An absurd expectation, one might think.

One can also imagine that he did it to secure the women s vote.

That vision is more plausible than one might think.

Contrary to what one would imagine, the Kyoto Protocol has not prompted this research.

One would think that market prices should be volatile as investors try to absorb what this earnings volatility means.

One could imagine that a spell of unemployment might be a time of reflection, reestablishment of personal connections, and getting back to fundamental values.

Given this, one might think the US government would be actively courting Chinese investment, not scaring it away unnecessarily.

Given the country s economic conditions, one would think that Italy is ripe for decisive change.

LONDON You would think that the British, having practically invented appeasement, and paid a heavy price for it, would know better.

One imagines this compelling theme will return soon enough.

One might think Annan far too compromised for the post of Secretary General, but the UN doesn't work that way.

One should not imagine that all this military equipment would have been around, still, in what hands.

One might think that a country that owns foreign oil can use the profits from sales to insulate its economy from high world oil prices.

Contrary to popular opinion, the type of forces and capabilities needed by NATO are not as widely available in national inventories as one might think.

It requires a large reserve of imagination, optimism, or plain stupidity to believe that one s fellow human beings will ever live beyond history and ideology.

If one makes no distinctions and disregards nuances one will end up believing that 60 Turkish women wear the veil.

One might think that foreign investors would quake in terror at these terms and shy away from dollar denominated assets.

Not a huge problem, one might have thought.

America is much more resilient than its critics believe.

The European Union has been so successful that you would have thought there would be dancing in the streets at its 50th anniversary.

You might imagine that people could choose the right light bulbs for themselves.

Today, many people might think that all of this is water under the bridge.

No sound monetarist thinks those numbers predict current inflation.

That may seem unlikely one would think that a bad economic outlook would incline governments to postpone, rather than accelerate, austerity measures.

Indeed, it is barely conceivable that the Millennium Development Goals will be achieved without the efforts, creativity and solidarity of many millions of ordinary citizens through voluntary action.

One would think that market prices should be volatile as investors try to absorb what this earnings volatility means. But we have learned time and again that stock markets are driven more by psychology than by reasoning about fundamentals.

Yet nobody thought that that election had changed the course of Europe.

You might think that many genes would have to be changed to extend lifespan genes affecting muscle strength, wrinkles, dementia, and so forth.

Given wide publicity about international charitable relief efforts and voluntary contributions to Japan, one might think that the country s economic loss was shared internationally. But newspaper accounts suggest that such contributions from foreign countries should be put in the hundreds of millions of US dollars well below 1 of the total losses.

The links between Europe and America are, frankly, much more complex than the advocates of decoupling appreciate.

One might think Annan far too compromised for the post of Secretary General, but the UN doesn't work that way. Instead of being forced to resign after Rwanda and Srebrenica, he was promoted to Secretary General.

But one can envisage a system in which international reserves are held each in roughly equal shares of dollars, euros (assuming a further gradual increase in its share), and SDRs.

Mexico s economic problems might be similarly more intractable than many commentators seem to believe.

One might have expected the Americans to know better than to bet all on a man who might be gone tomorrow.

One might think that banks would counter balance the mutual fund industry s lobbying efforts, because the likely effect of forcing money market funds to pay for more of their systemic costs would be to expand funds flowing directly to banks.

One would have thought that Roman Catholics would see these outcomes as desirable.

The bottom line is that while someone may be making good progress, he may not know that he is doing so.

BERKELEY Three years into the financial crisis, one might think that the world could put Great Depression analogies behind it.

She wondered whether he had already participated in the run up to the dialogue, and asked how he envisaged his participation.

This naming and shaming approach can be more effective than most observers think.

One might be misled into thinking that, because 90 sounds awfully close to 100 , awful things start happening to countries that get into such a mess.

You might think that many genes would have to be changed to extend lifespan genes affecting muscle strength, wrinkles, dementia, and so forth. But researchers have found something quite surprising there are certain genes whose alteration can slow the aging of the whole animal all at once.

One cannot imagine India or Brazil wanting to be part of any such a combination.

In 1977, few people would have predicted that Havel would one day preside over a Czech democracy.

One might think that addressing child marriage would be high on both national and global agendas, given the powerful evidence of the damage that it causes to individuals and societies.