What makes you say that?

Post #380,563 by pwhysall 9/13/13 7:46:53 AM Reply	What makes you say that? Progress in India and China absolutely is inevitable. There is no evidence to think otherwise. It's hard to think what could make Indian society more stratified - after all, this is the society that for the past couple of thousand years has had an "untouchable" caste! If anything, Indian society is, as a result of economic progress and Western (by which I do of course mean British) influence, de-stratifying (a bit, and slowly). I'm not going to speculate on what Obama wants - I'm going to see what he does. And what he does, like his predecessor, is go around freeing the shit out of people.
Post #380,566 by Another Scott 9/13/13 8:22:34 AM Reply	Depends on the time scale. Progress isn't linear. It's hard to make extrapolations given the rapid change in the world over the last 50 years or so, but we know that people can't eliminate business cycles, panics, etc. Again, look at Japan. Bubbles happen and can be very destructive. Given the speed and ease of moving money around these days, China and (even more-so) India will hurt very quickly if their economies enter a severe downturn. The widening gap between the rich and the rest of us is a big problem around the world. http://www.economist.com/node/21564414 - a good story(, but taxes do have a large role to play). Watching actions is a good idea. That's why Putin shouldn't pay attention to the chattering classes over here. ;-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #380,568 by pwhysall 9/13/13 8:37:46 AM Reply	Japan is just fine. Fiat currency means that government debt is not the same as personal debt, and by all the accepted metrics, Japan is a great place to live, notwithstanding the contents of some of the vending machines, and will be for the foreseeable. Now, Greece. There's a place with a problem. You need better examples, dude.
Post #380,569 by Another Scott 9/13/13 9:14:54 AM Reply	Heh. Deflation isn't good in general, and is particularly bad in countries with large poor populations that are rapidly growing. Japan has been struggling since their property/stock bubble burst around 1991. They're just starting to finally climb out of the pit that caused. There have been wrenching changes there even though, on the surface, things don't look too bad. ~ 4% unemployment looks great! But it used to be around 2%... China is a special case, having a large foreign-exchange horde. But even they are not immune to market forces. And they're still a poor country in many, many respects. India even more so (without the huge $ reserves that China has). Will they all dodge the bullets? Maybe. We'll see. Cheers, Scott.

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