Some attribute the decline of the Mughal empire to land-grant instead of grants to the monetary revenue from the land ("jagir").  
 
Ever read any military analysis on British success in India from 1750 to 1850 (but not before 1725)? Technologically, the British had no advantage, especially no advantage over well organized states (e.g., mysore, punjab). And the tropps were Indian on both sides, and in the case of Punjab, the officers were European on both sides. 
 
Was it a financial advantage?

So there is genetic evidence of a very old ANI invasion, and cultural evidence of a more recent (Vedic) Aryan migration. 
 
But no evidence of a ANI (cultural) migration, or of an Aryan (genetic) invasion.  
 
Research is making South Asian history more muddled, not less.

Funny world. People want to understand the mechaniss of medical procedures, their financial advice, their charitable giving their cars, their everthing. Used to be that "we" would rely on expertise (a good doctor, a trusted accountant), good will and a trust in good governance. What a huge waste of time for every individual to try to monitor everything.  
 
After all, there are 1000s of people who have a very good knowledge of UNICEF -- but they don't bother witht he considerable expense of turning it into digestibel bit-sized chunks for SWPLes (SWiPLes?) to read, and then hire all the PR staff to clarfiy the inevitable misunderstandings. 
 
We need an essay -- "In defence of ignorance".

I'm not sure this 6 month strategy solves the new-credit-lower-score problem. A bank can see all your credit, not just your score. Wierd behavious will get noticed. 
 
Look, for people who fully-pay their balances, credit cards that have no fees are a way of getting a free 30 day loan. A good investment. 
Also, many cards now have rewards or rebate programs, like a 2 or 3 percent cash back on purchases. 
 
While there are people with moral or religious objections to credit, there is no rational reason to be a financial luddite. Embrace the modern world -- it's quite nice.

Caste is an imprecise term. Varna and jati are clearer, but stuill religiously loaded. Let's try socially-stratified occupation-based endogomous groups -- SSOBEG -- a nice neutral term. 
 
SSOBEGs in one village for 1000s of years? Indian settlement patterns aren't quite that stable. Bengal and the lower Brahmaputra were stteled post 1100. Most of western Punjab was settled after 1848 (google: canal colonies).  
 
You can have stable long-term SSOBEGs even with recent settlement and significant migration. But it mucks things up.

This American obsession with finding "good" Muslims who "really really like us" reminds of the old-time American search for "good" communists, like Romania's Ceuscesu, or Tito, who weren't like those-bad-communists-over-there. 
 
Says a lot more about Americans than about Albanians. It's a bit pathetic.

Mcardle shouldn't use the word "heritable" if she doesn't undertand what it means. I never use it.

You may wish to look at some of the results coming out of experimental economics.

In the past 10 years I've made a concerted effort to read fiction, especially the classics. Its helped me a great deal understand the motivations and inner-lives of human beings -- something I wasn't great at, and still don't have a natural aptitude for. 
 
As I see it, there are only 3 ways to understand humans (in descending order) 
1)Fiction 
2) Statistically-valid surveys 
3) Anecdotes. 
 
And of all the pre-1900 English stuff I've read, Jane Austen is by far the crappiest. Read George Elliot, or Thomas Hardy. Skip Austen. 
 
My only recommendation, to start on fiction: Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. And skip anything post 1950 -- too soon to tell what's quality.

Fort Bend county has the highest proportion of Asians of any non-coastal-state county in the country.  
 
Note that Riverside County annd San Bernadino, CA , are shaded slightly red. There is plenty of room in California, all the way to Death Valley.

The HBC lands on the prairies were fur-trade areas -- the only real long lasting settlement was the red river settlement. The descendents of that community are Mètis of Manitoba. You may also find descendents among the Cree (for example, the old residents of York Factory). 
 
British settlement in Canada mostly dates from after the seven years war (except Halifax, founded 1759).

I don't know the composition of British immigration to Canada -- I'll see if I have time to look it up. I do know that Canada had the largest Orange Order in the world up to the Thirties, and Toronto had the world's biggest Orangeman's parade (today, the largest parade in Toronto is Caribana, North America's biggest Carribean festival). 
 
Quick googling suggests another possibility for differences above and below the great lakes: 
 
Catharine Anne Wilson has written an excellent book on the group and chain migration of some 105 Ulster Scot families from the Ards Peninsula of County Down to Amherst Island, near Kingston during the 19th century. Her study concludes that these emigrants, who had remained in Ireland for roughly a century more than the classic Scotch-Irish migrants to the American frontier, were quite different from their distant cousins, taking a more cautious, rational and family-based approach to the migration process 
 
Citation, for those who can find it 
 
Catherine Anne Wilson, A New Lease on Life: Landlords, Tenants and Immigrants in Ireland and Canada, Kingston: McGill-Queen?s Univ. Press, 1994. For a shorter version of her work, see Catherine Anne Wilson, ?The Scotch-Irish and Immigrant Culture on Amherst Island, Ontario?, in Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish, edited by H. Tyler Blethen and Curtis W. Wood, Jr, Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1997.

Weird to see Chinese nationalists here. The site has hardly any American/British etc nationalists -- wonder why the difference (or maybe these as "Han" nationalists, paralleling white nationalists. That would make more sense). 
 
An ageing population creates demographic dependency issues regardless of the number or type of social programs. China is rapidly aging, and the experience of Korea/Taiwan/Japan suggests that the imperial gvt in Beijing will find it hard to turn the taps back on. I doubt Tibet will even be majority Han due to migration. Possibly the same with Xinjiang south of the Tien Shan -- its a backwater for a reason. 
 
The successful trick isn't "swamping" -- it's co-option of local elites. Han-identified ethnic Tibetans (like Manchurians, Hui, etc).

I remember the catfish war -- I hadn't kept track of how it turned out. 
 
American Agribusiness (big farm lobby) is trying something similar now, demanding country of origin labelling on meat sold in the US (rule took effect March 16, 2009). It's killing the Canadian cattle and hog industries (meat packers would rather use all-American meat than go to the trouble of determining percentages). 
 
Canada has filed a trade complaint.  
 
The Vietnamese Catfish saga is an interesting precedent.

It would be nice if lopsided sex-ratios gave women more power in the marriage transaction, but research suggests that, despite the anecdote above, this will not be the case. 
 
If you can access it, I suggest reading "The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice" by Siwan Anderson, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 21, Number 4?Fall 2007?Pages 151?174. 
 
(JEP articles are easy-to-read literature reviews -- no math! But Siwan Anderson is also a well-cited scholar in the field of dowry-research, and in particular, the dramatic dowry inflation in Sotuh Asia since 1947 and -- for Bdesh -- 1971) 
 
Also -- the marriage-squeez argument does not work in societies with universal marriage (like India)

Another hypothesis: 
 
People don't believe in intelligence because they like to think that their own good fortune is a result of their own hard work, not a lucky genetic endowment. It justifies personal selfishness, and attitude of superiority over those genetically less fortunate, and a feeling that if that lazy janitor just worked harder, he could do just as well on his GMATs and get into Harvard Business School. 
 
It's not socialization or conformity, its just self-interest and selfishness. Admitting that your wealth is just due to luck would require self-examination and humility.

Google "Lucas critique". And "Microfoundations."

Paper controls for broadband access.

Of course not, Ned. They come to Britain  
 
Not any more!

But there are still tigers in the woods. And soon they will have nuclear weapons 
 
Tigers with nuclear weapons. But no thumbs. Which are flat. And cannot open a Lexus. Or chop down an Olive tree. So we must invade. 
 
This was, as I recall, how it was that the invasion of Iraq was justified on blogs. Tortured anologies that made my brain hurt, but seemed to leave their proponents unaffected. In retrospect, I think it was because they had no brains.