Originally posted by: Mill
Originally posted by: SherEPunjab
Originally posted by: Mill
Originally posted by: SherEPunjab
Originally posted by: Mill
Originally posted by: SherEPunjab
this topic has gotten so off... india pakistan, china... wtf. anyways, i guess thats what happens when there aint' anything else to write. Anyways, lets all just be happy india and the u.s. are cooperating militarily. now the question is why so much. Pakistan? or to balance the power in Asia? who knows.
beer: musharraf really didn't produce any results for us though. he is an opportunist, plain and simple. he has been proven to have links with terrorist outfits, and didn't mind the taliban pre 2001, or should i say, pre America going there and telling him he better cooperate. You really think he just joined our side cuz he's our buddy? Our country threatened to label Pakistan as a rogue nation, pull out our embassy and other western embassy's, and then the IMF would cut funds going into that country, making it even poorer than it already is. he was arm twisted. we went into af to get OBL. Do we have him yet? First he says OBL isn't in PK. Then when we lose interest and pull resources away, all of a sudden, yeah, he's in Pakistan. B.S. Wer'e just 200 billion down the drain [don't quote me on the figure, but a lot $$$].
I'm sure part of the reason is because India is developing at a higher rate than China or Pakistan, and their government is much more open and friendly to us than China or Pakistan. I think the only reason Pakistan and Musharaff are cooperating is because they knew they were next if they didn't. Currently it is a mixture of what all you said. Our war on terror, balance Asian power, and to give us a key ally in that part of the world. Having Japan+South Korea+India is much better than having just one or none. We also are a large trade partner with India, and they are much better when it comes to human rights and political philosophy than China or Pakistan.
AFAIK, China is still ahead of India in overall development. In terms of Manafacturing, India is where China was 5 years ago. In terms of Service Sector, India is 15 years ahead of China. from that point of view it is developing faster, but in terms of GDP, China still has an edge. Couple of things going for it: smart, hard working people, democracy, cheap labor, good educational instituions, very fast growing middle class, and about 300 million that can spend equivalenty as much as Americans can, oh, and its #1 edge over China (IMO), they can speak English fluently.
You are correct. I guess I should have specified in terms of development that the US currently needs while not sacrificing the conditions of their workers. I dare say the quality of products exported from China is worth a damn for the most part. I still don't understand the point of paying 5 dollars for a t-shirt that falls apart in 1 year, when you can pay 10 dollars for a t-shirt that will last 5 years. One was made under sweatshop conditions and the other was made in the US. Nothing wrong with countries using their labor, but I have a major issue with sweatshops and quality. China uses a lot of sweatshops, and their quality is lacking. Now, I am not saying India doesn't have its sweatshops, but it also has access to much better education and opportunities than the Chinese worker does. Communism is really holding that country back even though their GDP is exploding. It would be booming even more, but Communism is still holding a finger in the dike so to speak.
yeah, democracy isn't all peachy though [for financial development]. this is one area where the Chinese have successfully used to their benefit [communism that is]. For example, just yesterday i believe, there was a protest of like 1 million Indian workers, who went on strike. can you imagine the negative affect that would have on industry? They can do that in India. In China, the police would come and force them back to work.
In India, you have 1,000 different ethnic groups, ranging from maybe 100 million in population to 1,000. You have to treat both parties 'equally.' You have an array of different races, languages, cultures, etc. Everyone likes to complain about everyone else, everyone is weary of the other. For such a vast array of different people I sometimes wonder if communism IS better. The former soviet union, from what i have heard, was more equitable for ppl under communism, and people had jobs. Now i hear the unemployment rates are very high, and many don't even have food to eat. The soviet union also had a lot of different people, tajiks, uzbeks, russians, chechens, etc. now they're all either poor or trying to rid each other off.
Well we can't forget how Moscow inflated numbers and lied during their experiment with communism. And like you said democracy isn't peachy, but I'd say the transition to democracy isn't peachy. I'd also say that in
Casino Moscow and other books about the USSR during its transition from communism to democracy, that the Russian Mob and the total lack of ANY regulation was a massive problem for them. Someone recently posted a Forbes list of the wealthiest people. You will see that the average Russian Billionaire is very young when compared to the rest of the world. This is because they were able to steal the industry or company that made them wealthy, because Russia's transition was done in a haphazard manner, heavily influenced by organized crime, and was extremely corrupt with only laughable regulatory policies. I read a very interesting book by Fareed Zakaria that says that democracy isn't for every country. Sometimes they have social or political issues that have to be taken care of before they can become a democracy. A country has to be "setup" for democracy correctly and can't just become "free" and totally emulate the successful democracy that the US has. Sometimes religion or culture are an antithesis to Democracy, and it proves that country is not yet ready. So the idea that democracy is peachy is not true -- as you already pointed out. I'd like to post aneditorial about the book from Amazon. I had never heard of Zakaria before, but on a whim I ordered the book. My outlook on things are much much much different that they used to be.
"Democracy is not inherently good, Zakaria (From Wealth to Power) tells us in his thought-provoking and timely second book. It works in some situations and not others, and needs strong limits to function properly. The editor of Newsweek International and former managing editor of Foreign Affairs takes us on a tour of democracy's deficiencies, beginning with the reminder that in 1933 Germans elected the Nazis. While most Western governments are both democratic and liberal-i.e., characterized by the rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic rights-the two don't necessarily go hand in hand. Zakaria praises countries like Singapore, Chile and Mexico for liberalizing their economies first and then their political systems, and compares them to other Third World countries "that proclaimed themselves democracies immediately after their independence, while they were poor and unstable, [but] became dictatorships within a decade." But Zakaria contends that something has also gone wrong with democracy in America, which has descended into "a simple-minded populism that values popularity and openness." The solution, Zakaria says, is more appointed bodies, like the World Trade Organization and the U.S. Supreme Court, which are effective precisely because they are insulated from political pressures. Zakaria provides a much-needed intellectual framework for many current foreign policy dilemmas, arguing that the United States should support a liberalizing dictator like Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, be wary of an elected "thug" like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and take care to remake Afghanistan and Iraq into societies that are not merely democratic but free."
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