Comments by Pedro Manrique

It is surprising how many active comunist are out there defending the Cuban dictatorship, the longest ever. Of course, no one of them go to live to Cuba.

The US ambassy in Lima can not keep their e-mail safe, how could Sara Palin?

To say that North Korea is a communist country is like saying that the Nazi party is a extreme right party. North Korea was a communist country, become a dictatorship and is walking towards tyranny, were absolute power is inherited by blood.

Could someone explain The Economist that the Nazi party was not "extreme right", all the contrary, they were plain left. They could not be more explicit "national socialist party". Their confrontation with the comunist party was a marketing subject, becouse they were aiming the same market, the german workers.

The article do not comment that after doing a fantastic effort to keep them alive and take them out, they will be transfered to Copiapo (nearest city) in helicopters, the most dangerous way of traveling, in order to do a 30 minutes trip (by land), into 10 minutes.

For sure it is better to turn-on the alarm when not necessary, than not doing it when it is needed, or worse, to shut it down when it is needed, as president Bachelet did on the Chilean tsunami.

It is interesting how somebody able to conduct a reasonable argument is also able to charge The Economist with the acusation of "Mexican discreditor"...Why should they?...What will be the purpose?...

During my year at LBS I did a presentation on cultural differences between England and other places in the world. The main finding was that English culture give suffering a moral significance, it is good to have a bad time, enjoiment and plesure are suspicious or simply guilty of badness. London addresses are just a result of such a culture.

jamesyar, your comments on Mr. Hawking's illness are totally inapropiate and should have been removed from this forum.

It would be useful to give a second thought to the way drugs are been combated in the repression side, because looks unbelievable not to use all weapons available in countries where people died in the number of a few per hour because of drugs trade. There is no repression weapon able to match that number.
Let me explain:
Satellite pictures worked out with filters allow localizing crops of cannabis, coca and poppies with the precision of inches and providing the coordinates of the crop boundaries.
Bombers flying at 45.000 feet are able to drop burning bombs (or herbicides bombs) directed to the objective by the coordinates written in their included GPS and the wings, that make them fly, to those coordinates. Depending on the resources applied, it would be a subject of days to end up with all the undesirable crops.
Is there any reason not to do it, more important that the one to drop the same bombs over Baghdad?

Inequality is the base of society’s wealth, there no reason to effort without reward and inequality is the reward.
The failure of old-Russia, old-China, Cuba, North Corea, etc, in producing wealth, was the lack of incentives for individuals to do better.
On the other hand, in a society where a born poor have no chance to get rich, there is no incentives to enter the competition, individuals are better off if they fight to change the rules before making the effort. Nobody wants to enter a race with a tied leg.
That is exactly what Mr. Wilkinson investigation is looking at, societies with rules to protect a fair competition (nutrition protection for the young, education scholarships for the capable, etc), but having good prices for the winners (inequality), are the ones that succeed.

Inequality is the base of society’s wealth, there no reason to effort without reward and inequality is the reward.
The failure of old-Russia, old-China, Cuba, North Corea, etc, in producing wealth, was the lack of incentives for individuals to do better.
On the other hand, in a society where a born poor have no chance to get rich, there is no incentives to enter the competition, individuals are better off if they fight to change the rules before making the effort. Nobody wants to enter a race with a tied leg.
That is exactly what Mr. Wilkinson investigation is looking at, societies with rules to protect a fair competition (nutrition protection for the young, education scholarships for the capable, etc), but having good prices for the winners (inequality), are the ones that succeed.