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Automation and 3-D printing are changing the face of manufacturing, to be sure, and now the US, with its stagnant wages and abundant energy resources, is newly competitive. That said, the principles behind the special economic zones can apply to other industries as well (services, IT, etc.), so...

@Shotgunner51 A timely case in point: Africa Should Lure Bangladesh's Garment Industry - Bloomberg View Historically, the path to wealth for nations has run through manufacturing. Manufacturing gives you a way to quickly move a lot of people from low-productivity farming to...

I suspect your comment is sarcastic, but I'll reply as if it were not. All developed countries have more developed and less developed regions, from the American coasts, to the European blue banana, to China's coastal areas. Indeed, China's model of development is quite normal and repeatable...

Note the brackets in my quotes.

I'll have to catch up on the thread first, but I will be happy to contribute if I am able to.

I'm not sure if you want this discussion to descend to that level of detail, but would you consider Googling to be a scientific method of proving common sense? If not, how is the article anything other than a strawman? Some people also believe the moon landing was fake, should we start some...

Obama's submission to Iran is little more than treason, as far as I'm concerned. Iran hasn't been an ally since the Shah, and considering that Iran's leadership and people continue to call for the destruction of the US on a daily basis, I'd much rather have that bastard outside the tent.

I'm going to try something new and reply with quotes: President Lyndon B. Johnson once summarized the American political approach for these kinds of situations perfectly: "It's probably better to have [Pakistan] inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." And another...

I hesitate to comment, since the Gujarat/Kerala models of development are unfamiliar to me, but since you asked... I must take exception to his comment that "India is trying to be the first country to become an industrial giant with an illiterate and unhealthy labour force. I don’t think it can...

This is the part that riled me: I don't know why the author thinks that the belief that psychosis causes terrorism is something that "everyone knows," but the author never demonstrated this to be true, and then appears to spend the rest of the article debunking this strawman argument...

This is why I loathe academia. Let's review the findings: I'm happy that my tax dollars went to pay for the research that led to this profound conclusion. Who knew that we prefer people like us, and mistrust people who are different? Raise your hand if you think there are terrorist groups...

I took a break from watching the US crush Japan in an exotic sport called "soccer" to read this satire. Very skilled, and the greatest point about this is that the humor translates so well. I wonder if there is a Chinese counterpart to Jonathan Swift. Someday, China and the US will be brought...

Look, sorry, but the best way to avoid the IMF's incompetence is to not need its help. The Asian crisis was a great lesson in this IMF's extreme focus on austerity, and Greece didn't learn that lesson, but instead kept splurging. True, the IMF made the problem worse, but the fundamental issue...

Actually, the 2010-2011 bailouts were to protect German banks that had massive exposure to Greece. Had Greece defaulted then, it would have cascaded throuh the German (and EU) financial system. The bailout bought the banks time to unload positions and reduce exposure. That is why the...

I have to take the middle ground on this. In a democracy, the people are responsible for their government, and should thus shoulder the responsibility for the government's bad decisions (and certainly have more responsibility than the citizens of a foreign country do). Deep down, it's hard...

This is the result of several factors: -poor accounting standards (fraud) -poor regulation (fraud, allowing investors to take risks unsuitable for their risk profile) -excessive leverage (unprecedented levels of margin as a percent of float, and now putting up houses as collateral, dear G-d)...

Excellent news, it appears the long national nightmare is coming to an end. The "big bang" financial liberalization under Hashimoto, the structural reforms and privatizations under Koizumi, and now the quantitative easing under Kuroda with (hopefully) trade liberalization under Abe should...

What happened to you? You used to be reasonable.

@Nihonjin1051 I am currently on a business trip, and will be out of town through the July 4 weekend, so I will not be able to address TPP comprehensively until next week. I am typing on a mobile and have no patience with the inefficiency, so I just want to make a few quick points that I will...

Translation: don't feed the trolls. If you feed the trolls, at least make sure it's entertaining.