TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- The Last Gasps of the British Empire
Pages (2): [1] 2 »
The Last Gasps of the British Empire
A very interesting article on the dwindling power and influence of the "not-so-Great-anymore" Britain.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/209953
| quote: |
Even in the decades after it lost its empire, Britain strode the world like a pocket superpower. Its economic strength and cultural heft, its nuclear-backed military might, its extraordinary relationship with America�all these things helped this small island nation to punch well above its weight class. Now all that is changing as the bills come due on Britain's role in last year's financial meltdown, the rescue of the banks, and the ensuing recession. Suddenly, the sun that once never set on the British Empire is casting long shadows over what's left of Britain's imperial ambitions, and the country is having to rethink its role in the world�perhaps as Little Britain, certainly as a lesser Britain. This is a watershed moment for the United Kingdom. The country's public debt is soaring, possibly doubling to a record high of 100 percent of GDP over the next five years, according to the International Monetary Fund. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research forecasts that it will take six years for per capita income to reach early-2008 levels again. The effects will cascade across government. Budgets will be slashed at the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, affecting Britain's ability to project power, hard and soft. And there's little that can be done to reverse the trend, either by Prime Minister Gordon Brown or by the incoming government of David Cameron's Conservatives, assuming they win a general election that must be held within the next 10 months. As William Hague, Cameron's deputy and shadow foreign secretary, said in a recent speech: "It will become more difficult over time for Britain to exert on world affairs the influence which we are used to." History has been closing in on Britain for some time. The rise of giant emerging economies like China and India always meant that Britain would have a smaller seat at the increasingly crowded top table of nations. It also meant that the United States would recalibrate the so-called special relationship as it sought new partners and alliances, inevitably shrinking the disproportionate role Britain has long played in world affairs. Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, made a final stab at greatness with what amounted to a 51st-state strategy: by locking Britain into America's wars�on terror, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq�London achieved an importance it hadn't had since Churchill and the war. But whatever advantage Britain gained in the short term was wiped out by the political damage Blair's strategy caused at home. Ordinary Britons and even members of the British establishment grew increasingly critical of what they saw as London's subservient relationship with Washington. Blair's authority was diminished, his political agenda at home suffered as a result, and it became clear that Britain's geopolitical default setting would no longer be to automatically follow America's lead. In fact, Blair may merely have postponed the inevitable: a lesser Britain is a consequence of world events, not unlike the slow relative decline of the United States, which finds itself today where Britain was at its apogee. The global recession has hit virtually every country, but Britain more than most. The great engine room of British prosperity, the financial sector, now feels like an anchor. Britain has slipped into deflation�a decline in general price levels�for the first time in 50 years. The IMF believes Britain's economic slump will be deeper and longer than that of any other advanced economy. The number of Britons claiming unemployment benefits has jumped from 1.3 million (4.6 percent of the workforce) in 1999 to more than 2 million and is on track to top 3 million. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says Britain's recovery may begin later this year, but will lag behind those of other rich countries like Japan and the United States. At the moment, Britain is arguably saddled with the worst public finances of any major nation, thanks to voracious spending in recent years and to borrowing that is growing faster than in other developed nations or even fast-growing developing ones. Britain is so heavily indebted that one political commentator dubbed it "Iceland-on-Thames," suggesting Britain could follow that nation into bankruptcy. What makes the British case stand out even more is that it is the only country of its size in recent history that has sought such a disproportionately large role on the world stage. During the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher saw herself as second only to Ronald Reagan as a leader who helped to bring down the Soviet Union and make the world safe for capitalism. During Blair's decade in office, from 1997 to 2007, Britain fought three wars�in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq�in which its military participation was right behind that of the United States. Now that's changing. "Although we are a relatively wealthy country and we have a seat on the U.N. Security Council, we are a power in decline," says Ian Kearns of the Institute for Public Policy Research, which recently conducted a British security review. Paddy Ashdown, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats who took part in the IPPR study, recalled the gibe by the late U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson in 1962: "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role." Britain found its footing for a while, but Acheson's words sting again today. "If you were to say we haven't found a role," says Lord Ashdown, "it's true." The U.K. still maintains one of the largest defense budgets in the world, but probably not for much longer. Recently, as the number of British deaths in Afghanistan has risen dramatically during the summer fighting season, both Labour and the Conservatives have felt obliged to say they would not reduce defense spending, so as not to put troops at greater risk. But in the longer term, experts say big cuts are inevitable. In a recent paper for the Royal United Services Institute, Malcolm Chalmers estimates that the Ministry of Defense budget will be cut by 11 percent in real terms over the next six years. Other estimates are much higher. Ashdown, a former Royal Marine, has said the annual �35 billion Ministry of Defense budget might have to be cut by almost a quarter, which would put Britain more in line with traditionally lower-spending continental powers. Britain's role in the world will shrink with its budget. A cash-starved British Army would have important implications for NATO, already weakened by the fuzziness of its post�Cold War mission. As it stands, Britain is usually second only to the United States in terms of troop commitments to NATO operations such as Afghanistan, and its loyalty to the cause has encouraged other European NATO partners to do their part. Flagging British commitment will have the opposite, depressing effect and could further alter transatlantic alliances by boosting the relative power of France, which only recently reentered NATO's integrated military-command structure. Long before Britain's withdrawal from Iraq earlier this year, the U.S. military hierarchy was concerned about growing British domestic opposition. Now, as the focus shifts to Afghanistan and British military casualties rise there, public support for that war is waning, too; in a July poll, a majority said the war is "unwinnable" and that British troops should be withdrawn immediately. It hasn't helped that troops and officers have complained of equipment shortages. It was the cause of some embarrassment a few weeks ago that Gen. Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, had to hitch a ride on an American Black Hawk helicopter while visiting British troops in Helmand province because a British chopper wasn't available. The future of Britain's nuclear force, the ultimate symbol of a great power, is also uncertain. Britain's submarine-based Trident missile system is due to be replaced over the next decade at a cost of some �20 billion. But according to a recent Guardian/ICM poll, 54 percent of the British people say Britain should give up its nuclear deterrent altogether. That's unlikely, but it may force the next government to find a cheap way to extend Trident's life span. Traditionally, being a nuclear power was one way of securing permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council, and any downgrading of Britain's deterrent could strengthen the demands of big emerging powers that they should have more seats on the council, possibly at Europe's and the U.K.'s expense. Britain, having paid a steep political price for the hard power it wielded in Iraq and recognizing the limits to the money it can pour into weapons systems and the like, is keen to project soft power. But the government is seemingly weakening what should be a chief instrument of soft power, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan is "strategic incoherence" and has left the FCO adrift, says Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington. FCO cuts suggest that the diplomatic corps, once the envy of the entire world, is losing the bureaucratic wars. In 2004, the FCO closed 19 overseas missions out of about 300. In Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Spain, and the United States, some consulates were downgraded, leaving only local personnel in place. Since then, the FCO has cut staff from 6,000 to 4,000. This year's FCO budget of �2 billion is widely expected to be pared to �1.6 billion in the next fiscal year. The glory days of the City of London are now grinding to a halt, too. The main symbol of Britain's global might�the City boasts walls from Roman times�found financing for some of the world's earliest and most prominent multinational companies, and has had greater influence in global finance than Westminster has had in geopolitics. London stole the march on Wall Street by seizing the highest-growth areas, like hedge funds, exotic derivatives, and the like. Unluckily for London, these areas were also the hardest hit by the financial crisis. But now London, like New York, awaits a slew of new national, regional, and global regulation that appears likely to diminish its role in the world for years to come. The European Union has already endorsed the creation of a Systemic Risk Board with oversight powers that will include the City, even though Britain is outside the euro zone and is not a member of the European Central Bank, whose members will appoint the SRB chair. Britain has sidestepped such intervention in the past, but this time is different. Germany and France appear intent on restraining the excesses of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and may seek to engineer reforms that steer a greater share of global capital flows into more cautious continental hands. When the dust settles, both the City and Wall Street will likely remain preeminent but less so, confronting rival financial power centers in Europe and Asia. It can also be argued that London, as the glitzier icon of laissez faire, will pay a steeper price than Wall Street in the financial new world order. Ever since the "big bang" of the 1980s, London has regulated the banking industry with a light touch�controlling bankers' practices with sets of principles, rather than law on the books as in the U.S. If European regulations are "harmonized" to include London and if London's light touch gets a little heavier, the City could suddenly become "more antagonistic to the institutions that are being regulated," as Andrew Hilton of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation in London puts it. In that event, financial centers like Singapore and Hong Kong could draw business away from the City. Britain's bout of reflection on its last gasps of empire comes at a natural point in its history. The Great Recession came as a surprise and has accelerated the trend, but the rise of China, India, and Brazil, and the changing ties to a declining America, have been visible for many years. As America turns to building new ties with the advancing powers of Asia and Latin America�even sending its top envoys to promise its creditors in China that the U.S. will handle its debts responsibly�-Britain can only feel less special. The nation is in the totally predictable grip of the ennui and general grumpiness that accompany the end of a political era. Eleven years ago, the year after Tony Blair's Labour Party had swept to victory, ending 18 years of Conservative rule, he spoke in Dublin of a Britain that was "emerging from its post-empire malaise." He was characteristically optimistic. He said he hoped the Irish saw Britain as a country that was "modernizing, becoming as confident of its future as it once was of its past." Those were indeed heady times for Britons. Phrases like "New Labour" and "new dawn" and "new Britain" were not yet curdling on the tongue. Today, Blair is two years out of office, Labour's reign 12 years old. His successor, Gordon Brown, suffers from a gray, been-there-too-long aura. Long gone is the cultural ferment of "Cool Britannia" that made London the capital of cool in the early Blair years. The gloom was made all the deeper in recent months by a parliamentary-expenses scandal that heaped public scorn on politics and politicians alike. Pity the prime minister who takes over from Brown. A Conservative victory at the next election�a victory by any party at the next election�would have little of the game-changing feeling that accompanied Blair's triumph 12 years ago. Then, Britain bought into Blair's mantra because it was real enough: the economy had already begun a period of unprecedented growth, immigration was enriching the country, an entrepreneurial fervor crackled across even the old industrial heartland. Today that has evaporated. The great test of the next prime minister, and probably the one after that, will be not only to redefine Britain's place among great nations but also to renew the kind of spirit that has ruled Britannia in the past. |
I think about that too man... what happened to them? They used to rule the world and now they're decaying from withing.
This brings up a very interesting topic IMO. I read an article yesterday by Stanford historian/professor Victor David Hanson about this very issue, relating the Roman empire to the U.S. and seeing the parallels. It's a bit gloomy, but it makes some very interesting points. We may have a system set in motion that will also make us decay from within in the next generation... focusing too much time on the arts and social programs while India and China focus on math and science, which will ultimately reverse the balance. The article:
"Mediterranean Reflections on What Went Wrong" by VDH
| quote: |
| ITALY... I have been traveling as a lecturer on a Hillsdale College Byzantium Cruise (from Venice to Athens, with several stops in the Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Aegean) for the last few days, and here are some eccentric reflections on civilizations of the past. VENICE I spent yesterday in Venice�hot, humid, and crowded, as I had never quite seen it before. So much for the global recession that has supposedly curtailed world tourism. Venice was not a classical city, and one can see why. It was malarial, without natural harbors or any readily identifiable deep ports or surrounding cliffs. It is instead a conglomeration of over 100 islands in the swamps of an Adriatic lagoon. Yet between 1200 and 1600, Venice was in many ways the preeminent city of the world. People�not oil, coal, timber, or farmland�matter most. You can see the Lion of St. Mark cut into almost any fortification wall anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean�Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, or Nauplion. For over three centuries the galleys of the republic kept the central and Western Mediterranean safe from Islam, while making a fortune as the go-between for Indian and Chinese imports from ports on the Eastern Mediterranean to Western Europe. By 1400 some 3,000 Venetian galleys and commercial ships brought into St. Mark�s Square loot from around the world. The elegant villas and palazzos show it. Venice was the best proof of the power of republican government when married to capitalism, as a rather small city without any natural resources soon created a renaissance from nothing other than political stability and market entrepreneurship. What brought down Venice�by 1700 it had receded into a provincial city�was not periodic plague, or even the rise of Islam (checked in 1571 at Lepanto). But rather the ascendance of the Atlantic port maritime states of Western Europe�England, France, Holland, Portugal, and Spain�that soon bypassed the Asian land routes and shipped in Chinese and Indian goods without going thought the Mediterranean or dealing with the Ottomans. And with the discovery of the New World, and the rise of the great sailing ships, Venice was doomed as a key international city. (That said, how such a small out-of-the-way polis ever remained preeminent is the real story, rather than its logical decline). Venice missed out entirely on the fabulous wealth and commerce from the Americas. But more importantly, its republicanism eroded, and with it so too went the entrepreneurship which otherwise might have encouraged a more westward view. IRONY BUT LESSONS TOO A great deal of irony here: while Venice became legendarily wealthy from eastern trade, mastered the galley, and held at bay the rise of the Ottomans from Western Europe, it was insidiously becoming irrelevant. (Lepanto was the last large galley battle in history). Sometimes great states become obsessed with the immediate enemy, and forget the more creeping dangers on the horizon. Had Venice applied a fraction of its genius to trans-Atlantic shipbuilding and looked westward beyond Gibraltar rather than eastward to Istanbul, it might well have rivaled Portugal and Spain well into the eighteenth century. In our own case, we are bickering over how to spend some $3.5 trillion ($2 trillion in borrow money)�millions for the Palestinians, billions to conduct two wars, trillions to redistribute in new social programs. But meanwhile other states are saving, investing, and improving their educational systems. The notion that the average American youth�20 hrs a week before the video game or TV console, a product of a therapeutic education that seeks to ensure that he is sensitive rather than educated�will inherit the lifestyle of his fathers seems to me dubious. THE 10th HOUR Our great wealth in the 20th century was in part predicated on natural bounty�farmland, oil, coal, iron ores, timber, etc.�under the aegis of a wonderfully stable constitution. The 21st will adjudicate whether our prior success was also predicated on superior intellect, law, and culture, inasmuch as our resources are now not so singular on the world stage. America to remain exceptional more than ever is going to have to have unusual citizens that are as lawful as they are creative. Unless we return to a meritocracy, emphasize science, math, liberal arts, and engineering�rather than the plague of �studies� courses (as in environmental-, leisure-, gender-, Latino-, black-, Asia-, Chicano-, community-, feminist-studies, etc.)�we simply will not match the Chinese and Indians in this century. The American people are waiting for a leader bold enough to balance budgets, restore meritocracy, end the therapeutic mushy sentimentality in our educational system, and insist on the rule of law, free markets, and limit government. Otherwise we know the ultimate end of the present road: a vast bureaucracy of non-taxpaying incompetents, damning the estranged few for not producing ever more to be taxed, convinced that they are geniuses�and only due to some sort of unfairness have been surpassed by others. The Chinese are rough, competent people and have no such delusions. In about 10 years their enormous financial power will begin to translate into military sophistication, and I don�t think their foreign policy will either have much to do with human rights or care much about what we have to say about them. RAVENNA Down the coast Ravenna is a strange place. The modern port is quite ugly or perhaps �bustling� is the better word. It is part of the muscular Italian north�smelting, petrochemicals, industrial trade�that explains why Italy is far wealthier than we usually suppose when we head to the more touristy south. If we wonder why all those quaint shops in Syracuse, Naples, Rome or Florence have nice glass, steel, and aluminum fixtures, come to Milan or Ravenna. The city was the Byzantines� last effort to keep Roman civilization safe a while longer from the so-called barbarians of the north. I spent the day walking alone to the city�s various churches and tombs�the great Basilica di San Vitale, the Battistero Neoniano, the little Mausoleo di Galla Placidia, and weird Sant� Apollinare Nuovo. Ravenna was the Western capital from the late fifth to eight century, a final effort to preserve Roman culture. One can see the results in the beautiful mosaics, and octagonal and brick Byzantine church designs. The city, like Venice, is on a lagoon, but the canals were in large part long ago covered. Other than the monuments, it is a rather depressing modern industrial city, though parts of the old inner urban core are still quite beautiful, very clean and well preserved. One gets a tinge of sadness�and warning� when entering these monumental churches, studying the mosaics that are among the best in the world. Civilization of a thousand years was collapsing, and yet somehow the old guard was able to marshal manpower and capital to created churches of enormous size, sophistication and beauty, a sort of last gasp as it were to keep art, learning and scholarship alive for yet another generation. OUR OWN RAVENNA Here too, there are warnings. In California we are spending hundreds of billions on prisons, in which killers and thugs sue constantly for expanded rights, while universities lay off professors (though rarely nonacademic apparatchiks and administrators), and turn away students. Ravenna invested in thousands of hours of sculpture, we in thousands of hours of legal work in appeals and writs. Our cynical intellectual elites are becoming ever more postmodern even as the undereducated majority becomes premodern. The state spends more and more on redistributive entitlements, less and less on infrastructure. Its population is bifurcating. A small, highly taxed elite supports museums, the arts, and gives to universities, a growing underclass swarms the emergency rooms, criminal justice system, and welfare roles. The utopianism of the shrinking elite wants the Saturday night felon to have sophisticated jurisprudence when he is arrested, the best brain surgeon when a .44 magnum enters his skull in a gang dust-up, and humane day care, health care, and counseling�and yet now has no way any longer either to pay for it, or how to convince the growing underclass to become better educated and more productive. (To do so would demand a tragic diction and mindset). One percent of Californians pays over 40% of our income taxes, perhaps as few as 360,000 out of some 36 million in the state. Each time one of these golden gooses flies east to no-tax Nevada, we lose about $50,000-80,000 in state taxes�or the money to keep a felon in the Corcoran prison house fed, housed, medicated, and counseled for a year. Do the math: one small businessman escapes to Tahoe or Reno, one lifer has no support. THE WORLD OUTSIDE But the system, like Ravenna abound 500, is in collapse (so we are letting out felons onto the streets as our tax-paying elites leave). A high school teacher of history in 1950 in the Los Angeles public school system would not recognize the curriculum of today. But he would recognize parts of the 101�about the same in many places, with about 10 times the traffic. The Ravenna effect of trying to create lasting art and beauty at the eleventh hour as the world disintegrates is harrowing to experience. Looking up at the domes of these great churches, and factoring in the engineering brilliance and artistic genius that produced them, while the entire infrastructure of Roman society was disintegrating, is again eerie. For all the vigor of the Visigoths or Lombards, or Huns, there was little there of the Roman genius for architecture, art, or engineering. While exploring the Basilica di San Vitale today, I was reminded of the news from America. An entire nation is obsessed with the silly Henry Louis Gates affair. A supposedly premier intellectual, who is a professor of African-American grievance, gets into a spat with a cop, purportedly evokes his �mama� in slurs, warns the cop whom he is �messin�� with, and then gets affirmation from the President�and we are supposed to think this is some sort of cosmic �teachable moment� in between trying to borrow another trillion dollars to socialize medicine in the manner of the Department of Motor Vehicles? Just as there is no logic in ruining the American medical system, so too there is no longer an elite class when its best and brightest scream slurs like �mama� and �messin� �, or condemn an entire police force as acting �stupidly� when it is trying to keep the rule of law. Yes, parts of the United States are becoming like the collapsing world outside the sanctum of San Vitale. (I�ll try to get off this Spenglerian gloom before writing from a gloomy Santa Sophia in Constantinople next week.) |
I doubt that India and China will ever overtake the US.
Their education systems, while good at technical fields, pump out nerds and geeks rather than truly creative people. And their languages will never compete with English, the world's lingua franca whose power and effectiveness has made it international.
There are some things that can't be measured on an objective scale 
| quote: |
| Originally posted by HardTranceProd I doubt that India and China will ever overtake the US. Their education systems, while good at technical fields, pump out nerds and geeks rather than truly creative people. And their languages will never compete with English, the world's lingua franca whose power and effectiveness has made it international. There are some things that can't be measured on an objective scale |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by HardTranceProd I doubt that India and China will ever overtake the US. Their education systems, while good at technical fields, pump out nerds and geeks rather than truly creative people. And their languages will never compete with English, the world's lingua franca whose power and effectiveness has made it international. There are some things that can't be measured on an objective scale |
| quote: |
| Hinglish, a blending of the words "Hindi" and "English", means to combine both types of words in one sentence....David Crystal, a British linguist at the University of Wales, projected in 2004 that at about 350 million, the world's Hinglish speakers may soon outnumber native English speakers.[1] |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by The17sss I agree. I take comfort in knowing that if it ever does happen, I'll be dead by then. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M And speaking of language, |
And yet 50 countries want to be in the commonwealth. And yet a huge number of the biggest companies in the world are based in the UK. And yet the decision to stay out of the euro is looking pretty good right now. And yet the UK recently granted the largest number of exploration licences for oil ever. And yet here we are speaking English.
Love to loathe or loathe to love? The UK is doing fine.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M I suggest you read up on India before making claims about our lack of "true creativity". What is your definition of creativity anyways ? What examples do you want me to give ? Of Indian art ? Indian dance forms ? Indian sportsmen ? Indian movies ? Indian music ? Indian literature ? Indian Spirituality ? Do you want to check out some contemporary Indian creativity or creativity exhibited thousands of years ago ? |
| quote: |
...As thrilling as it is that a new generation of Asians is emerging as world leaders when it comes to knowing that �i comes before e, except after c�, a small bit of me couldn't help wishing that we Indians excelled in slightly cooler spheres of life... |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by jerZ07002 there is nothing uglier or more unpleasant than listening to indians speak any language. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by HardTranceProd I doubt that India and China will ever overtake the US. Their education systems, while good at technical fields, pump out nerds and geeks rather than truly creative people. And their languages will never compete with English, the world's lingua franca whose power and effectiveness has made it international. There are some things that can't be measured on an objective scale |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by The17sss |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by jerZ07002 their engineers don't receive the same education as students from europe, the US, and canada. The educational systems in India (and China) pump out PHds, but not of the same quality. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by HardTranceProd How so? Just curious. I kind of agree, but it's more of a hunch, I wanted to see some facts. |
Such a long article and no mention of turn-of-the-century textiles? Did I just miss it? Great Britain began tumbling once they let Asian countries in on the sewing machine. Then they relinquished control over territories in Asia (though not necessarily at their own choosing).
The inevitability of greed and unchecked avarice led to the conceit of an empire, as it always does, and nobody was willing to admit it was the beginning of the end. Same old song, really.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by jerZ07002 there is nothing uglier or more unpleasant than listening to indians speak any language. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by HardTranceProd I have just the article for you: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/co...icle4198642.ece A person of your own ethnicity, an Indian columnist at The Times, wrote this: |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by jerZ07002 .....and when i call customer service, I know your name isn't jennifer, bitch! It sounds really nice to say that india is going to be a great power, but the reality is its population is way to large to sustain a high standard of living for all those people (thus, there will be huge income disparities, which likely will lead to civil unrest). Furthermore, Indias only real advantage over other 3rd world countries is that the people speak english, not pretty or even well, but it's an advantage nonetheless. their engineers don't receive the same education as students from europe, the US, and canada. The educational systems in India (and China) pump out PHds, but not of the same quality. one last comment, why the hell do indians have their own smell? It's nasty. |
You really don't have a clue of how things work here. There's already a tremendous amount of disparity in terms of economic wealth. There are 2 Indians in top 10 rich people in the world. And India has massive amount of poverty. Which country tops in Swiss Bank deposits ? Hint, it's not the US or Russia or China...Indians have personal deposits worth $ 1600 Billion in Swiss bank. How much fucking money is this ? Ok, that's a lot of black money, but we're not gona speak of corruption here. No civil unrest yet seen in the country.| quote: |
| Originally posted by jerZ07002 I don't have any study that confirms this and I'm not inclined to search for it (although I'm sure someone has concluded this before). I made this conclusion based on several things. First, I remember hearing about this issue while I was in college (i.e., the high number of PhDs being pumped out doesn't mean they are high quality PhDs). Second, they spend less money per student (not per person) than western countries. Third, western countries are years ahead in educational methodologies, strategies, and knowledge. Fourth, thousands of indians and chinese come to the US and europe to study, whereas, almost no americans or europeans go to india or china to study (which just shows the attitudes of the students in those countries about the education received in the US/Europe as compared to their home countries - not to the actual quality of the education). Fourth, major achievements are still occurring in western countries and not in the apparent 'arising powers.' Each of the arising powers is actually filling a niche for western countries (i.e., india being an outsourcing location for relatively low skill professional services because they speak english, and china for cheap manufacturing of products being engineered in europe and india. Also russia and brazil being natural resource providers). When india and china actually start making major NEW achievements, then you know their educational system is having a significant impact and can be compared on equal footing. Lastly, every major publication that ranks schools consistently ranks US and UK institutions as the preminent in the world. Chinese and indian schools don't even touch mid tier US schools in rankings (that could be because of english bias, but even a china ranking source places US schools way above chinese schools). Lastly, in order to pump out the millions of PhDs china does in a year, they have to sacrifice quality for quantity. In almost everything, quality and quantity are inversely related. |
You can argue as much as you want against it and point out all the wrong things about India, but these facts will not change. Start learning Hinglish.
They are clearly a despicable species that should be wiped off the face of the Earth.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M not only do we speak our language but also beat English speaking natives in their own spelling competitions. Pathetic. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M Yeah well, the Jennifer on this side is making money talking to you and the Jennifer on that side has been laid off...who's the winner ? |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M You really don't have a clue of how things work here. There's already a tremendous amount of disparity in terms of economic wealth. There are 2 Indians in top 10 rich people in the world. And India has massive amount of poverty. Which country tops in Swiss Bank deposits ? Hint, it's not the US or Russia or China...Indians have personal deposits worth $ 1600 Billion in Swiss bank. How much fucking money is this ? Ok, that's a lot of black money, but we're not gona speak of corruption here. No civil unrest yet seen in the country. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M Yeah well, you don't have a fucking clue. First, India has one of the finest Engineering Institutes (IIT) which graduates some of the brightest brains in the world. But not with a M.S or PhD degree, but with a bachelor's degree. These graduates are sought by institutes like MIT and Stanford, where they graduate with Masters and PhDs. So what would you say regarding the quality of education we receive? It's not just the Indian Institutes of Technology graduates that go to US to seek higher and quality education. Anybody with a good GRE score can go to the US and work on an RA and complete his education, without having to pay a lot of money. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M So your second, third and fourth points really don't mean anything. We don't study in our own country. We study in US and Europe and seek the finest education we can get. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M Fifth, (your fourth again, did you fail at high school math ?) Many Indian students stay back and go on to become professors and researchers in universities / high tech companies. They have contributed tremendously to what you would term as "major achievements in the western countries". |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M If you think we are filling niches for western countries, think again. Without India and China, your companies would be no where. It's mutually beneficial. And it's called doing profitable business. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M Again you talk about our schools and again I'll tell you, we don't sacrifice quality for quantity. We are smart, we come over to the US |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M Bottom line is, with all its shortcomings, India is fast emerging as a key global player. The dominance across all economic and political landscapes is going to increase. Learn to live with it. You can argue as much as you want against it and point out all the wrong things about India, but these facts will not change. Start learning Hinglish. |
well, as someone who was born and lived in india for the first 14 years of his life, i have to say that although there are a few exceptionally good universities (the IIT chain of schools), for the most part, the educational system in india does need a major upgrade.
things might have changed in the last 11 years that i've been out of the country, but i can tell you that at least when i was in school there, the emphasis was entirely on learning by rote, instead of critical thinking. and i went to a pretty decent english school in bombay, too. history, geography, even languages, were all taught by having students memorize stuff and then regurgitate all that material on tests. never once did i have to write a critical essay on a novel, or write a paper analysing some historical occurrence/trend. i didnt even know how to really write until i started going to high school here.
as for the quality of the technical education, that too is pretty sub-standard (the IIT chain of schools once again are an exception). i know this because when i was in college as an undergrad, i had many friends from india pursuing their master's degrees in computer science. they'd all tell me that the stuff they teach even in an average university (where i was doing my undergrad in Comp. Sci. + Engr.) at the UNDERGRAD level far surpassed anything that indian schools taught even at the GRAD level. once, this chic i was friends with needed help writing a basic console app in c/c++ to sort a list! and she was pursuing her MASTERs in comp. sci...needless to say, i was shocked!
again i should point out that things have probably changed for the better and will continue to do so as time goes by and as the country gets more exposure to foreign educational institutions. alot of top schools from the US and UK are in fact keen on opening (and i think have already opened) branches there, which can only benefit the country. however i do think it will be a while before the education system as a whole catches up to whats available in the west/europe/australia.
and finally, everything i just wrote is not meant to imply that indians are dumb, many of the smartest/wealthiest ppl. around are indians. im merely talking abt the country and its education system.
good read, thanks for posting
| quote: |
| Originally posted by jerZ07002 perhaps, but when you do it sounds like an old car that is running of fumes. there is almost nothing more unpleasant than listening to an indian speak. uhhhhhhhhhh. unemployment insurance pays more than jennifer is making. so, who is the winner really? because the prosperity is new. wait until the effects set in. people still have aspirations. when those aspirations don't come to fruition for a generation or two, people will not be so complacent. if IIT was so good why do their graduates seek a better education in the US? You clearly don't understand the point I was making. and thus you prove my point. i said india, not indians. and what does math have to do with that? i don't disagree that your country fills an important role. that role, however, is a niche: low cost english speaking, low level skilled service positions (i.e., outsouring non-essential non-client facing service professionals, and relatively unimportant [in the organizational aspect] skilled professionals [i.e., not nuclear physists.]). No one in the US likes dealing with Indians (and i am force to all the time because of our outsourcing operation). learn to distinguish between india the institution and indians the people. i never said you weren't smart. i'll learn hinglish when your women shave their arms pits and the men wear deordorant. i don't like the smell of sweaty curry. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M You've started this whole thing on a racist note |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Omega_M and it's only gotten worse. You are not worth my time spent in writing anything else in defense. Live with your preconceived, racist and wrong notions about India. It's not gona change the reality which you clearly fail to grasp. |
It's about time Crackas begin to lose their influence. All the raping, colonizing and pillaging done by the white race is hilariously being thrown back at them, evident by the growing muslim takeover of Europe.
there go Americans and their press degrading one of their closest allies once more. Kind of like how you never hear how the Brits or Canadians get killed in Afghanistan or Iraq.
British world power peaked nearly a century ago. WW1 hugely indebted the nation as well as permanently altered public attitudes, contributing to depression, disarmament and social upheaval until WW2, which basically bankrupt the British Empire and paved the way for the emergence of the new superpowers and something called the Cold War. This is not news, it's called documented history. 
Britain has, since the end of WW2 - and especially since the 1950s after the Suez Canal fiasco - been a lesser or middle power. Yet let's not forget Britain was the third nation on the plant to obtain nuclear weapons and its military, although much smaller in comparison to the USA, Russia or China, for example, is still one of the best in the world. Its intelligence services are also efficient and heavily involved in international affairs.
Anyone who believes that the British nation is in any more serious decline than the United States has blinders on. American global and economic power has very likely peaked. How exactly do Americans think they can still hang on to the grip on the world's affiars as long as they have with all the current debt and finance issues? Other aforementioned nations are emerging, the world is changing very rapidly. China, India, Japan and Russia want to be on the Moon's surface again by 2020 and we could very well have another space race on our hands. Where's all the money going to come from, eh?
In fact, you could even argue the USA is veering leftish the same way British attitudes veered left after World War Two and essentially brought in socialised medicine and direct government control of industry. Some parallels are there if you actually look. Anyway, the point here is that Americans are in for a bit of a reality check in the coming generation. This affects me too, since I live in the nice comfortable bubble in the western world.
>>Hakka Cuisine<<
Some tasty stuff man....I got hooked a few years back when I first met my (now) good friends that came from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in the 90s.
One of them is going back to Kolkata this Dec. with his fiance who's never been to India.
From the stories I've heard of people doing your laundry/dishes/yardwork/etc. makes me wonder why they ever came to Canada...
| quote: |
| Originally posted by HardTranceProd I doubt that India and China will ever overtake the US. Their education systems, while good at technical fields, pump out nerds and geeks rather than truly creative people. And their languages will never compete with English, the world's lingua franca whose power and effectiveness has made it international. There are some things that can't be measured on an objective scale |
Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.