[VegaHarriet35]

This is understandable that cash makes people free. But how to act if someone does not have cash? The one way only is to receive the <a href="http://lowest-rate-loans.com/topics/credit-loans">credit loans</a> or short term loan.

[Last_Historian]

See also the previous threads on Europe and China, as well as the possible impacts on global geopolitics in the near future.

The Century without an Indian Summer

A 2007 Goldman Sachs report estimated India’s GDP growth potential at about 8% until 2020, reinforcing the hype of recent years over “India shining” and the vigorous IT industry springing up in oases like Bangalore. This may well be realistic, even despite India’s manifold social problems (low human capital, creaky infrastructure, caste-based inequalities, an unwieldy bureaucracy, sluggish courts, etc), under a global “business-as-usual” scenario. That however is highly unlikely, for the hard numbers suggest that India will be economically and geopolitically squeezed out of the resources it needs to prosper or even survive by its massive eastern neighbor, China. There are limits to growth on our planet and no guarantees that they will be distributed fairly or equitably in the coming age of scarcity industrialism.

[americandream]

Absolute rubbish. Trying to compare India and China, the former an open society which airs its laundry in an equally open manner and the other a secretive dictatorship which massages the facts, is like trying to compare apples and oranges. Until such time as we get full and open access to China and not the distorted image that is peddled via its firewalled confines, trying to arrive at some objective comparison is an utter waste of time.

In addition, India is not quite the flavour of the moment with Wall Street due to it's unwillingness to play with Wall Street on its terms. Not quite a Cuba or Venezuela, India is still sufficiently independent of Wall Streets demands to attarct this sort of media jiggery pokery, nursing as it does suspicions harking back to India's pro Soviet days.

[Last_Historian]

First, the idea that the Western media is more favorable to China than to India is ridiculous. Sorry, I'm not even going to argue on that.

Second, while you may be correct that China massages some figures, it's not the 1960's or North Korea and it can't mask its emerging industrial ascendancy. In fact it doesn't even have much of an incentive to exaggerate its figures. It claims that it is still a low-income country and hence the world should give it leeway on its soaring CO2 emissions; this argument would be harder for it to sustain should its figures show that it is approaching the level of a middle income country like Mexico or Thailand. Furthermore, it doesn't want to trumpet its rise, because that would provoke more US political & military attention to East Asia.

[americandream]

I really don't know what must pass for intelligent thought in your noggin but the substantial role that Western capitalists have played in taking agrarian Maoist China to full fledged Western workshop for the large chains in the space of 3 decades clearly counts for nothing in your land of fanciful notions and must surely call your intent into question.

The fact that Wall Streets cheerleading of a dictatorship (which still labels itself communist whilst in close coupling with such large outfits such as Walmart) suggests, for you, no close ties between Western investors and the Politburo, is again another example of your selective blindness and short of idiocy, must call your intent into question), is astounding.

Make google your friend and acquaint yourself with the lamentable state of China's rural populace, much of which has arrived in the West via non-party approved sources. Laziness is no excuse and arguing that firewalled China's news some how seeps out to the West in the face of its publicly acknowledged rigorous control of propaganda (contrast the reporting on muslim East Turkistan in contrast to say muslim Kashmir or muslim Chechny where a radical no sooner farts than the world knows about it.

Like I said, if you want to take up the cheerleading of Wall Streets little pet dictatorship (which has played no small part in propping up the bailout along with our friends in the Arab world), get your facts right and complete. I am fed enough propaganda to know fact from fiction.

edit: it is no mere coincidence that Russia, India, Venezuela, Cuba, N Korea to name a few countries resistant to full penetration by Western capital, also happen to be the ones with the least user friendly (and I mean investor friendly) publicity. It's not a case of being nice to this country or that out of some fillial pride but one of hard business motives. Countries with limited use to Wall Street get a bad report. Obvious!! Interestingly, Iran which is shi-ite and disentangled from the Western friendly wahhabist empire of the Saudis and Gulf states, is in a similar predicament.

Give China its due however. It is rather astute at robbing Peter to pay Paul and is seen as a good friend in both the capitalist and Islamic empires, no mean feat and testimony at its ability to propagandise. But you would be a fool to fall for it for behind China lurk our banking friends.

edit: Monitor the state of financial ties between Russian/India and the West in contrast with ties between the Arab and Muslim world/China and the West. Do your research. You will learn a thing or two

First, the idea that the Western media is more favorable to China than to India is ridiculous. Sorry, I'm not even going to argue on that.

Second, while you may be correct that China massages some figures, it's not the 1960's or North Korea and it can't mask its emerging industrial ascendancy. In fact it doesn't even have much of an incentive to exaggerate its figures. It claims that it is still a low-income country and hence the world should give it leeway on its soaring CO2 emissions; this argument would be harder for it to sustain should its figures show that it is approaching the level of a middle income country like Mexico or Thailand. Furthermore, it doesn't want to trumpet its rise, because that would provoke more US political & military attention to East Asia.

[Last_Historian]

1. While many Western investors do like China (with 10%+ annual growth rates who wouldn't), that certainly isn't the case in the US political class, which continually lambasts it on human rights, currency manipulation, military modernization, etc.
2. Yes, I'm aware that there are hundreds to thousands of protests and riots every year in China due to land dispossessions, official corruption, etc. There is also a full-fledged Maoist insurgency in India. I don't consider either to be a fundamental threat to the stability of either state, hence I didn't write about them.
3. Your impression that I shill for Western capital, China and the "Western friendly wahhabist empire" in opposition to India and Russia is rather silly. For a start a lot of my posts take a very favorable view (by Western media standards) of Russia.
4. To be honest I don't really share most of the (in my view conspiratorial) assumptions you seem to have so feel free to disregard me. I really wouldn't mind.

[americandream]

Whether you mind or not is, irrelevant. How you feel about Russia or not is irrelevant. What matters are the facts. That is all; the be all and the end all. China has consistently, since it capitulated to the West and its capital, under Deng, taken a stance that essentially reflects big business ties with it. For a country that still terms itself communist, any astute observer cannot but be perplexed at the source of much investor admiration directed at it from the likes of the owners of retail chains such as Walmart, to the managers of large pools of Western money, Jim Rogers to name a few, in contarst with say, N Korea or Cuba, the latter two who refuse to play ball and remain tightly shut to predatory capitalism.

Reluctant arrivals to the open market for capital, as I mentioned, are under a scrutiny that far exceeds their risk to the market. So why are they treated with such a lukewarm reception? They persist in keeping their markets protected to some degree, not fully open as Wall Street might like in other words. They are wary of Western acquisition of native assets and businesses. In essence, they play by the old rules of protectionism and set a bad example. In contrast, not only did China accede to Wall Street absolutely, she has made her military industry available to those stooges of Wall Street such as reactionary regimes in Africa as well as wahhabist extremists (in the days when there was a torrid love affair between Islamists and Raeganites Nowadays, it's less intense but financially just as close.) (learn your history)).

The Chinese Politburo is about as corrupt as you could possibly get. Not only have they stood the meaning of communism on its head, they are engaged in the most pernicious campaign of advancing Wall Streets interests worldwide, which interests incidentally coincide with theirs. It is for a good reason that the Chinese are arming Pakistan with nukes smack bang in the midst of the Great Game in Central Asia, an oil region. America invaded Iraq and who benefitted? China's Western owned business must take priority if profit is to be maintained so China gets the oil.

The loss of the likes of the USSR at the hands of Arab and Chinese complicity is not well documented so utterly has the West been tagged with that episode yet it is all there if you were to choose to look. To some extent, it matters not a whit who gets the blame. The Arab, Capitalist and Chinese Empires are composed essentially of the forces that control our minds and pockets.

That these forces will prevail in the interim is a given. The propaganda is all encompassing and the arrangements work well to keep Western consumers consuming voraciously and the elites in da money. To then elevate this to some high point in managing an economy is to demonstrate how little you know and understand.

1. While many Western investors do like China (with 10%+ annual growth rates who wouldn't), that certainly isn't the case in the US political class, which continually lambasts it on human rights, currency manipulation, military modernization, etc.
2. Yes, I'm aware that there are hundreds to thousands of protests and riots every year in China due to land dispossessions, official corruption, etc. There is also a full-fledged Maoist insurgency in India. I don't consider either to be a fundamental threat to the stability of either state, hence I didn't write about them.
3. Your impression that I shill for Western capital, China and the "Western friendly wahhabist empire" in opposition to India and Russia is rather silly. For a start a lot of my posts take a very favorable view (by Western media standards) of Russia.
4. To be honest I don't really share most of the (in my view conspiratorial) assumptions you seem to have so feel free to disregard me. I really wouldn't mind.

[Last_Historian]

Sorry but your response is basically a jeremiad against global capitalism. Whether you like or dislike this system [disclaimer: I'm not a fan of it either] is irrelevant - as you said, it's the facts that are relevant.

The facts are that China has about 3x the real GDP, 9x the manufacturing capacity, 2.5x the naval tonnage, about 10x the exports, about 5x the foreign currency reserves, a more educated population, and a far better strategic position (it controls the Tibetan glaciers that feed India's rivers).

In a world of scarcity industrialism in which states begin to use ever more blunt force to acquire remaining resources (and deny them to others), India is in a far worse position than China (and as I see it it's main hope to counter this is to construct an encircling alliance around China). That is my main argument.

[americandream]

I know precisely what you've argued and I am disagreeing with reasons to support. One very important reason being that the inconsistency surrounding China's presentation on the investor world stage (as well as the deference directed at China by the Federal government, the odd empty gesture aside, especially as there is a history of these tight inconsistent relationships such as the one with the Saudis)) coupled with its professed political lineage all add up to corruption of which we have ample experience, the China analysts notwithstanding. Making up facts as we go along is something of an art form in this construct (Iraq and WMD?) and psychological warfare with countries reluctant to go the whole hog in deregulating is quite consistent with this culture. To the extent that China is a closed corporate dicatorship, a reasonable individual, I venture, would therefore take these reports on its prowess with a pinch of salt.

Unless I see clear and sovereign behaviour from China to the degree we see in the likes of Russia and India, or better still Venezuela and Cuba, I view this sales pitch on China Incorp. as nothing more than that, a sales pitch for the new poster child of capitalism.

Sure all these things may come to pass, but its not China pulling the strings, my friend.

edit: Historical context will determine the nature of the Great Game. The Russians and Indians have learnt well from the Afghan debacle hence their protectionist stance. To then translate that into a contest between China and India is to miss the larger picture which extends from Beijing to Wall Street, and, ignores the shadowy hand at work in both deepening the Chinese investor vehicle and securing its position as a free market and safe haven for further inflows of capital.

This is the geo-politics of capitalism. Read Marx's Capitalist Manifesto for a quick introduction to capitalist manoueverings.

Sorry but your response is basically a jeremiad against global capitalism. Whether you like or dislike this system [disclaimer: I'm not a fan of it either] is irrelevant - as you said, it's the facts that are relevant.

The facts are that China has about 3x the real GDP, 9x the manufacturing capacity, 2.5x the naval tonnage, about 10x the exports, about 5x the foreign currency reserves, a more educated population, and a far better strategic position (it controls the Tibetan glaciers that feed India's rivers).

In a world of scarcity industrialism in which states begin to use ever more blunt force to acquire remaining resources (and deny them to others), India is in a far worse position than China (and as I see it it's main hope to counter this is to construct an encircling alliance around China). That is my main argument.

[dissident]

You can see western propaganda in action over the last 20 years in the case of Russia. When Russia was going to hell in a hand basket under the Yeltsin regime there was none of the shrill hate spew that followed after 2000. When Russia's GDP started to recover and Putin was not acting like the comprador stooge that he was supposed to be (Berezovsky the gangster oligarch darling of the west once proudly claimed he could make a monkey the president of Russia) the lie factory picked up the pace around 2004.

Some articles that I have read are simply Orwellian: they discovered corruption in Russia just when it was starting to decline after its stellar growth from the later 80s to the arrival of Putin (dubbed Stalin II by assorted analysts). All the whinging about Putin and the United Russia party is quite something to behold considering what happened in 1996 when Yeltsin "won" the election through massive fraud having a popularity rating of less than 10%. Independent opinion polls in Russia proved that Putin was truly popular (turning the economy around in a much more impressive manner than Roosevelt will make a president popular). The coverage in the west of the fringe opposition is an outright fabrication. The CBC, for example, had a report where they managed to hide the flag of the National-Bolsheviks (forget about even outlining their platform) while talking about them as the "only true opposition" (I guess Canada's political standards stop at its border, what happened to the concept of "Her Majesty's loyal opposition"? I guess the FLQ should have been considered the only legitimate opposition in Quebec during the 70s).

You are right, americandream, the west is owned by the banksters and the rich who have an agenda all their own. This is evidenced by the massive bailout of these maggots that will be shouldered by the middle class and poor. The idea of a small bank and financial transactions tax that would have raised enough money to pay for the bailout was shot down. This tax would also have damped the "irrational exuberance" that is afflicting the financial industry and damaging the real economy. So much for "representative western governments". It's democracy for a minority and buttered up serfdom for the majority. Here in Canada we have the obscenity of a minority prime minister who is acting like a dictator and getting a free ride from the media. They actually brainwash the public that Canadians don't want elections when the opposition threatens a no confidence vote and spin around 180 degrees to pump Harper's snap election call when he gets a bigger lead in the polls (the support level for Harper's neocon party remains fixed below 35%, but the opposition parties have shifting support levels giving Harper a chance to get a majority government with the idiotic first past the post balloting system).

[evgeny]

3. Your impression that I shill for Western capital, China and the "Western friendly wahhabist empire" in opposition to India and Russia is rather silly. For a start a lot of my posts take a very favorable view (by Western media standards) of Russia.

The Russian Bear Awakens

Today most Americans consider the United States to be “the sole remaining superpower” – absolutely unparalleled economically and militarily. But the truth is not anything close to that.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-russian ... akens.html

[eXpat]

First Russia, now India
Govt talks food security as huge amount of grains rot in FCI godowns

Sixty per cent of the wheat samples and 33 per cent of the rice samples sent by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from its warehouses to its Gurgaon laboratory were found unfit for human consumption. This information was brought out by a Right to Information (RTI) query by Kirit Somaiya, national secretary of Bharatiya Janta Party, according to details given by him.

Much of the foodgrain in the warehouses is supposed to be preserved and distributed among the poor. The wheat and rice provided for distribution under the Food Security Bill would have to come from such warehouses.

The Deputy General Manager (Quality Control) of FCI, IK Negi, had refused last month to comment on the food grain situation. When contacted by Tehelka, he had said, “The Central Vigilance Commission is conducting an inquiry and I will only comment after that.” Following the RTI query, he still refused to talk about the matter. The issue, he said, was pending before the National Human Rights Commission and would come up for hearing on November 22. The rotting food grain matter is also listed for hearing before the Supreme Court on December 1.

Somaiya said the Congress-led UPA government had “compromised” the food safety norms and health of poor people. “The FCI is trying to relax quality norms to send sub-standard rice and wheat to the public distribution system.” He accused the government of “deliberately letting the food grains to rot to benefit the liquor manufacturers.” He was referring to the 2009 Maharashtra government proposal for allowing rotten grains to be sold to liquor manufacturers.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, KV Thomas, had earlier admitted to Tehelka that storage was a problem. But the government’s contention is that only a small portion of the food grain goes bad. The laboratory report would indicate that a substantial portion of the warehoused food grain goes rotten. The National Advisory Council member NC Saxena holds the Centre responsible for the mess. “I can quite believe that the damage to food grains due to long periods of storage is quite substantial,” he said.

http://vectroproxy.com/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL3d3dy50ZWhlbGthLmNvbS9zdG9yeV9tYWluNDcuYXNwP2ZpbGVuYW1lPVdzMTcxMTEwR292dF90YWxrcy5hc3A%3D

[Sixstrings]

Reading the article, it looks like this isn't a crop failure per se, but rather 60% of the grain and 30% of the rice they had in storage for distribution to the poor has been found to have gone bad. Not the same thing as a crop failure.

[eastbay]

What percentage of India's grain harvest is burned?

I understand only three nations burn more grain than India: USA, Brazil, and China. So if some rots in warehouses it's less to burn (indirectly) and eat (directly). The 'less to burn' part doesn't bother me much. The less to eat part will cause a few million to starve.

Maybe if India quit burning such a large percentage of her grain crop it wouldn't be such a tragedy. But crop burning makes a nation modern and the more is burned the more modern a nation becomes therefore India will keep the little fires burning, ICE by ICE. The road to modernization leaves a long trail of bodies.

[mos6507]

Reading the article, it looks like this isn't a crop failure per se, but rather 60% of the grain and 30% of the rice they had in storage for distribution to the poor has been found to have gone bad. Not the same thing as a crop failure.

What percentage of the population there is poor, though? That might add up to more of their total crop than you'd think.

[Ludi]

Approximately 47% of India's children are underweight.

[Lore]

Approximately 47% of India's children are underweight.

And 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. Such inequity on a small planet cannot exist for long.

[eastbay]

If so many children in India are running around hungry ... on the verge of starvation ... then why is India as a nation performing ritual crop burning? I mean, they're number four on the list of nations converting food crops into liquid fuel! I must say, it'll serve as a means to moderate the population growth rate.

[Ludi]

If so many children in India are running around hungry ... on the verge of starvation ... then why is India as a nation performing ritual crop burning?

Because they have become as insane as the US and other insane nations.

You've probably read her stuff, but I recommend the insights of Vandana Shiva regarding food and globalization.

[Rod_Cloutier]

Onion prices in India double in just a few days:

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia ... 45619.html

This feels more and more like 2007; fuel prices rising as inventories are drawn down, food becoming scarce in the 3rd world, developing countries reducing subsidies (Think Iran this week). If this trend continues we will have another global food and energy shock in 2011, likely whatever remains of the financial industry to collapse afterwards; just rewind 2008 and repeat.