2 comments (Add your own)

1. Kinasih wrote:

, that it is just not a price worth paying.I am not a bond viilgante. There are times when this may well be the right course of action. I have long felt that the best thing for Jamaica is not to limp along from one debt restructuring to another in the fantasy that they can grow out of the mess, but to just default, restructure and grow. But Barbados is not Jamaica e2€“ not yet at least. It would be wrong to assume that unemployment would end up lower if we chose to lose our rating than chose to fight it.If we lost our credit rating, the cost of credit and borrowing would rise which would push up spending and investment and send unemployment up. If we lost our credit rating, it would undermine investor confidence, which would push down investment spending further, sending unemployment up. Less investment would undermine our foreign exchange position and could trigger a devaluation, adding to the negative spiral of loss of confidence, higher borrowing rates, less growth and lower confidence.An emergency package to forestall a credit downgrade would include four things: (1) adopting the new GDP estimates from CARTAC which would put us in a different comparison, reducing the odds of devaluation slightly (2) getting the leading businesses together to privatize some state assets to give a one-off boost to the budget. Perhaps the Government could sell some buildings, land, machinery and lease back parts (3) an aggressive efficiency drive in government expenditure and (4) wages. I am loathed to see workers bearing the brunt of the adjustment, but if they do not, it will be their unemployed brothers and sisters who do. The biggest contribution to the growth of government expenditure today is not welfare payments but wages. That seems very odd at a time of global crisis. What about a pay rise e2€œmoratoriume2€9d? The unions should respond by saying they would be prepared to consider it if the shops take a cut to bring down the cost of living e2€“ at least on certain goods.The Asian countries were downgraded and later upgraded. It is possible. But in the process GDPs contracted by as much as 20%. We cannot afford a default.

Mon, April 30, 2012 @ 12:26 AM

2. Shingo wrote:

Hi Milan,Thanks for offering a difefrent view on the issue. I think we disagree in a few difefrent ways regarding this.First, I have tried both the iPhone and the Android, and I must say that I don't see the iPhone as such a clearly superior product. I'll mention just a few areas which are obvious and hard to disagree to give an idea: the notification system is far superior on Android; the communication between third-party applications on Android is very nice, and it's non-existent on the iPhone; the Android has a back stack of applications which allow you to navigate back to what you were doing, while the iPhone simply requires to close and reopen every single application.Note that these three points are not minor details. They're core to the usage of the phone. So, no, I don't see the Android as an inferior choice.Then, the second area we clearly disagree regards using products from companies which are monopolists and put their own interests over those of their partners and customers at all times. Specifically, think about the duality in your comment:That includes rejecting apps form the app store if it affects their return. I don’t really see much point in being anti to a superiorly engineered and designed product.They are rejecting products, no matter if they are superiorly engineered or not, and thus preventing you from using good products.Given their wild practices, I'd probably stop using their products anyway, even if there was no Android out there. But given this behavior and the existence of Android, even if you just want to go for the best product, switching to Android looks like an obvious choice.

Mon, April 30, 2012 @ 6:04 AM

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