What Am I Reading?

Ok! A new template deserves a new post although however silly it might turn out to be :-) This is the third consecutive post with a question in the title. Who cares?

Anyways, coming back to the item at hand. So here goes the list of books/articles i have read or trying to read in the last few weeks:

1) The Dogs of War --Frederick Forsyth
2) The Firm --John Grisham
3) Little Women --L M Alcott
4) World War II History --BBC History Website
5) The Eleventh Commandment --J Archer

Apart from these, I get a daily dose of:
http://in.rediff.com
http://timesofindia.com
http://news.google.com/india

Also frequent visits to:
http://www.pinr.com
http://varta.iitb.ac.in/iitb.discuss

Been reading a lot these days. There seems nothing else to do.

Who's right?

Was reading an article in Rediff and came across the following:

Pakistan and India have held several rounds of talks on the glacier in the past but have failed to reach any agreement.

When the Line of Control that divides Kashmir was set by the two countries after a 1971 war it only reached a point on the map called NJ 9842 and didn't extend to the northern glacier because it was considered uninhabitable.

India says the border should run northward in a straight line up to the Chinese border, while Pakistan says it should go to the northeast following the angle of the Line of Control.

So this is the cause of dispute over the Siachen Glacier. Apparently India spends a crore a day maintaining the base at the glacier! And all this because the politicians can't get their geomtery right!

India/China Aiding US?

Japanese save a lot. They do not spend much.Also Japan exports far more than it imports. Has an annual trade surplus of over $100 billions.Yet Japanese economy is considered weak, even collapsing.

Americans spend, save little. Also US imports more than it exports. Has an annual trade deficit of over $400 billion. Yet, the American economy is considered strong and trusted to get stronger. But where from do Americans get money to spend? They borrow from Japan, China and even India. Virtually others save for the US to spend. Global savings are mostly invested in US, in dollars. India itself keeps its foreign currency assets of over $50 billions in US securities. China has sunk over $160 billion in US securities.
Japan's stakes in US securities is in trillions.

Result:
The US has taken over $5 trillion from the world. So, as the world saves for the US, Americans spend freely. Today, to keep the US consumption going, that is for the US economy to work,other countries have to remit $180 billion every quarter, which is $2 billion a day, to the US! Otherwise the US economy would go for a six.
So will the global economy. The result will be no different if US consumers begin consuming less.

A Chinese economist asked a neat question. Who has invested more, US in China, or China in US? The US has invested in China less than half of what China has invested in US. The same is the case with India. We have invested in US over $50 billion. But the US has invested less than $20 billion in India.

<This article was lifted entirely from an iitb.discuss post>