To illustrate, suppose that this reduction in the value of the pound is 5 .

Nevertheless, we should not take a positive outcome of the review as a foregone conclusion, nor should we assume that the subsequent launch of a final status process will be automatic.

Both will depend on the outcome of the review, and that outcome is in the hands of Kosovo's leaders, who should continue their progress in implementing the standards.

Yet it would be a grave mistake to assume that the ECB can deliver lasting economic peace.

We are assuming that our societies are going to be based on mistrust.

Medvedev may one day have his own Yukos moment, but we should not assume that he is an independent player until he does.

First, it has to be assumed that individuals prefer to avoid risk.

But this assumes that our income relative to the income of others does not matter.

Let s assume, I said next, that Nicholas and John own two small firms that compete with each other.

So presumably he has a constructive vision for the Bank s future.

Yet it would be very wrong to suppose that gaping inequality is stable as long as it arises through innovation and growth.

Looking at the classic S and M nature of some of this torture, it is hard not to speculate that someone setting policy was aroused by all of this.

We need not assume that these goals cannot be pursued simultaneously.

We can no longer presume that its institutional arrangements reflect its citizens preferences.

Furthermore, it is common to assume in public policy that what is not easily measured statistically is insignificant or does not exist.

But assume that China does revalue its currency sharply, by, say, 40 .

The concepts of intelligence and of race are less clear cut than we often assume them to be.

And we can assume that it would be repealed and replaced by something else come January 2013, either by a re elected President Barack Obama, or by a new, Republican president.

One can assume that next year s total spending on military affairs will be even bigger.

But it is neither useful nor very plausible to assume that Kim Jong un and his military advisers are mad.

But it would be most imprudent to assume that the turning point is right now, and that things are as bad as they will get.

To them, one can only assume, the debates are nothing more than a personality contest.

It would be rash to assume that the outcome in Russia would be as benign as Ukraine s Orange Revolution.

It would be imprudent to assume that the French and Dutch no votes were not about discontent with Union policies but that anger was directed against the French and Dutch governments, not Europe itself.

One would assume that Obama would prove even more unsettling to bin Laden.

On the contrary, it would be a grave mistake to assume that fanatical Islamism fully defines Saudi attitudes toward religion.

Suppose it was divided into independent political units of two million people each.

In the rich world, when a mother dies giving birth, we assume that something went wrong.

It is therefore inaccurate to assume China changed suddenly and all at once in the year 1644.

It would be dangerous to assume that after Tunisia, democracy in the Arab world is just around the corner.

Of course, relaxed and happy people can still become depressed, and stressed and unhappy people may not be depressed, but it is a reasonable hypothesis that happier people are less likely to become depressed.

It is not a good idea to assume that markets will solve these distributional problems by themselves the evolution of structure and the income distribution are largely the result of market incentives.

It is thus wrong to assume that economies based on cheap labor are massively outcompeting the EU.

But, you know, even beyond that, if you think about the logic underlying it, is something I call iPod liberalism, where we assume that every single Iranian or Chinese who happens to have and love his iPod will also love liberal democracy.

The two names that have been floated so far presumably leaked as trial balloons are particularly disturbing.

At the same time, it would be short sighted to assume that fossil fuels, especially coal, are a profitable and sustainable energy source.

We also assume an automatic acceptance of rules that in fact took a long time to become embedded even in the US.

But the next worst thing is to assume that a minor patch up will be enough to render globalization healthy and sustainable.

It is not entirely far fetched to assume that an Obama effect is having an impact on Israel s current international predicament.

But are we to assume that the same brilliance and creativity and adaptability that got us up to the top of that energy mountain in the first place is somehow mysteriously going to evaporate when we have to design a creative way back down the other side?

Yet it would be wrong to dwell excessively on current leaders weaknesses, for to do so presupposes that with different leaders at the helm, an Israeli Palestinian agreement could be reached through bilateral negotiations.

And when that doesn't work, when it turns out that people who disagree with us have all the same facts we do and are actually pretty smart, then we move on to a third assumption they know the truth, and they are deliberately distorting it for their own malevolent purposes.

It is therefore safe to assume that not only obscure academics and correspondents, but officials in Beijing as well, are now busy studying the history of the Ghulja uprising and of Osman Batur s guerillas.

Today, we can see the force of this ideology, but it would be a mistake to assume that the spirit of the original Muslim reformists has vanished.

Perhaps the assumption is that, as opponents of abortion sometimes say, the aborted fetus had the genetic potential to become a Beethoven or an Einstein.