Comments by sharatq

Its not me who is naive mate, Im not the one suggesting a major ethnic cleanse, and I am not the one who is suggesting that a failed state with nuclear weapons on our border would be somehow good for us. These are things you have said, not me. I do this for a living, I should have known better than to engage in the comments section, but I know for a fact you don't do this for a living, and thank heavens for small miracles.

They have lost the war, they simply cannot spend what we spend on defense, they never will be able to either, their reliance on proxy's has bitten them more than us. Its over, the penny is slowly dropping. Your typical Indian, you would cut your nose of to spite your face.

The best way is not to promote any particular view with regards to religion atheism included because most views conflict with one another and are the primary source of conflict amongst other things.
Who says I am a liberal when it comes to Pakistan, I am and out and out realist when it comes to India's regional security threat. The point I am making is Pakistan has already lost the game, played it poorly and suffering the consequences, yet continues to engage in the same poor policy making. Our security is most threatened by China, we need ICBM capability to reinforce deterrence, and if Delhi cannot implement further economic reforms, then poverty becomes the critical threat, with nearly a third of the landmass already lawless, and maoists running around. Your previous post was far from rational, it was jingoistic, driving muslims out of their own country is no solution to anything, all it would have done is create far bigger problems than anything we have had to deal with before.

No understanding of Indian Defense Policy formally known as Strategic Restraint the opposite of extremist CHECK

The threat India perceives and is countering is China not Pakistan CHECK

No Nuclear war by anyone since the Americans Bombed Japan CHECK

Its called deterrence my friend and why the cold war stayed cold CHECK

Until there is an actual nuclear war it will remain the dominant theory CHECK

erm yes, driving 130 million muslims out of India in the largest ethnic cleanse in the history of mankind sounds like a sensible policy. I'm so glad you sit in Delhi.

Pakistan is not a threat to India in a conventional war it has no hope, more importantly it is on the brink of failing and has far deeper domestic issues, and its military's obsession with a perceived threat from India which frankly no longer exists, because we'd rather not have to have to try and control even more territory which is over run by extremists and zealots.

They have bigger problems and yet continue to focus on the wrong threat. India was partitioned, they got the short end of the stick, lawless northwest frontier, which no one has ever managed to control is porous and weaponised, add to that their idiotic policy of aiding an abetting terror outfits which have turned against them. Good luck to them I say, I can tolerate my Muslims brothers both here and there. We have our own problems, the first thing we can do is sort all our borders out quickly along lines of actual control, since they are economically inconsequential, and deal with our critical issue of poverty, so our own internal security threat does not itself become existential like theirs is.

I see you have a deep understanding of politics, yes India is renowned for consistently electing politicians who are "most responsive", and that does indeed explain it perfectly.

erm you can't teach everyone to be a good sales person, only certain personality types are ever any good, the qualities required can be listed, but the individual has to be born with the intrinsic personal qualities required. First and foremost it is relentlessness, and then secondly and equally as important the ability to handle rejection and objection, and certainly not everyone can do that.

Certain products are fairly easy to sell (a convertible bond to a CB investor for example), others like climbing Everest (unsold advertising inventory in the Economist to Coke out of plan), selling over a phone is vastly different to selling face to face, both of which pale into difficulty when compared to unsolicited door to door, with every sales situation unique as to why the sale either occurred or failed.

Selling to someone who needs a product or an option is a vastly different than selling to someone who does not feel any compulsion to buy.

Whilst one can appreciate the desire for companies to standardise the process, as they do with all of their other processes, this particular process is driven primarily by psychology, of both the buyer and the sales person. If one can figure out how to bottle everything that is happening when a sale is made and replicate it thousands of times over, give me a call, I'd be the first guy to buy it.

Why the tedious media obsession with comparing the two countries? they are dramatically different in every way, with the sole exception that they have large populations and looked structurally similar many moons ago.

In the end it is a false comparison and their relative growth rates absolutely meaningless, the scale of the two countries means that the effects of their models have dramatically different effects, there is very little India could copy from China or vice versa without radical changes made to their respective political systems.

Both countries should be content that they are walking down the road which is suitable for them, at a pace which is comfortable. There is simply no need to be neurotic about relative growth rates, and the media obsession with it, I find puzzling, if not almost non nonsensical given it almost lacks any meaning whatsoever beyond a simple bragging right.

tosh western justification for prosecuting a war against one dictator whilst propping up and supporting others using logic which is dubious at best and at worst simply delusional rhetoric. I would have thought that The Economists would have a little respect for the intelligence of their readers by now when it comes to their editorial positions on military interventions.

You failed to mention that PIMCO have started selling tail risk hedging products. Really that sounds very reminiscent of AIG Financial Products selling credit default swaps which almost brought down the whole insurer to me. Its no consolation that they will probably tell people they understand the risk of being on the other side of that trade better than AIG.

Singh Brothers clearly don't have the stomach for a fight, good luck with their pan-asian vision.

God the economist being sanctimonious, failing to mention, that basically every member of the security council has proliferated along with India and Pakistan.

India has nuclear weapons pointed at it from China, its technology was hardly stolen, and ultimately it was a civilian nuclear deal it did with the Americans with the fuel being subject to monitoring and disclosure.

If you want to counter the effects of global warming, then giving India the ability to develop non carbon emitting energy is par for the course. You want it to abandon its weapons program, then get China to eliminate theirs totally.

Arguing that it should cease, well it ignores all sense of pragmatism and reality.

The notion that it should not be capable of defending itself from a threat that it has lost a war with is ridiculous, and it has not sold its secrets to rogue states. Much the same arguments the Americans, British, French, Chinese, and Russians probably make when referring to their own proliferation.

In fact the whole idea that its ok for France and the UK to be nuclear powers, with their 50 -60 million people that they defend with it. I mean really how do we take you seriously as a paper when you say something like that, and are so selective with acknowledging real world situations

Do as I say, don't do as I do. That kind of hypocrisy never gets far.

If I were FB, I would seriously be considering setting up my own search engine, and incorporating it into the service, or at the very least doing some kind of deal with an existing engine.

Oh dear!!!

How would you stop someone who already manufactured and distributed illicit drugs from legitimising themselves. That would require the imposition of licenses, which means that those who do not qualify or failed to meet the criteria would probably still continue to produce illegitimately, defeating the very object of the exercise in the first place.

Perhaps most people would prefer to get a standardised product from a licensed prescriber or retailer. But ultimately it becomes a cost issue. If lower quality product is made available, or if the sale is regulated through the use of prescriptions from licensed doctors, the black market would continue to exist and it is the lower income users who would probably seek out cheaper alternatives.

All the same problems in final markets would remain. In my personal opinion, I believe they would be magnified.

There is already a large grey market for prescription drugs that are regulated, what reason is there to believe that a massive black market for illicit drugs worth billions of dollars globally would cease to exist if the manufacture and sale became legal and taxable.

A large part of it would become legal, whilst some fraction would remain black.

The black market is already far to large and sophisticated, I think it would be myopic to believe that legalising the manufacture of the product will not retain criminal elements.

The FARC and other paramilitary outfits in Columbia would still control regions which manufacture coca, whilst the Taliban would still probably control regions which manufacture poppy.

Lets assume that a policy of licenses was established, the only real thing I see happening in those areas is a palatable face owns the area under cultivation, and tribute would still be extracted by those organisation who need the money the cash crops produced to finance themselves.

Societies drug problem has never been about the supply side of the equation, what policy makers need to concern themselves primarily with is demand, A policy that is shaped around supply will not cure the social ills caused by the illicit drug trade, simply though converting its status into a legitimate industry.

No doubt there will be some benefits that would result from such policy, but it is not the cure all that it is cracked up to be, and my own personal opinion is it would cause more problems than it solves, and the current problems would continue to exist.

There is no reason to suggest that legalisation would decrease drug use, small experiments in countries with minuscule populations certainly do not provide ample evidence for anything. To be honest if you look at what criminalisation did for opium use in china, there is a contrasting result.

Moreover, legitimising previous criminal manufacturers and distributors of narcotics, lacks morality, notwithstanding, that it is no panacea.

Terrorist organisations would still continue to control the production of poppy and coca, legalising would only increase revenues earned, because manufacturing tends to take place in remote ungovernable areas. Manufacturers and distributors would vertically integrate scale up production, prices would fall, which is more than likely going to increase demand. And the most important reason is legalisation would only result in a massive grey market running parallel to a legitimate one. Which means its very purpose fails.

Anyone who has ever done cocaine or heroin will know that dealers tend to step on product, it makes it cheaper brings in more revenue and increases profits. Cutting the quality will continue to occur so long as it remains profitable.

So in the end the reality is you would either have to have legal manufacturers segmenting markets by selling a variety of different grades. The other possibility would be very high grade product being sold very cheaply. What would more likely happen, because of the size of the current black market, is a grey market with criminal dealers purchasing large quantities of high quality product and then cutting it themselves and continuing to sell in low income areas, in much the same way as it is done now.

In fact a tax on the production and sales would still result in incentives to evade.

Nothing would change other than the same people who make and sell drugs now would make more money and do so legally, The control of raw materials would remain with violent organisations with a parallel market being administered by a criminal element running simultaneously, and perhaps some sizeable tax revenue.

Decriminalisation of use is fine and makes sense, but full legalisation is certainly not the panacea for the ills of the drug trade that is proponents would have you believe. The black market for the product is to large already, and the nature of the product means either a criminal element will be involved, or it is so cheap, that 12 year olds will be able to afford it on their allowance.

You think 50 Mbps is stingy?

you have got to be kidding me. I live in India, I have had to subscribe to a leased line to make sure my internet connection is consistent. i.e. it is working.

I pay US$ 250 a month for 16 Mbps, prior to that US$50 for 1Mbps. The connection I now run has data transfer limits. 50 Mbps stingy, you have got to be kidding me.

No, the elephant needs to be reformed. Suggesting it should be allowed to lumber on, means for those of us who live here, would have to slit our wrists. At least let us live with a little resistance to the notion that the elephant must rumble on.

Not all sovereign debt has seen spreads widen. It depends on the economy. Certainly if you look at sovereign guaranteed debt being issued by Australian banks, then in fact spreads have been tightening across debt denominated in pretty much every currency. New issues are been priced about 30 basis points tighter then they were three weeks ago.A lot of that has to do with demand for the asset class which offers higher yields at the same risk as sovereign Australian debt.Regardless, the point being made is it's not right to say that sovereign debt spreads are widening, it's too general a statement. In the cases you cite perhaps, but it really depends on the country, and their individual exposures to the various problems that plague banking in general. Some investors are looking at certain sovereign issues or their proxies positively glowingly though, simply because what are their options otherwise?