The basic disagreement flows from the fact that Matt is talking about GDP per capita while Amish is referring to GDP. Obviously our GDP is much larger than Pak's but the per capita is suppressed because of our huge population.
Bottom line: Matt you want to do
business in India not Pakistan. You must have some reason for doing that other than the fact the missus is Indian. In other words, the difficulty of starting up something here is probably more than compensated for by projected profitability. Moreover once you cut through the redtape and are on the other side, that itself is an entry barrier for your future competitors.
True, but all things considered, I could have met with the same sort of enthusiasm in Pakistan - and faced fewer problems. Unlike MTNL/BSNL, PCTL leases out it's infrastructure to those wanting to use it.
Yes, I know he was talking abt per capita... but my point is he was considering 26 or 43 to be minor difference, forgetting that Indian population is way too large compared to Pakistan.
Amish, we are talking per person. $26 or $43 (depending on which stats you take) per person per year is *really marginal* and in that respect puts India and Pakistan on fairly equal ground salary-wise (overall average, anyway - of course India has more Billionaires but we digress).
And comparing Aus-NZ with Ind-Pak is just joke. India is poor country, so is Pakistan. Infact I wud say difference of 47000 and 30000 betn Aus-NZ is not much, considering NZ is so TINY when compared to Australia. Its as if its part of Australia itself.
Wait a minute, were we not just comparing India (>1 billion people) and Pakistan (~166mn people)? Geographically speaking, yes, NZ is tiny compared to Australia but, poor country, rich country - that alone shouldn't explain an average wage difference of US$17k a year per person (+56%)! The difference in wages between NZ and Australia is more comparable to India vs Nepal/Bangladesh (about +120%) or India vs Afghanistan (in real numbers, $700ish) than it is to India vs Pakistan (~2-4%).
NZ has 4.2mn people, Australia has 21.4mn people - that's a similar ballpark in population discrepancy between to what is between India and Pakistan: (1.14b vs 166mn = 6.86x pop, 21.4mn vs 4.2mn = 5.1x), and yet nor can this explain why there is such a discrepancy in wages. You just can't argue with statistics.
Original point: 1. Pakistan easier to do business in (so says the world bank, and unless you have personal experience otherwise, it might be a good idea to pipe down).
Secondary point: 2. Pakistan has better broadband in many respects compared to India (prices, no FUP, unbundled local loop, cheap peering et al ad infinitum).
You can argue about GDP and whatnot all you like but these two facts remain true for the time being, so CAN WE PLEASE GET BACK ON TO THE TOPIC OF BROADBAND AND DISCUSS AT THE VERY LEAST WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO FIX BROADBAND IN INDIA.
You are surely welcome to start up a thread in another section of the site to discuss GDP etc, so if future posts in this thread do not contain information relevant to Broadband, I will delete them.
