When doing business in India, find an Indian with the right contact and all will be fine

  This is the conventional wisdom often heard in little Red Dot. We have the right Indians with the contacts and know the ways and the ropes, to navigate the Indian power grid with differential access to the who's who in India. Investing in India is a walk in the park. Our contacts go all the way to Modi and everything can be resolved with the public not knowing what is happening behind closed doors. This may be the reason why Singapore's investments in India, hundreds of billions, have been going on so smoothly, without a hitch. Even the small storm in the teacup when DBS was made to acquire a failed Indian bank and being asked to pay for their losses and whatever, nothing else was heard of it. Problems solved, QED when you have good Indian contacts.

The SIA investment in Air India and Air India calling its major shareholders to pay up for its losses will likely go the same way. All settled peacefully behind closed doors. Getting the right contacts is very important when doing business in India. 

What is the catch? What is the meaning of contacts? In China, it is called 'guanxi'. I do not know what is it called in India. In the USA it is called lobbying. What is the difference when big businesses are conducted based on guanxi, contacts or lobbying? Don't they need to go by the rule of law, by what is written in the contracts?

There is an underlying assumptions in such business dealings. The contacts will serve the interests of the investing or paying party. And when doing business in India, the contacts are likely to be well connected Indians. The Indian contacts will be the middlemen, the go between, the deal makers. The investing party, likely not Indians, will use his Indian contacts to talk to the Indians. Presumably the Indian contacts will work in favour of whoever hires him to be the contact. So he will be on the side of the investing party when negotiating with the Indians in India, could be the Indian govt. Caveat, hopefully the assumptions and presumptions are correct, and the contacts will negotiate in favour of the investing party. 

So, you have a non Indian investor hiring an Indian national to represent him to negotiate with the other Indian party in a business deal in India. The non Indian investor has no choice but to have complete trust in the Indian contact. What are the chances that the two Indians will snook the non Indian investing party for their own interests, making their own deals in the process? Trust them.

What do you think?

Clown Rubio thinks American youths are as stupid as him

 During Xi's recent visit to Washington, he told the USA that China is open to welcoming 100,000 USA students to study in China. That has created immediately a tsunami of fear among USA leaders and the MSM has already started spreading propaganda about indoctrination and brainwashing if such students were allowed to go to China to study. Are USA students so weak minded and cannot think for themselves what is right and what is wrong and need its leaders to worry for them for life? Chinese students have been studying in USA universities for decades, most staying behind to work in USA, benefiting its industries and university research programs. But the tide is turning and Chinese students mostly prefer to return to China after graduation without the fear of racism and that can now afford them a better future in research and innovation. rather than risk being targeted as spies and getting prosecuted. The number of Chinese students studying in USA has fallen over the years and most Universities have lost much revenue catering to such students from China. More than the fees are the supporting businesses catering to such students.

Xi's invitation has ignited a genuine fear among the USA universities, most of all if USA students flock to China to get a very affordable but not inferior education in China. The other bigger fear of the USA Government is that USA students in China are going to see the real China as opposed to the fabricated news about China over the decades. This is going to open up a can of worms, if younger USA people are able to see the good life in China, the infrastructures, the cheap cost of living, the innovation in the universities and whether Chinese citizens are living in stifled conditions.

Why need to go to the USA to study, paying an arm and a leg when universities in China can provide a cheaper education of equal caliber? On top of that, Chinese entities now favor graduates from Chinese universities, while returning students from USA are no more the preferred choice.

Anonymous 

NGOs must disclose their sources of income

 Which is why any opposition group in whatever form, providing aid in whichever form, must be made to disclose its source of funding. Governments everywhere knows what to do with funding for terrorist activities but never make any serious effort to rein in those NGOs fermenting the same activity of creating chaos when the time arrives. But NGOs are smart and insert themselves in help groups, religious entities and innocent sounding Samaritan establishments, making it difficult to sound them out.

We can see why there is so much opposition in Thailand trying to enact a law to force NGOs to disclose their source of funding that will reveal who is behind all the protests and who are pulling the strings. Of course, no trail will ever lead to the main culprit, but the funding source will tell us who they are working for. NED is funded by the USA Government and many billionaire elites like George Soros. If the trail leads to NED, it means USA Government involvement and means interference in the internal affairs of nations.

Anonymous 

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Americans believe that everything must be expensive to be good...this mentality and playbook is coming back to haunt the Americans

  Good means expensive or expensive means good. This is the mantra of America and the West. Everything from the West and America must be expensive. The days of expensive branded goods to fleece the dumb rich is over. Any thinking person will not splash their hardearned money on cheap but expensive goods just for a label.

For a long time, the Americans and the West priced their items on the assumption that the consumers are buying quality and therefore have to pay the price demanded by the sellers. Japan and South Korea started to prick this bubble with quality but relatively inexpensive goods and products. Then came China, and the high price myth fell flat on the ground. China is producing everything with good quality and a fraction of the price of American and western equivalents.

The most crucial sector that the Americans are now facing the most painful consequences is war and the cost of weaponry. The American doctrine and philosophy and marketing strategy, is to make wars very expensive, make weapons very expensive that only the Americans can pay and fight these expensive wars. For a while it works, and this reinforced the beliefs in the American thinking, in the strategies of American Military Industrial Complex. American war strategy and doctrine are all about power, shock and awe and short wars. Everything will be over in days, maybe in hours.

This strategy works when the enemies are small, poor and weak and technologically inferior, did not have the financial and military resources to match the American war machine. No country can fight the Americans and would be wiped out in a matter of days. The Ukraine and Iran wars have made this strategy looking hollow and misplaced. Once the enemy is able to resist the first few days of all out bombing and attacks, the Americans will run out of weapons and run out of money to replace what they had expended.

The Americans depend on quick wars, shock and awe and victory in days. No need to think about logistics and weapon replacement and resupply. The Iranians have proven that they could fight a war at a fraction of the cost of the Americans. The Houthis make this even more apparent and ludicrous.

The American war strategy and war machine cannot do the job they were designed to do. No more quickies. The two wars, in Ukraine and Iran, are going to bankrupt the Americans. They cannot afford to fight these wars even with the printing of money. Their war industry cannot produce and resupply the American forces with the expensive weapons they need, financially and in the numbers needed when the war is dragged over months and years.

Expensive wars and expensive weapons are now things that the Americans too cannot afford to have. The Americans are losing wars because they cannot afford it, cannot produce enough with limited manufacturing capacity. And the enemies are making it worst by using cheap and affordable weapons and easy to produce and equally effective. In a way, it becomes a war when two sides are throwing money at each other, and see which side will run out of money and weapons first.

Expensive weapons no longer win wars. The doctrine of war has changed. Many countries would have to rethink their weapons wardrobe and think again what they are buying and whether they are useful or relevant in new warfares when expensive does not mean good and will win wars.

Asymmetric war, war of attrition, drones and hypersonic missiles are the new wars against the American strategy of short and shock and awe war. Just trap the American terrorists in a long war they cannot win and drain their resources, weapons, finances and the will to fight. Asymmetric and war of attrition are cheap and economical and can go on and on. American's unending wars will bankrupt America.

Stealing IP says Americans asses running out of excuses in a losing war with China

 SMIC is already making 5 nm chips using DUV machines that China has in abundance, secured over the years. China's progress is making ASML and the USA nervous and paranoid. They can keep claiming that China's progress is nothing extraordinary nor relevant but just costly. Well, we shall see when the shit hits the fan. Action speaks louder than words. China can bring down cost with its abundant cheap energy and talented engineers.

We have already seen that in the field of space exploration, high-speed railways, hypersonic missiles, drones, shipbuilding, renewable energy infrastructures, agriculture and aquaculture progress and energy exploration and innovation both renewal and traditional.

Did anyone care to watch that piece by Statrys', titled 'Now it's the West copying China (but they'll never admit it)? What progress China is making will never be admitted, not until the shit already hits the fan. Then they will try to contain the fallout by sanctioning, tariffing and demonization. By then, it will be too little too late.

Anonymous