng'an at local level, and demanded an investigation into their root causes. The contrast between the immediate official reaction and what was to follow within a few days shows how the party's style of governance is evolving.

China's breakneck economic development since the mid-1980s has to a certain extent been founded on the premise that the state's monopoly on violence will protect the government and official institutions even as unfair burdens are imposed on the public. For two decades and more, Deng Xiaoping's mantra of "stability above all else" has been the highest article of faith at all levels of government. Those who protest or petition to the authorities - no matter the cause - can according in principle be accused of "breaching stability", and subject to legal repression.
The most common examples of this are the forced relocation of urban residents whose homes are to be demolished, and the appropriation of farmers' land in the countryside. The lack of any balancing power or democratic accountability has led to officials using ever cruder methods to deal with disputes. At the scene of almost all conflicts, the police tend to be out in force - as an instrument of state rather than of social protection. The use of state agencies as a tool in official hands is reflected in the way that the party secretary of Xifeng county, Liaoning province sent police to Beijing to arrest a journalist at a large newspaper who had written an article that the secretary found offensive (see Edward Cody, "Move to Arrest Journalist Sparks Backlash in China", Washington Post, 9 January 2008) . This is but one classic example of the abuse of police power with no regard for law or principle.
It is obvious that this form of governance cannot persist. Weng'an helps to show why, in three ways.

Re: # 81,
Absolutely agree with you on this. The beauty of the American system is its ability to smoothen the process of building businesses and in the long term, institutions, which the rest of the world seems yet to grasp. As long as it stays that way, the USA will remain the economic center stage as it is today.

Re: # 84,
"The "Milton Friedman model" of globalization is coming to an end."

While most of your posting is very agreeable, I would have to disagree with the above one.

Friedman's models as originally proposed did not include globalisation of capital, including the opaque places where they are held today. His model mainly dealt on fiscal responsibilities and there his model's results are there to be seen. Countries like China who have fiscal and current account surplus have been dealing with economic cycles much better than others that don't.

Re: # 86

How come my posting here (#86) was truncated?

HP#84:

"The changes in China will not be peaceful but mostly the problems would be internal. Economic progress and dictatorial style of governance cannot live together."

People have been saying this about China for a long time, but the Chinese have so far proved them wrong and may do so again. There is truth in the statement that it is difficult to control free(r) expression with the rising middle class. But the Chinese leadership recognizes this fact and have been steadily loosening up on their internal control. People are now allowed a fair amount of expression as long as they do not criticise the system itself. Let me give an example: recently, a frustrated man entered a police station and stabbed six policemen because they were corrupt and were harassing him; under Chinese laws, he would be killed and he probably will be; but what is significant is that there has been a strong Internet movement in support of the accused man saying that the man was justified as the police are indeed arbitrary and corrupt. It is commonplace these days for ordinary Chinese to vent their grievances before foreign journalists. I have no doubt that the Chinese leaders would keep opening the safety valve more and more until it gets close to where Singapore is today.

BTW, Milton Friedman did not say much about globalisation; his schtick was monetary policy; I think that he would have taken up arms against opaque instruments which have caused such havoc.

Re: # 84 ["...they had convened a Conference of leading ... bankers, and ... most of them did not know what a "derivative" was! ... [it] had gone beyond the comprehension of the players ... Similarly, ... when the sub-prime mortgages were securitized, they thought they were spreading risks and instead they were growing a crisis..."]

This reminds me of an interview in which Ron Paul claimed that several fellow members of his banking committee did not know that the US dollar was not backed by the US gold reserves. Such astounding ignorance by those in high places who, we assume know what they should know, is rather common place.

In 2003, the late BB, at a dinner hosted by a Paki doc in NJ, said of Pakistan's then somewhat healthier foreign exchange reserves that Musharraf was printing Pak Rs and buying up US dollars from the open market and thus had built up the reserves. I could not believe my ears and was dumbfounded at her utter ignorance.

...SR

Internet) are individual.

What Dost sahib terms as rote learning, I call as regimented process. Those who have been through regimented process and break into individual's space (the U.S.) indeed have disciplined and structured thinking, and if they ability to take risk and persist on it, do succeed. Institutionalized R&D does not deliver. Interestingly Cisco, and Microsoft all "acquired" small and innovative companies to build their portfolio.

This trend is beautifully captured by C.K. Prahlad in his latest book on collaborative creativity. The examples he quotes is that in the past all "large" companies went for owning patents to create barriers to entry, now companies network to create collective and unfair competitive advantage over competition. He quotes Apple's iPod and iPhone, where patents are owned by many suppliers, and not by Apple even though it created these devices. Collaborative Creativity thus creates a powerful advantage.

Fabless Semiconductor companies were the first one to master this concept. All of these efforts rely on harnessing individual creativity (=R&D), and use instutionalized resources. Hotmail founders, like many others in recent times relied on using Stanford's dorms, while others gathered in someones garage. The has been collaborative creativity. There are many more examples. India's IT industry itself is a great example of individual initiatives. There government bureaucrats did not understand it, and therefore, left it alone. Now they cannot "license raj" it any longer.

Re: # 59 ["........the aggregate tenor (not sure what that exactly means, but it sounds nice) is decided by many factors..."]

What I mean by aggregate tenor is the 'general direction of the flow' in which civilization moves, the 'resultant vector' if you want to borrow a term from mechanics, the 'net effect' of the various forces that move something.

Yes, you did list several things, but you seem to emphasize on population more than on anything else. I was not discounting population. I wanted to say that (1) the genetic make up of the population (ie skin color or XYZ) is not important... the culture and values are. And (2) that what may determine tomorrow's culture and values may have less to do with our various ancient traditions and much more to do with the consequences of things like urbanization, automation, telecommunication, pharmacology, nanotechnology and other technological intrusions upon our primitive biological apparatus.

So when Black Hussein O'Bama becomes president of the US, (or when Romair VIII, in 2104, becomes chief commissioner of the North American Union) the people of Kenya and Indonesia (or Romairistan in 2104) can feel proud all they want, but it will mean nothing, except symbolism.

What will matter in 2009 is how he (O'Bama) thinks, what he believes in and how he acts. And those things might have a lot more to do with the "software" O'Bama was loaded up with at LA, Columbia and Chicago than the Y chromosome passed on to him. His genetic endowment may count for relatively little, so the joyous pride of the scrawny Africans in BHO's remote ancestral village in Kenya may be a bit misplaced.

Nation States, as we know them today, are a relatively recent historic phenomenon. Their days are numbered just as are the days of distinct ethnicities.

The world is going to be more and more of a melting pot -- cooking haleem. And if what you are trying to say is this then I agree.

Since there is much, much more daal in this haleem than there is going to be gosht obviously it may appear that it is all daal or that daal has won out hands down. But the haleem of tomorrow might superficially appear very much like daal, yet it will not be the same. There will be a lot of texture and nutrition in it that had its origin in the gosht. But I agree, there may not be much gosht left intact.

BTW, read the following well-written article... I'm sure you'll enjoy it as it might reinforce some of your opinions.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/10/empire200610





...SR

Just 63 years ago China was in the middle of a civil war. Now China nearly leading the world's economy and holding the weight, along with Japan, of the largest currency reserves, the balance of economic power has shifted.
China is already an indispensable actor of world politics and the world economy. China, the world's second-largest economy in purchasing-power parity terms, now holds the world biggest currency reserves, amounting to $1.8 trillion. John J Mearsheimer, the US political scientist, is not alone in arguing that "the rise of China will not be peaceful".

The changes in China will not be peaceful but mostly the problems would be internal. Economic progress and dictatorial style of governance cannot live together. There are going to be clashes and some say they have already started. The whole world underwent major changes after the Bretton woods and with in 15 years of Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks most of the Asian and African countries had attained their independence. However, Bretton Woods also led to the cold war. I don’t know how to read this but the cold war era was the longest period of prosperity in the Western World. Since 1987, we have seen four financial crises already and the capitalist contractions continue.

The "Milton Friedman model" of globalization is coming to an end. The first Bretton Woods took two and a half years to prepare and was dominated by the United States. China and Japan are poised to dominate the next Bretton woods.

Professor Jagdish N. Bhagwati
University Professor Columbia University
While discussing the four economic crises since 1987 said:

“What is the common theme? In each case, the problem was that we succumbed to the euphoria that surrounds each "innovation" in financial policy or financial instruments, rather than simple "deregulation". Thus, during the Asian financial crisis, the IMF pushed for capital account convertibility, thinking it was clearly a major innovation in policymaking. But, when disaster struck even though these countries had sound fundamentals, the reason was that the banking systems were fragile and not ready to support the convertibility. No one had considered this downside. Again, when the LTCM crisis happened, a good friend of mine in the Bank for International Settlements told me that they had convened a Conference of leading central and commercial bankers, and it turned out that most of them did not know what a "derivative" was! The innovation had gone beyond the comprehension of the players and the regulators. Similarly, in the current crisis, I was told by a leading German banker that when the sub-prime mortgages were securitized, they thought they were spreading risks and instead they were growing a crisis that happened now. Besides, flexible interest rate mortgages extended massively to low-income families by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, an increase in interest rates would be fatal to these families, leading them into default: flexible rate mortgages were like poison pills that would start killing you eventually.
I often think of what Keynes once wrote to a friend once: "The inevitable never happens. It is always the unexpected". It is a typical Keynesian exaggeration; but it contains acute insight.�

Mr. Masadi: Greetings (when you rear your head on chowk, as you no doubt will at your daily allotted time). I present you the following evidence for your consideration (as the prophet said, "Fly Emirates Airlines even to China, America not being discovered as yet, in persuit of knowledge").

Once Denounced by Mao, Now at Rest in China
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: November 19, 2008
SHANGHAI — On Aug. 2, 1949, with the Communists about to seize power in Beijing, the United States recalled its ambassador to China, John Leighton Stuart, a respected missionary, educator and diplomat.

A ceremony on Monday honored John Leighton Stuart,a missionary and educator whose ashes were laid to rest at a cemetery near the eastern city of Hangzhou, China.
Mao Zedong, the insurgent Communist leader who would take power two months later, quickly denounced Mr. Stuart as a symbol of failed American imperialism. ...
But on Monday, 46 years after his death and after years of sensitive negotiations about the political implications of such a burial, Mr. Stuart’s ashes were laid to rest at a cemetery near the eastern city of Hangzhou, about two hours south of Shanghai.

A small ceremony honoring Mr. Stuart on Monday was attended by Chinese and American officials, including the mayor of Hangzhou and the United States ambassador, Clark Randt Jr., as well as several alumni of Yenching University in Beijing, the institution Mr. Stuart helped found...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/world/asia/20china.html?_r=1&h p

#80 DM: This is indeed the fundamental point. Things they teach in Kindergarten in the US, and in homes, are things that they dont teach in Harvard. And so we have PhDs in Pakistan (I dont know about India) who never permit a single original thought cross their mind...

DM sahib, it is not just the manner in which learning is offered. Take a look at Indian entreprenuers in America for example. It is also a systemic push towards capitalization and monetization of ideas. access to capital, legal protection of ideas, and avenues in which to monetize your innovation is what makes US like no other place in the world. No one even comes close and won't for a very very long time.

nkg#79:

R&D does not bring innovation. Facebook, ebay or amazon did not require R&D, they required certain spirit and mindset. The difference between India/China/Korea and the US/West is the difference between learning by rote and encouraging the spirit of exploration which is inculcated in the West beginning at the kindergarten stage. It is that difference which leads to a proliferation of computer engineers in one place and the nobel prize winners in the other.

Re: # 74
dm...
the tide is turning back...
the gap between usa and india/china is so huge now, you may not visualise the change...
with US based MNCs and their R&D centres operating in India, india should get it's own operating system, search engine etc. etc.... but english being the dominant official language in india, the r & d efforts are now shared (may be 10% in india and 90% rest) and the share of indian engineers are increasing day by day...
IT industry in india started with doing clerical work of Y2K bug fixes...within 8/9 years, what india achieved is not very bad (china may be doing very good).....
I am seeing rapid change for last 2/3 years...only area of concern is we need to have better industry-academics interface and good faculty in top engineering colleges...the engineering graduate we produce are 100% bookish....

bubba mian,

"Can someone explain, why should a country horde so much of foreign reserves anyway?"

.... it is very simple: the us is still by far the most stable system of government and business .... the rest of the world is still experimenting with all sorts of silly things like islam and socialism and nobody, except captain clueless, knows how all that is going to work out ..... it is the same reason individuals - from arab sheiks to pakistani drug dealers - put their money in dollars ........

Re: # 54
majumder....
rise of china and india was supposed to be and may be another 20/30 years, both should be in dominant position in world affairs.....only area of concern is huge population burden...india is housing at least 20 crores extra people...
otherwise...

Re: # 73

DM / hamid mian,


"Indeed, China may have already begun to do so by announcing a $586 billion stimulus plan of public investment in housing, transportation, and infrastructure. If China plows its trade surplus back into its domestic economy, it will increase demand for imports and put upward pressure on the yuan, reducing China's trade surplus with the West."

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=16872fed-798c-476b-a6c4 -303923cd6388&p=6

Some of my thoughts are expressed in this long article.

arjun#55;

"now it turns out that the KSE has effectively been closed for more than 80 days..."

Closed for more than 80 days and you are telling us now? You must be asleep on the job.:)

majumdar#54:

I agree with your post. The west will continue to lead for some decades. The US, in particular, will continue to be the top dog as long as it retains its capacity to innovate and attract the best possible talents from the rest of the world. India has not developed a Yahoo or an Amazon or a Youtube or Google despite probably having more computer scientists and engineers than anywhere else.

bubba#53:

The article you referred to is no longer available on the net.

You may be right that China may have to increase the $400B expenditure. My question is how much of it would require imports from the US and other countries, because that would be the amount by which China's foreign reserves will come down?

"Can someone explain, why should a country horde so much of foreign reserves anyway?"

I do not think that it was a deliberate Chinese policy to horde this much of reserves. The policy is one of exports-led growth by keeping the value of the Chinese currency low to encourage exports, foreign exchange accumulation is the consequence of that export-support policy. South Koreans and other Asian tigers followed a similar policy earlier.

delhiwala#44:

The US is indeed at the top of the vortex, but it is no longer in a position to call all the shots and has to share the limelight with others. Even in a military sense, it needs the help of others, and fortunately so, otherwise it would have opened another battle front in Iran by now.

One of the major problems facing world commerce now is the piracy of merchant ships; of the G8, only US and Russia have the naval strength to curb this menace. Indian navy, in particular, will be important in guarding the sea lanes of the Indian ocean.

beywakoof bulleya,

... calm down and let's take one thing at a time ..... first let me assure you that we HAVE won the war in iraq even though it took us longer than it should have and there were many mistakes made along the way ..... a dictator has been removed and the the first democracy in the arab world is taking shape ..... as long as obama doesn't do anything stupid like pulling out the troops too quickly, iraq will be just fine with a few american bases like qatar, bahrain, kuwait, uae and ksa ...... for now american presence is essential to keep the bedouins from killing each other and disrupting the world's oil supplies .......

.... your logic on demographics is totally stupid - india and china had huge populations for centuries and didn't do diddly and both of them got their brown and yellow butts whopped by a tiny population living on a tiny island ..... quantity is no substitute for quality ........

..... and please stop embarassing us pakis in front of these horrible hindoos .....

Re: # 69
bull...
you mean to say, Jinnah was representing deprived section of indian society? or he was representing deprived regions of india (east and west)? or he was representing regional identity?

majumdar #: "Could we have let's say an American Jinnah as well who will one day get up and make a speech that Canada was two nations ever since the first Muslim sailed into NYC?"

that speech has already been made in canada......from quebec........however, unlike nehru, the candian leadership agreed to accomodate quebec as an equal but separate entity in the canadian state......

that is, actually, what jinnah wanted, as well.......unfortunately, he was too far ahead of his times.....for others to grasp his ideas.....

i think most people in usa know they are better off in usa than outside.......however, if the size of the pie shrinks significantly, and one group ends up with a major chunk of it, then you may hear such speeches.....

much like what we heard, when india demanded indepdence from the british.......

Now G20 should include GCC and China, until Brazil and Argentina finds huge oil reserve....

Re: # 34
hamidm2...
so the beduine follwers were doing good work (in human sense) and only recently they are lagging to indians!!!!....LOL....
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=z53K4d6ncNk

Re: # 13
treetop...
"history..."
oh realy!!!!!!!!!

Re: # 47
HP...
Job situation in India is not very good. But IT sector is still growing. We have recruited normal number of people from College Campus. There is no employement freeze ( at least in large corporates. Some small companies are winding up operation). The off campus recruitement will be very less this time. I am not seeing massive retrenchment currently. It is clear that, unless and until asian countries grow rapidly, future is not very bright....

Re: # 47
HP...
yeh, India is passing through very bad time....
I think the intentions of the IAF was clear. To compete with F-15s not with F-22s and other stuff. But USAF thought Indians are trying to match with them. Kind of communication gap.

Regarding recession, it will recover very soon (6 months to 1 year in india). Even japan is facing recession...

Sorry, make that "America was two nations"

Regards

Romair,

#61

but someone who comes up due to large immigrant populations in canada.....

Could we have let's say an American Jinnah as well who will one day get up and make a speech that Canada was two nations ever since the first Muslim sailed into NYC?

Regards

majumdar #: ...yes it could happen......i think canada could have a south asian prime minister, soon......not someone like bobby jindal who is popular as a politician.....but someone who comes up due to large immigrant populations in canada.....

following are some statistics from buchanan's book:

"Relying upon the most recent UN population studies, Buchanan declares:

By 2050, only 10% of the world’s people will be of European descent. ( We know it is less. He can't admit the facts.) One third of Europe’s people will be over 60, and one-in-ten over 80. Involuntary euthanasia has already come to Europe.

Between now and 2050, Asia, Africa, and Latin America will grow by three to four billion people -- 30 to 40 new Mexicos! -- as Europe will lose the equivalent of the entire population of Germany, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

By 2050, 23 million Germans will have disappeared along with 16 million Italians and 30 million Russians.

Russia will lose Siberia and the far east to China and be pushed out of the Caucuses and Central Asia, where Islamic populations are exploding while Russia’s is dying.

Either Europe must effect a radical cutback in pensions and health care for seniors, or Europe must import scores of millions of Arabs and Africans to care for the elderly and pay the taxes to sustain their welfare states.

The 4.2 million Palestinians in Israel and on the West Bank and Gaza will explode to 9 million by 2025, and 15 million by 2050, when Palestinians will outnumber Israel’s Jewish population two-to-one. .....

The Islamic invasions of Spain and France in the eighth century, and of the Balkans and Central Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries, will be reenacted in the lifetime of most of those now living. Islam has already surpassed Catholicism as the largest religion on Earth.

It is the Christian nations—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—that have begun to die. In a chapter titled, “Where Have All the Children Gone?� Buchanan explains why, and why it is unlikely the West can solve the demographic crisis before it leads to The Death of the West."

...people may want to read the following two books:

- The Death of the West - How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (by Pat Buchanan)

- The Vanishing American Jew - In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next American Century (by Allen Dershowitz)

...not two of my favorite people.....in fact, i oppose most of their politics.....however, they make very interesting points in their books.......and they come from the opposite side of the int'l liberal anti-usa thought processes......they seem to raising as warnings, what i am highlighting as mere statistical facts......

Romair,

Re: 58

One interesting corollary is that Britian could have an Indian majority and may vote for becoming a part of the Indian Commonwealth and then (future) Indian Kiplings may speak of Britain as the "Jewel in the Indian taj"

Regards

dost-mittar #: "While demographic changes are undoubtedly very important in the long run, just like glaciers......Quebec has already reversed its declining birth rates....While Canada and the US have a long-standing immigration culture"

.....there is nothing more important than demographics in the long run.....this does not mean that the countries with the highest populations will dominate......however, there is a bare minimum population needed to grow a country, even if it is industrially advanced......

......it is very difficult to overturn the recent population declines of nations.....western govts. have given all types of benefits for having kids, but it is not working.....forcing someone to have extra children is the most difficult thing in the world.......

.......jews are the first on the list of going extinct.......by extinct i don't mean down to zero....but down to a number where they, there culture etc. becomes insignificant in the giant ocean of humanity......much like the parsis have become.....

however, even jews (a religion) have been unable to reverse this trend.....

.....how will japan grow and compete when there will be one working person supporting four retired people?......

the westrern countries with decling populations will have to turn into something like uae........where the local population is only 13%, but owns all the assets......it brings in its workers from abroad (mostly south asians, to the point that hindi/urdu/tamil are the spoken languages in uae; much more than arabic).......

......so where will the manpower come from......china, as you said has stablized.....it will have to come from south asia and africa.....(and probably some from china also, as it still has a huge population).......

...there were 12 punjabis in the canadian parliament.....a punjabi reached the second or third highest position in govt......a punjabi is attending the g-20 summit.......

sooner or later (sooner rather than later), this mass of humanity is going to spread all over the world, as its working class.....the aging western world will have no choice but to absorb it, as it will need it for its survival......much like it needs hamidm mian and urstruly......

you may, one day, find out that 10 out of the g-20 nations are represented by ethnically south asian and african heads, who have been elected by the large south asian and african populations in those countries.......

and one fine day spanish may become the national language of usa, along with english.....with an equal number speaking spanish and english....

hamidm mian #: "romair mian,..... read SR's post to understand why you are making a fool out of yourself (again) ....."

you said the same thing to me, when you tried to explain how w was going to change the world and tame the islamic man.....i disagreed......

then you told me that iraq would be a huge success and there would be monuments dedicated to rush limbaugh and richard pearle in baghdad....i disagreed.......

the the dashing american colonel in a cowboy hat was to rule over afghanistan and make it safe for unocol again.....as per your claims, again......i disagreed........

then you tried to explain how suppport for gwot was going to make pakistan safe for citibank......i disagreed........now your sister who used to slap talibans in islamabad a few years ago, is thinking of migrating out to dearborn....

....then mccain was going to come and save the day......w being discarded......i disagreed again......

then you thought i was a fool for moving to canada.....i disagreed.....

we have had these discussions for so long that i cannot even laugh at what you say anymore........(there was a time when you were funny becasue you actually wanted to be funny).......

take a look around you hamidm mian.......

the usa is asking arab sheikhs, chinese and anyone else to save itself......none of whom are ready to throw a dinar its way.....it is begging sadr to negotiate in iraq and mullah umar to negotiate in afghanistan......its best and brightest investment bankers are out on the street.......

now it is up to a half-muslim president to fix it!!......exactly the opposite of w and mccain.....

and pretty soon when the auto industry collapses, you may also think about migrating to ontario (which by the way makes more cars now than michigan, and has the most stable banking system in the world).......

so, you may want to quite while you are behind.......before you get further behind......you are starting to sound like the iraqi general on saturday night live who keeps saying all is well......

SR #: "Let's be under no illusions that the preponderance of one ethnicity over another is what will determine the aggregate tenor of human society. Human bodies are just the hardware. The software is the culture and values. Skin color and other genetic features are secondary."

.....the aggregate tenor (not sure what that exactly means, but it sounds nice) is decided by many factors......i listed some of them.....this is what i meant when i said that progress, technology etc. tends to rotate amongst societies and ethnicities.....

the arabs maybe ruling the world again in a few centuries; or the nigerians or indians......etc........whomever has superior culture and values will rule.......

however, there is one factor that is even more important....and that is the hardware.....the human bodies......it is impossible to rule the world, if you don't have any people......

people, by themselves, are not the deciding factor......but a certain ratio of them, definitely is......specially when technology starts to become ubiquous......

the world is in a strange situation today, demographically.......for the first time, massive populations are starting to decrease; not due to famine or war......but voluntarily......

and for the first time, the population of the world is to peak in 2070 or so and then decrease......

there is no historic example of any country (that i know of) whose domination of economics increased as its population decreased......

when the isreali, japanese etc. researchers are, themselves, highlighting the massive dangers of these phenomenons.......i am surprised others aren't looking at it.......

and it is not glacial......it is rapid.......within decades......

the skin color, ethnicity, and even religion still define mankind more than anything else......just take a look at burraq hussain.......black, closet muslim and half kenyan is what has made him such an object of attention......otherwise he is just another american elect president.......

...i am not trying to gloat over the death of the white man.....i am, actually quite impressed with the achievements of the white man (especially the white jewish man)......

i am, simply, stating that g-8s and g20s etc. are a short term phenomenon......they will change the world for a decade or three.......

but long term outlook of the world will not be formed, simply, by the national boundaries of present-day nations (g-8s etc.).......the will be formed by the massive migrations of a few ethnicities (primarily south asian and african and perhpas chinese and latin in usa) all over the world........

barring russia, there are far more punjabis, alone, than the population of any country in europe......what to talk of any ethnicity.....and within a decade or so, there will be more punjabis than russians also......

now, we can assume that these punjabis will continue to sit in the squalor you have mentioned, for ever.........or, perhaps, one fine day they will see the light and progress......what happens then......

demographics and not technology and culture etc. will decide the future of the world, in my opinion.......i feel, eventually, as i feel technology etc. will be everywhere.....

(why are china and india important........the average indian is still dirt poor.....far far poorer than the average mexican, what to talk of the average american......his human development is lower than that of a palestinian.....it is the gigantic size of their populations that has made them important.....if india had a population the size of canada - 31 million -, with the same amount of poverty, i doubt anyone would even mention the place, anywhere)........

remember when pakis told us the KSE was the "BEST PERFORMING STOCK EXCHANGE IN THE WORLD!!" and then we told them that didn't mean diddly squat..

now it turns out that the KSE has effectively been closed for more than 80 days...

KSE: confounding the confusion



By Dilawar Hussain


KARACHI, Nov 18: With the ‘floor’ securely in place, the problems at the Karachi Stock Exchange are multiplying by the day.

Following the count of 82 days of closure, the longest ever in the history of stock exchanges anywhere in the world, most market participants and insiders of the regulating bodies admit that the situation has come to such a pass that it looks neither safe to remove the ‘floor’, nor to keep it intact.

A person in high place, on condition of anonymity says: “It is damned if we do and damned if we don’t�.

The stock brokers stand clearly divided on the issue. If the ready market provides no indication of the investor sentiments, the off-market transactions are a clear reflection of the lack of confidence.

On Tuesday, in the ready market only five shares were traded with the historic low volume of 19,660 shares. Many times more shares change hands in the off-market.

But the prices they fetch are staggeringly low. Recently MCB was traded at 55 per cent discount to the floor price. If that was incredible, a small volume in blue chip stock PSO went for as deeper discount as 60 per cent.

A responsible person, who also asked not to be named, said that from Aug to date, 20 top scrips had traded in off market at 15 to 17 per cent below the floor price. But he conceded that in the last one week, the gap had widened up to 20-25 per cent.

He tried to assuage concerns saying that both MCB and PSO had gone that cheap since they were held by two foreign hedge funds that were going into liquidation and had no choice but ‘force sale’ their relatively small holdings.In Islamabad, there was little concern, if at all about the fate of KSE. The responsible person there harped on the old tune of receipt of IMF funds.

When pointed out that Shaukat Tarin, the top finance adviser, had categorically stated that none of that money would be used to bail out the brokers; the responsible man fell silent and after a while murmured that the proposed Rs20 billion market stabilisation fund was awaited.

DM sahib,

The Western world will continue to dominate the world economically, politically, technologically and militarily for decades to come, they are that far ahead and they have institutions to uphold their strengths.

But then it is equally true that countries like China, India et al are growing faster than the West and if not for any other reason but simple mathematics their total share in the world's wealth and influence will increase, but slowly. Faster in case of China, slower for India, Brazil et al. Who would have thought a decade back that China's scramble for metals would create such a huge commodity price boom or that China and India would be blamed (rightly or wrongly) for rising world food prices.

Regards

Re: # 43

No, DM, the USD 400B is just a start. As we all know, countries which has good bureaucratic system like China does, these domestic development projects could just mushroom to more than double the forecasted amount. As for their exports, here is what today's NY Times says.

Facing a Slowdown, China’s Auto Industry Presses for a Bailout From Beijing

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/business/worldbusiness/19chinaa uto.html?_r=1

It seems that this is just the beginning. Hoping that the chinese will be forced to spend out all of their foreign reserves.

Can someone explain, why should a country horde so much of foreign reserves anyway?

Hamid mian, it is not that the chinese are stupid. I just think that the anglo-saxons are just better. Just keep an eye in Africa, and see how the anglo-saxon gets the big chunk of the minerals in DR Congo, and that foresaken place called Zimbabwe.

OK, why do they have to keep a big foreign exchange reserve? Can you explain?

Re: # 40

bubba mian,

... sounds like a plan but i think the chinese are not as stupid as they appear to be ....... we tried to sell them this stuff in 2007 and they bought over 200B worth of us mortgage based securities ........ here is a news report from july 2007 :

HONG KONG - While China is eager to invest a portion of its US$1.33 trillion foreign-exchange reserve overseas, it is unlikely to take a chance on buying additional US mortgage-backed securities (MBS) as they are now considered too risky, Chinese economists said.

During a recent trip to Beijing, US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Alphonso Jackson tried to sell China on the idea of buying more MBS. Investing in MBS offers better returns for China than US Treasury bonds, and at the same level of risk, Jackson claimed.

He called it a "win-win" situation in a statement released prior to his Beijing trip. "China has bought some mortgage-backed securities from us, but not in great numbers," Jackson said.

China held $414 billion in US Treasury bonds as of April, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And according to HUD's website, as of June 2006, China held $107.5 billion in MBS, up from $3 billion in 2003 and $100 million in 2002. Jackson was particularly keen to persuade China's central bank to buy more securities from the Government National Mortgage Association (known colloquially as Ginnie Mae), a mortgage association under HUD.

................ good try, but no cigar

while osama recruits from paki b-schools(bomb making schools)..

IIMB grads bag hot job offers
DH News Service, Bangalore:
Despite the global slowdown and job losses, 268 students of the first year Post Graduate Programme 2008-10 batch at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) were placed on day one of Slot Two of the summer placement process.


As many as 56 new firms flocked IIMB for summer placements while 85 students chose to intern abroad.
Overall 24 per cent of the batch accepted positions in consulting which is known for its demand for multi-functional skills, cutting across finance, strategy and marketing. McKinsey and Co was the single largest recruiter among consulting firms, inducting five IIMB students. Investment banks like Goldman Sachs and HSBC made IIMB their most preferred campus by taking the highest number of students.

International firms

Some of the global recruiters were leading multinationals like Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co, Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Freudenberg and Bank Muscat.

International firms like Booz & Co, Oliver Wyman, Result, Alvarez & Marshal, Bank Muscat, UAE Exchange and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure visited IIMB for the first time bringing diversity to the list of recruiters both in profiles and geographies on offer.

Arthur D Little, Bank Muscat and UAE Exchange International offered positions in Dubai and West Asia. Private equity firms like ChrysCapital, Greater Pacific Capital, Zephyr Peacock and Temasek Holdings that recruit for highly specialised positions have also hired IIMB students.

McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co hired the largest number of interns from IIMB.
The grim situation in the financial sector has not waned the interest of IIM grads in this area as 45 per cent of the batch has been placed in financial services.

Major investment banks which hired interns were from West Asia: banking major Bank Muscat hired five students for investment banking.

Talking about the dip in the financial firms, as compared to the previous year, Sourav Mukherjee, Chairperson, Placement Cell, IIMB said: “There is no denying that the conditions are not so good, but 56 new firms visited IIMB mainly because of the students’ efforts. Due to the prevailing conditions, the placement offers were planned well for the larger good. Students preferred the finance sector and chose to intern abroad due to the challenging market situation and learning experience�.

Aditya Gupta, Placement Committee Member, IIMB, said students opted for summer internship at investment banks despite the economic slowdown as this would be a tremendous learning experience for them.
International offers

About 85 students from IIMB took up international offers and the number of Slot Zero (day one) offers itself was 121, the highest across all IIMs. Over 45 per cent women were placed in Slot Zero firms. About 21 per cent of women were placed in consulting, while 25 per cent women chose investment banking roles for their summer internship.

BTW: Growth in India is projected to drop to 6.8 %...yup..that's more than the real grown rate when pakiland cooked the books to report 8.4%

#47 Posted by HP on November 18, 2008 3:27:57 pm

if you really believe that, the PAF should be able to waltz into indian airspace and liberate kashmir, right?

gee..i wonder why they're not doing that...what with kashmir being your jugular vein and india shutting off the waters of the chenab?

HP #47: Tell arjun about the time our fearless General Niazi forced the cowardly Indians to surrender to him in Dhaka! Also, how he then forced the Indians to provide food and lodging to his Eastern Command for two years, until Indira Gandhi came begging to our Prime Minister Bhutto to withdraw General Niazi's Eastern Command back to Pakistan. That will put him in his place!!

Can we discuss recession in India...How many jobs are going to be cut...H1b types now wouldn't find jobs in India either....

"New Delhi, November 10 : In what could prove to be a major embarrassment for the Indian establishment, an assessment by a US Air Force (USAF) pilot who participated in the Red Flag joint exercise in Nevada in August claims that the SU 30 MKI, India’s most modern aircraft, performed poorly in comparison with its US counterparts. The Su 30 MKI was outshone by US Air Force pilots and lost in one on one aerial combat with the older generation F 15 fighters, the review which was put up on a video sharing website last week, claims.

While the USAF officer in the video has not been identified, he appears to be a combat pilot of the rank of Colonel. He says that the Indian pilots suffered from a high fratricide rate, the term used for friendly kills, and had problems with the Sukhoi engines that were vulnerable to foreign object damage.

However, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said that the Sukhoi’s held their own against Ace Pilots of the USAF and Maintained a High Serviceability Rate throughout the Exercise. For the Record, the IAF has not Commented on the Outcome of the Red Flag Exercise. “Our Pilots were Functioning on a Stand-Alone basis while the USAF pilots were Part of a Network and were getting Inputs on Navigation, Target Information and Enemy Details. We were Getting all our Inputs Manually and were Fighting Fit even against All these Odds,� a Top IAF Officer said.

The USAF pilot says that the much touted thrust vectoring system of the Su 30 MKI’s, which gives the fighter a high degree of agility in close aerial combat was also beaten by F 15 pilots who used their combat experience with the F 22 Raptors to find a flaw in the Indian fighter. Explaining the manoeuver in detail, the pilot says that the USAF tapped a vulnerability in the thrust vectoring system but the Indian Pilots would soon find a way of rectifying the flaw.

Senior IAF Officers however say that SU 30 MKI pilots were More than a Match for their US counterparts and were Fighting against all Odds Even when the French team was Grounded for most of the Time during the Exercise. "


That is news!

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bubba:

correction: $400B.

uhmm...
I think that your assessment of America not being the vortex of World Economy is not correct(wrt to BRIC).

USA still controls the capital markets, military muscle and policies of the world.

Despite the fact the Japan has been number #2 in economy for the last 25 years what have they been able to influence in the world?

China, India, Brazil, Russia do not have the collective of a sound Capital Market, Real Estate, Consumer Spending and the social structure to get ahead of America.

USA is where it is today because of the progression of thought, resources, industrial bases combined with the cultural values backed by Military might. There is no one in World currently that can displace America from its position.

Last couple of times a change of World Order happened it was preceded by World Wars - not by Developing Economies or Capital Markets.

That is the bottom line. Jiske lathi uski bhaince.

It is so appropriate and logical howcome every other analyst forget this....beyond me.

bubba#41:

I don't think that the Chinese expansion of the domestic economy will reduce their foreign holdings by $40B; how much it will reduce will depend upon the import content of their domestic expenditure.

Re: # 8

Chalta / Romair:

Human kind will look for new frontiers. Only people who will obsolete themselves are Mian Masadi ji types. They will keep peddling the past, and refuse to learn new ways and new rules the new frontiers will demand. But then there have always been such people and will always be such people.

delhiwala#39:

This is mainly a descriptive article describing what is happening currently, with a little bit prognosis for the future. If globalisation is to be affected, it will be because of the global financial crisis which may restrict global money movements and not because of the weakening of G8 vis-a-vis other countries.

Hamid mian,

what do you say? about my thesis, that G.W.'s financial war with China, is right on the money. At least the chinese have to unload some of those USD 2T from their foreign reserves, albeit on their own economy. it seems that within the next 6 months into the next administration, we could see some more of unloading of their foreign reserves.

if the us tighten a little more, we could sell some high appraised valued foreclosed real estates in california, las vegas, and florida, to the chinese as well. at least our cities and counties could maintain their tax base, and educate our school children.

what say you?

DM Sir,
I read and then re-read this article and I find that everything you say in it is correct. However forgive me for asking a Green Question.
What is your pitch to this article? Are you saying that G-8 is rip-off to the World or G8 is itself ripped?
Also are you trying insinuate Globalisation with G8 in some?

DM Sir,
I read and then re-read this article and I find that everything you say in it is correct. However forgive me for asking a Green Question.
What is your pitch to this article? Are you saying that G-8 is rip-off to the World or G8 is itself ripped?
Also are you trying insinuate Globalisation with G8 in some?

Re: # 36

hp,

.... i hear you but you can't blame them for getting a little excited and wetting their dhotis when every business magazine you pick up has one or other of their companies featured in a big way ...... besides, they also own citibank, pepsico and control the 700B bailout package ... just wait till bobby jindal gets elected in 2012 - these hindoos will be impossible to live with !

"I just googled G20 and got 16,300,000 hits. "

It just means Google has as many records. Considering that there are over 10 Million publications(Net+papers+TV) in the world that is nothing. It does not mean that 16,300,000 people searched for it.

Hamid, buy Gold....I love to see India there but when grown ups act like 16 years, I just like to point that out. The only reason for this article was what I wrote in my posts.

Re: # 34

page 83 of this week's the economist ..........

Re: # 32

hp mian,

... look, you shouldn't deny our hindoo friends the pleasure of thinking that they have finally 'made it' ..... and by the hair on the prophet's chinny chin chin, they do look a lot better than us pathetic paki who, inspite of our good looks, just can't seem to do anything right now days ...... let's not forget that they recently landed on the moon - that is a big leap from the railroad tracks ....

p.s. on a serious note, it is quite a turn of events when a right wing rag like the economist asks the question "can china saves the world ?" ........ it seems that they are hoping that china's 400B dollar stimulus package will create jobs in preoria and detroit !

HP:

"No one paid attention to G20."


You must be reading/viewing different media that I. BTW, I just googled G20 and got 16,300,000 hits.

"The chief legacy of the meeting, however, is that it took place at all and the fact that the leaders agreed to meet again in April next year when Barack Obama will be the President of the USA. The G-8 meeting will take place in Italy next year as scheduled but all eyes will be on the April meeting of G-20."

When it was not important last week how it is going to be important next year?
The article was written only because India was in G20 there was no other purpose. No one paid attention to G20.

HP:

...and I did use a question mark after RIP. So, I gave myself some room for uncertainty.

HP#28

Yes, I did say that but I also said that the very fact that the meeting took place is of great importance. I would add this: what form G20 will take and whether or not it will succeed is too early to tell. However, the calling of the meeting itself shows the inadequacy of G8. My response to cobra (#21) also elaborates my thinking.

G-20 meet did not achieve much, and one cannot expect a hodge podge of nations to produce any result oriented meeting either (just like that failed money sucking body called UN). Bush had to call G-20 at Europe's insistance. Developing countries which are members of the G-20 have much smaller economies and have neither the experience nor the vision to deal with a global crisis. They are just happy to be invited.

"The meeting took place in Washington during the last weekend. It was hailed as a great success by all participants, despite the fact that it lasted only a couple of hours and produced very little. There were some feel good statements about the member countries cooperating and coordinating their programs and policies to pursue expansionary domestic policies to lift the world out of its current recession and prevent it from turning into a depression."

You wrote that not me. G20 has no importance it was just ridiculous to declare G8 dead after a two hours meeting where only Bush spoke. Admit it!

SR#18:

Good post.

"I have seen the rural, peri-urban and urban slums landscape at some length and I am absolutely sick to my stomach at the abomination, the squalor, the crushing burden of disease and malaise, the cruelty, the injustice and the worthlessness of human life. We are sitting on the mouth of many volcanic eruptions. Rampant epidemics of MDR-TB, polio, hepatitis, dengue, HIV and a host of enteric diseases are imminent and ongoing calamities that surround our polluted and water starved environment."

This is even more true of India - yet India is much more optimistic about her future. Pakistan's curse (and boon) is its geopolitical location; let's hope that Obama will have sensible policies which will help Pakistan extricate itself from the Afghanistan mess. The new emphasis by the US on economic as against military aid may be a pointer of things to come.

HP#16:

Let's take India out of this group and call it G-19. Happy?

jang#10:

"oye yar amrika passes gas and the bric are shyting bricks."

No one is denying the importance of America. But the fact that a unilateral president such as Bush had to call such a meeting after eight years in office cannot be overemphasized.

Rumour has it that Bush was eating crow as main entree and humble pie as dessert.

Kamath#9:

Yes, countries of G8, or at least some of them will continue to be very important and the US will remain the head honcho for quite some time to come. As for the institution, other countries can develop them too; for example, South Korea has developed some pretty strong institutions in the last three decades and even China is gradually developing these institutions. However, as a group, G8 is no longer the rising sun.

bulleya#2:

While demographic changes are undoubtedly very important in the long run, just like glaciers, one cannot always use linear trends to project the past into the future. China had the same population growth rate as other developing countries at one time and, with its one-child policy, is now close to a stable population. In India, total fertility rates in some of the southern states in India are already approaching stable population rates. Quebec has already reversed its declining birth rates and there is no reason to believe that the same cannot happen in other countries if the societies decide that it was crucial for self-preservation. While Canada and the US have a long-standing immigration culture, this is not true of European countries and some of them may soon decide the close the floodgates of immigration.

since guys are going wild looking at cyclic rise and fall etc. with little attention to current situation, let us also look at the mongol who overran the cheeni, the korean, the kwarizimi, and the baghdadi.

and he had more horses than men in any age group. so moral of the story is its not how many men you have, its the number of saddles.

cobra#1:

Yes, the meeting did not produce anything of significance. But the very fact that Bush was forced to call it is significant. The reason is simple. If G8 was to be formed today, it wouldn't have the same membership. China would be the second most important country in such a grouping now. Saudi Arabia will be important as long as the world is dependent upon petroleum; China is sitting over two trillion dollars of reserves and can destabilize the global financial system by itself. China and India are increasingly important when it comes to the demand for oil and other commodities as also for the solution to solving the environment-related problems. G8 is passé.

HP: Actually G-8 is out, G-20 is in. Indeed, the only guy with a fat checkbook in the G-20 meetings was...the Chinaman. George Bush came to the meetings with a hole in his shoe (joke) and had to borrow money from the Chinese to pay the cab fare back to his home (second joke, i am trying to ape Hamidm the Comedian).

But seriously, this is a simple recognition of the reality that developing countries are increasing their share of the GDP, and thus the world is fast moving in the direction of the pre-Industrial Age situation whereby India and China were among the largest economies of the world, and Europe was a piddly little peninsula clinging to one edge of the known world.

Re: # 15

romair mian,

..... read SR's post to understand why you are making a fool out of yourself (again) ..... you remind me of all my mentally handicapped cousins in the army who read something on the internet and then go on to extrapolate it into a wild theory ..... i know it is hard to get rid of the airman training that you received at kohat, but please stop making us pakis look bad in front of the horrible hindoos on this forum ...... i cringe everytime you open your big mouth ........ think!

chal oay bulleya o-thay chali-A jithay saa-ray un-nay
na koi saadi zaat pecha-nay, tay na koi saa-nu munay...

Let's be under no illusions that the preponderance of one ethnicity over another is what will determine the aggregate tenor of human society. Human bodies are just the hardware. The software is the culture and values. Skin color and other genetic features are secondary.

Someone pointed out that MUTTS will inherit the earth. I totally agree. SO this issue that you raise about ethnicities is moot. The important issue is what value system or ideologies will prevail. It appears to me that whatever tomorrow's global culture turns out to be, it will be quite different from anything we have today. Science and technology will, somehow, play an integral role in shaping tomorrow's culture.

I would not gloat over the demise of the Jap or the European. Such demographic variations are no more significant than the ossilations in the relative populations of the dark vs light peppered moths of the British Midlands during the Industrial Revolution that your high school biology used to quote as an example of Darwinian Selection. Be they pigmented or not, moths are still moths and they'll still inhabit the lichen covered trees.

Your point about the Japs having 1 in 4 people 65+ while 13% children DOES NOT, lead to the conclusion that the Japs will disappear from the face of the Earth.

In Pakistan, by contrast we have only 11% 50 plus, and only 4% 65 plus. Over 59% are 24 and under, of which 19 and under are 48% (of total)... Productive age (25 to 64) are hardly 37% ...

This demographic profile is by far more hazardous for the future than the Jap's or the Euros'...

From what I have seen in the last year and a half, the future of the vast majority living in what is presently called Pakistan is, to put it very mildly, B-L-E-A-K.

I have seen the rural, peri-urban and urban slums landscape at some length and I am absolutely sick to my stomach at the abomination, the squalor, the crushing burden of disease and malaise, the cruelty, the injustice and the worthlessness of human life. We are sitting on the mouth of many volcanic eruptions. Rampant epidemics of MDR-TB, polio, hepatitis, dengue, HIV and a host of enteric diseases are imminent and ongoing calamities that surround our polluted and water starved environment.

I also meet designer attired bankers, politicians and businessmen in Lahore and Islamabad and at their cocaine snorting cocktail parties and hear their grotesquely decked up porky begumaat asking, in the wee hours of the night, why those poor slum dwelling bastards don't eat cake when atta is in short supply.

This, my dear brother, can not -- should not -- and will not go on indefinitely.

...SR

Since India is IN G20,

G8 RIP is just ridiculous. They met for 2 hours and after Bush's speech there was nothing to discus. Yes, changes are coming but they will be decided by the G8.

Since India is G20, it is more important than G8...I don't know which world Indians live in. Tolkin posted a video on UP everyone should watch that to see the correct state on Indian mind!

The proportion of children in the population fell to an all-time low of 13.5 percent. That number has been falling for 34 straight years and is the lowest among 31 major countries.....

Japan also has a surfeit of the elderly. About 22 percent of the population is 65 or older, the highest proportion in the world. And that number is on the rise. By 2020, the elderly will outnumber children by nearly 3 to 1, the government report predicted. By 2040, they will outnumber them by nearly 4 to 1.

The numbers tell the story. Almost a quarter of Japan's population is 65 and older; only 13.5 percent are children. The inescapable conclusion is that there will soon not be enough Japanese to keep Japan functioning as a nation, society, and culture. (Washington post)

..........

Orthodox Rabbi Norman Lamm, who raised the question in a recent speech in Milwaukee, admits that world population control is a "moral imperative," but maintains that it must be balanced by a concern for survival of all human groups. "Jews are a disappearing species," he says, "and should be treated no worse than the kangaroo and the bald eagle." Time Magazine

.........

Actually, not really romario...India even at it's height of having a quater of global trade was not a wealthy country. India was rich, but Indians were poor. Same goes for China.

actually, I don;t agree that one needs people to survive. It is not that some people have started to disappear, it is that they are becoming diluted. The largest growing segment of population in amreeka and the west is not indian or chinese or arab....it is the MUTTS. The MUTTS shall inherit the earth.


Middle ages is a poor example because the standard of living of the avgt person in europe was not much different from that of one in arabia or india or china. In the modern times there has been tremendous disparity between the west and the east or north and the south.

It still doesn't answer what will humans do. Say in 50 years, robots and mahines produce everything we need, computers make service jobs obsolete, automation makes us redundant. What will you do?

I will give you a hint...look at the growth in the share of the Financial Services industry over the last 50 years then think Vegas.

Re: # 11
history does not run into cycles like hindu mythalogy.

gentlemen you are not looking at this crisis with an appropriate perspective....it simply put is a neccasary
correction on a grand scale....in my crystal ball iam seeing
a well balanced and robust growth worldwide.

chaltahai#: "what will human do to create wealth when automation makes them obsolete? I have some ideas...but eagerly await the intellectuals to offer up their views...."

....technological progress, prosperity, progressive ideas etc. tend to rotate around the world.....europe was in the dark ages, and it entered into enlightment......prior to that arabs produced the biggest scientific names in the world and went into darkness.....china has been a world power quite often, historically......south asia has been the richest region(s) of the world......

these things rotate....

complete states disappear from the map, which were at one time powers.......

however, what does not change is demographics......one needs people to survive.....eventually, it will be the number of people which will decide who ends up where......

technology will, eventually, be ubiquous.....

some groups have started to disappear ......jews, russians and japanese being at the top of the list (not that i have anything against them).....the caucasian man has started to also..

....pretty soon, the only thing left in the western world will be second-hand brown guys like hamidm mian, procreating the white man out of his land......much like what the white man did to others.......in fact, they may even take the caucasian man down, before his time.......

trust me, the world will be brown and yellow in the future.....as will g-8s and g-20.......economic changes occur faster than demographic ones, but demographic changes are permanent......

oye yar amrika passes gas and the bric are shyting bricks. commodity price-collapse will kill brazil and russia, india needs to build railroads for 60% of its population to shyte on and cheen is running out of people to lay-off.

i think germany and other EU countries will attempt to throw out all the "immigrants" in next 4 years as a part of economic and security policies.

Dosti Mittar: Just a thought!

I do not believe that G-8 is "RIP". They still have clout for the simple reason that they have highly functioning laws and organization, stable state machinery, economic base, tradition, scientific and technological strength, a very good democratic philosophy life etc. Russia -a bit an exception -was admitted simply for the reason to prevent it from becoming a trouble maker if left out! Everybody knows its temper tantrum !

The leaders of these nations never seem to have read history books. They were arrogant ,at times invain, ignorant and displayed too much hubris. They never thjoght that techtonic plates in global geopolitical scene have been shifting all the time in all history.

So now have been forced admit that one has to eat humble pie. Yet I believe, BRIC have a long way to go to exercise their role as major global powers. Take India's case. It is too poor to exercise its clout globally and too populous to be ignored by others. Shalom!
Kamath

Romario, Growth and more importantly wealth creation is not just about manpower.if that was the case, you would have india and china growing at 2% a year and be wealthy countries with indonesia, egypt, pakistan holding up the rear.

It is about innovation. Human intervention in production is getting less and less as we innovate. From products to services (that's why IT consultants stay in budget hotels and not the waldorf astoria anymore) innovation I.e. Automation has reduced human intervention....in this paradigm, having a lot of manpower is not actually a benefit but a liability.
So the question for you...is...what will human do to create wealth when automation makes them obsolete? I have some ideas...but eagerly await the intellectuals to offer up their views.

bull...
god (if anything such is there) bless you...hamidm2 is already getting scared......

but yearly cyclones in BD and couple of earthquakes in China and yearly floods in India will ensure that, the casualty figure from natural calamnities are very high...

during nehru's time, there was a proposal of exporting labourers (from india) to russia. due to lack of direct transportation facility and nehru's ego, that have not materialised. otherwise, india would have got another mauritius or fizi type indian colony....

#4 I think romair was taking into account the improvement in Pakistan with one self-loathing babu (yourself) no longer in Pakistan, and with "rising sun" musharraf and his lapdog rashid out of power. Taking these factors into account, I am sure you will agree that Pakistan is on the road to recovery.

PS: could you run up the tree and fetch me a coconut? your illustrious hero arjun refuses to do that.

Re: # 4 a masterly interact LOL....

arjun you need to keep this interact from Hamidm2 saab as well.....

Re: # 2

arjun mian,

.... please archive this latest masterpiece from captain cluless for posterity ..... in a hundred years your descendants will need it to point out the follies of their clueless grandpa to romair's equally clueless progeny ..... if we are lucky, natural selection will spare future generations the agony ......

#2 Posted by bulleya on November 18, 2008 2:43:27 am



and if (big if) pakistan, bangladesh,


The only way pakiland will be in any group is if it's a group of islamic terrorist infested nations...

as i have argued in my dinosaur vs. cockroach theory (not to be confused with my indra nooyi vs. paris hilton theory), the inhabitants of the g-8 are well on their way to extinction......much like the dinosaur........

now, whether their economies go first, or not, is a different debate........but their economies will, eventually, go under, since their manpower base will disappear......

the BRIC will be reduced to BIC, as russia's population is going down fast......japan will be out of g-8 as well, since it's population is on a similar path......canada will actually become a south asian/chinese state (hence it will look a lot like IC)......all of eu nations will have to combine to form one country, otherwise, they will be out of manpower also......and usa will be half B......

so the future economic forums will be usa (half hispanic/black), china, brazil, india, eu (as one entity), gcc......

eu, all together, will, only be as influential as china (or india, at some stage)......

and if (big if) pakistan, bangladesh, indonesia and nigeria can get their act together, than they will be in their as well.....

eventually, the complete pendulum of the world is swinging back to asia.......all the people will be living there, all the oil/gas is there, and eventually the technology and commerce will be there, also.....

in addition, asians (read south asians and chinese), due to demographics alone, will be inhabiting the whole world also....

the g-8 was, actually one entity......the white man......however, now the white man is about to be replaced by the brown and yellow man (and woman)......

DostJi,

G-8 or G-20 are useless forums. The financial crisis is beyond the control of the so called world leaders. First of all their meeting did not produce anything meaningful besides Gordon Brown making empty statements about great success of the meeting. As a forum this is as useless as G-8.