Not really, but reading Balzac at your age smacks of the provinces.

15. The Mirebalais affair, named for a town located on the central plateau, exemplifies the atmosphere of violence prevalent in that region, which smacks of political violence.

India s government, which has reacted to previous terrorist outrages with calm and restraint, has no choice this time but to respond decisively. Anything that smacks of temporizing and appeasement will further inflame the public a few months before national elections are due.

This is difficult and smacks of protectionism, but it is neither impossible nor necessarily inimical to healthy globalization. As I argue in my book The Globalization Paradox, expanding the scope for national governments to maintain regulatory diversity and rebuild frayed social bargains would enhance the functioning of the global economy.

You are obliged to take care of your family, your friends, or even your fellow countrymen. But the idea of universal charity is too abstract, and smacks of the kind of unwelcome interference that Western imperialists and the Christian missionaries who followed them practiced in the East for too long.

If we really want a sustainable future for all of humanity and our planet, we shouldn t plunge ourselves back into darkness. Tackling climate change by turning off the lights and eating dinner by candlelight smacks of the let them eat cake approach to the world s problems that appeals only to well electrified, comfortable elites.

That said, there are huge infrastructure needs across developing Asia, and it is high time for China to play a greater role in international lending institutions. Moreover, the official US argument that China should invest its money in existing institutions, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, because a Chinese led bank would likely have governance problems smacks of hypocrisy.

Against this background, the return of US investors to provide short term dollar funding for European bank debt smacks of a desperate hunt for yield that relies on European Central Bank President Mario Draghi s promise to do whatever it takes to save the euro. As for Goldman s equity play, as bond market guru Bill Blain put it, the words buy cheap, sell a bit dearer on the up, and then dump and run spring to mind.