Posts filed under ‘Economy’
Real Truth Behind Arab Spring – Dissected
Finally, someone did some true work and dissected the phenomenon of the so-called “Arab Spring”. Here is Hernando de Soto Polar (President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy at Lima in Peru, and author of ‘The Mystery of Capital’) op-ed piece in Deccan Chronicle today by arrangement with the Spectator – The real truth behind the Arab Spring | Deccan Chronicle
Effectively, it boils down to just one thing – the uprising is not for democracy nor liberty nor rights but the fundamental human need to make a decent living without interference of corruption – something that even the developed world with its free-slinging yeehaw free-market and capitalism guns in their holsters and tanks cannot deliver to people without old-money and influence.
I suppose sad sods collectively called humanity could not care less about the type of government or religion or police or any other entity that affects their daily life as long as they can simply go about making a living without getting too much hassled along the way. If a dictator or puppet-president can ensure this, people will welcomingly tolerate it but even when a democratically elected government with fair voting (if there is indeed such a thing) does not deliver on this basic amenity, people will revolt. As simple as clean water – scratch that, clean water apparently is hard to get for billions of people. As simple as clean air – scratch that, clean air apparently is hard to get for billions of people. As simple as clean earth – scratch that… you get the drift. Just about anything is complicated if it is not handed down.
Now it leaves the small question why people in other parts of developing world like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan etc. where they have it much worse than Arabia do not revolt. Elementary my dear websons, these are not people but sheeple who have given up all hope and merely exist and survive. Sorry to digress.
Swinging Bachelor – Word Play
I for one think there are conspiracies galore afoot. It could be a feminist conspiracy to condition men into settling down and make women the bosses of every happy-go-lucky sod. It could be a capitalist conspiracy for bachelordom is like socialism because wealth is distributed rather than hoarded. I wish I could expand but some humanities graduate must be doing a thesis on this very topic and it is best we go in search of it rather than go hyperbole and make anecdotal stand-up statements.
[1] Married types ask, ‘How SJ can you make do without sex’? Answer: The same as you! Only difference is I cope better knowing that it is purely my choice
India Independence Day 2011 – Cuffed and Shackled
Ah yes, the contradictions. The police who are supposed to protect, torture. The politicians who are supposed to serve, rule. The doctors who are supposed to treat, harm. The corporations who are supposed to utilize, exploit. Finally, the people who are supposed to live, merely exist to drag yet another day without any hope towards a bleak future that is losing purpose with a unstable economy et al. I digress.
NDM Superbug Vindicates India Superpower Status
Any person who has been taught history knows that any country holding a world-threatening thingy – be it a weapon or disease – is a bonafide superpower. In fact, America was won by fleeing Europeans because of germs mostly. Maybe, it is indeed India’s decade as some magazine put it naively and jingoistically.
India Immune to Inflation, Corruption, Exploitation
This is inspired from many a movie where the hero can endure any punishment meted out by villains while pouting testesterone charged dialogues for the masses and particularly, a skit/scene in the ‘Monty Python Flying Circus’ film, “Life of Brian” where Brian gets arrested and is put in a dark battered cell with a pain immunized hedonistic-for-torture prisoner singing praises of the Romans. Here is a transcript of the dialogue converted into a monologue for your reading pleasure –
You lucky, lucky bastard! Probably the little jailies’ pet, aren’t we? You must have slipt him a few shekels, eh? Oh, ohoh, what wouldn’t I give to be spat at in the face? I sometimes hang awake at night, dreaming of being spat at in the face. Manacles! Ohuuhoh… what idea of reaving; is to be allowed to put in manacles, just for a few hours. They must think a sun shines out your arse, sonny! You’ve had a hard time!? I’ve been here five years, they only hung me the right way up yesterday! So don’t you come ’round… They must think you’re lord God Almighty. Oh, you’ll probably get away with crucifixion. Yeah. First offense. Best thing the Romans ever did for us. Oh, yeah. If we didn’t have crucifixion, this country’d be in a right bloody mess. Nail ’em up I say! Nail some sense into ’em! Hah! Ptui! [Spit] Oh! Look at that! Bloody favouritism! Now take my case. They hang me up here five years ago. Every night they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again. Which I guard as very fair, in view of what I’ve done. And if nothing else, it has taught me to respect the Romans, and it has taught me that you’ll never get anywhere in this life, unless you are prepared to do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s… Oh haha! Nice one, centurion! Like it. Terrific race, Romans! Terrific.
Yep! Terrific politicans, businessmen and police we have too. Truly blessed.
Social Media in Kashmir – Parroting ye Olde Yaps
Now I have a theory of why that is. Simple one really. The really oppressed people never have the resources to tell their story. It is the vultures and crackheads – read, big media or citizen media – who tell the story that others want to hear. No one wants to hear the story of a shopkeeper who is bankrupt because some paid rogues pelt stones in gay abandon causing curfews. No one want to hear the story of the girl who has had a free ride to education just because she was born in Kashmir while several others born in other states and far more deserving do not get even basic schooling. No one wants to hear the story of how many innocent people get killed everyday and the staggering underperformance of Jammu and Kashmir as an economy because of silly avoidable conflicts day in and day out. There is frustration and anger. Well, boo-hoo, every citizen of every country feels that way at some point or the other. Everyone in India hates the country at a gut level for its gawaar netas and rowdy police as much as the other guy but not everybody resorts to throwing stones nor using social media to tell the world – which hardly gives a damn BTW – the oppression, corruption and violence. Keep saying it like a parrot only makes it diluted, boring and depressing. In other words, share stories and stop cribbing. Importantly, don’t yap and please use more than 140 characters.
India Retaliates for IT Chop-Shop Comment by USA
The USA might think it is being smart by offloading the burden of building a cross-border Mexico wall to control the illegal immigration troves to India IT outsourcing industry via visa fee hike but little do they realize that ultimately the cost will be borne by the many America based clients that hire Indian IT workers directly or indirectly under goobledygook contracts. It will never come to cost competitiveness because $2000 hike will be absorbed easily for chop-shops work on high margins. As for the remark by some senator, as long as it is profitable, no one really cares what money making enterprises are called. Besides, as thick-skinned suckers, bring it all on.
Fuel Price – Misleading Ad – Dripping Economy
Apparently, one Hashim Adil of Hyderabad shares my concern. In a letter today, he says that the advertisement justifying the hike in prices of LPG cylinder (this is wrong for it is liberalization which has inevitable led to a price hike) is ridiculous. It compares the prices of the commodity in neighbouring countries to make us believe that we are paying less. However, 577 Pakistan Rupees is equal to Rs 311 in India, 537 Bangladeshi Taka equals Rs 355 in India and 822 Sri Lankan Rupees equals Rs 333 in India. LPG costs more in India than in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
There are a number of issues here. First and foremost is very publication of an advertisement by ministry to justify a decision it took without any regard to previous commissions and opposition. Second, the accuracy of the advertisement has been called into question and there is no one exploring. Where is the so-called hawkish factual rigour in reporting that people are giving and getting awards for? (which seems to be all the time). Is anyone looking deeper if the prices published are normalized to cylinder volumes and currency? I certainly do not hear any newsbytes. Third, comparing prices of other washed-out hopeless countries that surround this pathetic excuse of a nation is just giving excuses and betting on sadistic catharsis in the misfortune of others. So, some poor sod in Bangladesh is paying more for LPG and Kerosene. This proves what exactly? Why some stupid government in some idiot country charges what for some commodity is a matter of some policy and some arrangements they have with some oil producing nations and some oil company. What does that have to do with prices in India? But wait dear reader, the main analysis of my gut feeling and discomfiture is that the whole premise of the advertisement is wrong because it was designed to mislead people into thinking that the government is still doing a better job than the governments of genocidial poverty-ridden violent terrorist failed states. Is this the company we want to compare ourselves with? Why is the comparision not made to fuel prices of the USA where petrol costs half than what we pay at the bunk? The use of media and the English language is just an icing on the cake to prove that we live in a very controlled and suggestive society. The only people who can read and understand this silly advertisement in the first place are the urban middle-class who have some swing and make noises. By satisfying this no-good rubric, the ministry has a free pass.
I hope am not being Chomskyish here and shouting some conspiracy because Jayati Ghosh in her editorial today titled, Dripping Economy gives many points to ponder about the very timing and necessity of “freeing” the price of petroleum products in the midst of almost unprecedented food and generalised inflation. I could not believe that Capsicum is 90/- a kilo…
oil is a universal intermediate (which enters directly or indirectly into all other prices) this necessarily means a further rise in inflation. This is a move that is inexplicable from the point of view of general economic policy. Global prices of petroleum products in the past three years have been marked by the most extreme volatility, more than doubling and then falling to nearly half within a period of 18 months. The fluctuations hardly reflect “economic fundamentals” which have not changed much in the past few years; rather they show the impact of global speculative forces on fuel prices
UPA government has been trying for some time to decontrol oil prices, despite the global volatility in these prices and the lack of convincing arguments in favour of such deregulation. The Rangarajan Committee on the pricing and taxation of petroleum products was set up in the hope that it would recommend such a move. But that report did not really point to this conclusion, so the government, not to be thwarted in its desire, set up yet another committee. This time it was an Expert Group chaired by former Planning Commission member Kirit Parikh, with the more or less explicit mandate to recommend wholesale liberalisation of the pricing of petroleum products. The Expert Group duly did just that, and the government has been quick to accept its recommendations
official reason for this move is that it is necessary to stem the “losses” being suffered by the oil marketing companies. But this argument misses the point that all of these companies deliver a range of products and services, the prices of all of which are not controlled. In fact, profits after taxes of the most important oil companies have remained positive and often quite substantially so in the past 10 years. The oil refineries and governement also get a huge pay-off from taxes and levies but they are not willing to budge. Current strategy is one that puts the entire burden of irrational shifts in the international prices of oil on the consumer, even if the burden sharing involved is extremely regressive and unjustified
So, there you have it. The most obvious reason for the deregulation or price hike or whatever you want to call this scum scam, seems to be that the government has chosen to favour the private companies that have been allowed to enter and expand in this sector. This has encouraged the government to take a measure that will cause great harm to most of the population so as to bring in more profits to a few large and powerful companies and of course itself. It also gives people a chance like Andhra Pradesh CM to be a hero by giving statements that the state will buffer the poor from the price increase. This brings to mind popular adage: “Either the government owns the oil companies, or the oil companies own the government.”
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- Scrapping of Fuel Regulation to Boost India Refiners (businessweek.com)
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Writing on Wall – Word Play – Hiatus Scusi
Falling into Deficits – USA Recession Obama – Zyglis
I suppose one could put any nation premier in the picture but I feel for the O-dawg for he has nowhere really to go. He is royally screwed. The more he tries pulling people out of recession (with the current free-money-for-all monetary policies), more deeper he digs the grave he will eventually fall into. Reminds me of an old Telugu saying of gramps, “mundu goyya, venaka nuyya” (pit in front, well in back).
Greed Begets Capitalism Begets Scams, Corruption
In 1776, Adam Smith’s famous and still widely quoted passage in the “Wealth of Nations” noted that ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. More recently, the more famous quotation was probably that of Gordon Gekko, the fictional hero of the 1987 film “Wall Street”, ‘Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind’. The proof is out there for all to see – well, to someone looking. A series of corporate scandals and failures rocked the US economy in 2001 and 2002 – from Enron and WorldCom to Adelphi and even one of the “Big Five” accounting firms, Arthur Andersen. It turned out that much of the much-hyped growth and profits were clearly illusory, based on fraud and data manipulation, or simply put, lies. Two points that emerged then are still relevant today. First, such scams are not new nor unexpected; in fact they are part of capitalism’s normal functioning. Only most naive interpretations of the history of capitalism would leave out the crucial role played by fraud, deceit and open crime in the accumulation of capital and its subsequent use. While many of the financial malpractices continued for several years, they were exposed only when economic slowdown and the stock market bear trend fed into each other. Yet another (policy created) bubble in the US — this time directed to the housing market and financial proliferation — once again diverted attention and brought back the glory days for risk-loving CEOs of large companies, especially financial firms. The period 2002 to 2007 thus became, in the US and globally, a repeat of the earlier 1990s process on an even larger scale. It was the same dance, to just a slightly different tune, and joined by many more economic agents all over the world. Greed and boundless market optimism were back in fashion again. And the current crisis is not over yet. The major imbalances that were at the heart of the crisis still persist: the imbalance between finance and the real economy; the global macroeconomic imbalances; and ecological imbalance resulting from the pattern of growth. This cycle will repeat for eternity.
When Deccan Chronicle asked me to draw up a list of the 10 biggest scams of the past decade, I didn’t realise there were so many over the last two years alone. I gave up counting. A group of bleeding-heart do-gooders by the name of ‘Transparency International’ ranked India at the 85th position out of 179 countries in its annual “corruption perceptions index” in 2008. In fact, India’s score improved dramatically from 2.7 (out of 10) in 2002 to 3.4 in 2008. Does it mean that corruption has become better or that India is more transparent in its corruption today than before? Everybody accepts it as a way of life. Of capitalism and bureaucracy taking its charted path. We draw distinctions between the more corrupt and the less corrupt, the corrupt-but-efficient and the corrupt-and-inefficient – “that fellow accepts bribes but still refuses to do his job”. We are a nicely nuanced lot. But as a majority is so poor, none of this actually affects them. They have their own fish to fry (this is figurative because there aren’t enough fish to feed all the ugly masses). Scams therefore, escape our scrutiny for the same reason. Harshad Mehta, former employee of the New India Assurance Company who became a notorious stockbroker by presiding over a financial scandal involving Rs 4,000 crores. Byrraju Ramalinga Raju, who headed Satyam Computer Services confessed that he cooked the books of account of his flagship firm to the tune of Rs 8,000 crores. Ketan Parekh is a pale shadow of his former cocky self and few remember C.R. Bhansali’s claim to infamy. The IPO scam involving India Bulls and stock-broking firm Karvy is a distant development. And, have you recently heard anything about Abdul Karim Telgi who started life as a fruit and vegetable seller before he decided to bribe his way into the Nashik security printing press and forged wads of stamp paper? Madhu Koda started off as a labourer in a mine and a window-grill fitter before a small-time flunky in the BJP to a big-time beneficiary of the vagaries of coalition politics. He reportedly almost bought up a couple of uranium mines in South Africa before celebrations abruptly ended. But Koda’s shenanigans faded into insignificance before the occurrence of the “biggest” scam in independent India, namely, allotment of electro-magnetic spectrum to a clutch of mobile operator telephone companies at prices that were at least one-seventh their true market value. What was the loss to the nation? Only Rs 50,000 crores! This is India, after all, the world’s greatest democracy, where sibling rivalry can paralyse the working of the government. Imagine a tycoon splurging on front-page advertisements in dozens of newspapers to tell the world how the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas was depriving the exchequer of huge amounts by favouring a fraternal company by agreeing to pay a higher price for natural gas taken out of the bed of the ocean in the Bay of Bengal. More than 250 aircraft and helicopters valued at not less than Rs 16,000 crores that were imported into the country between May 2007 and July 2008 by more than 70 companies controlled by some of the country’s most prominent industrialists after evading customs duty worth Rs 4,000 crores. Noteworthy that most of these private aircrafts were used not merely by corporate honchos, family members and business associates but also by “politician friends” during their election campaigns.
All said and done, capitalism works because it is first and foremost a monopoly – only because of a failure (and propagandic annihilation) of other systems to catch on, rather than any strict opposition or fair-play – because our pathetic little brains and genome vessels cannot think beyond self-preservation. During the cold war, the East looked in jealousy at West for the goods they have in their supermarkets. But now, the East which still suffers from poverty inspite of capitalism, looks in despair and hopelessness at the West for the debt-ridden luxury consumption that is the driver of growth more than industry. After all, we are animals who like cuckoos value trinkets like some yellow metal (read, gold) and pressurized rock (read, diamond) in high regard than that of the life of a fellow human and would be willing to commit unspeakable actions to the pursuit of stuff – white solids or black liquids or green paper or blue powder – that has absolutely no real tangible value if one really spends enough time to think and ponder about this madness.
This is getting boring, isn’t it? If one were to start chronicling the stories of human greed, it would take a million lifetimes. The MD of Alcatel-Lucent India, Vivek Mohan spoke, “It is high time for India to move on from ‘Copy the West’ phenomenon and develop innovative, India-specific stuff. I strongly believe that India is home to the best entrepreneurial talent and Indians have innovation in their DNA”. It is so very true. We are innovators in corruption and scams today after successfully imitating the West at a scale that boggles the mind. It is in our blood to be apathetic and suffer. Connection between capitalist greed and scams and the nexus between business and evil politics is neither new nor unique. What’s a few billions among friends, eh? Let’s talk about the weather instead. Oh wait, there is a scam brewing here too. Of railroad engineers, Pachauri and failed Presidential candidates, Gore who could be the first carbon billionaires if not already, which would be even cooler – paradoxically – to cash-in on the haze of mitigating/combating global warming.
Recession and High Prices = Empty Christmas
Binding Emissions Cut – USA to India Shake Hand
If that is not unfair, I dont know what is. Given that per-capita income is inexplicably linked to per-capita emissions (higher income, higher pollution, duh?), it means that rich countries will get richer (but slower) and the poor countries will get poorer (and faster) if this policy or protocol or poo-poo is implemented. It seems to be more like arm-twisting to me. The irony is not the 25% or whatever arbitrary number but the gal to demand the world to forget the damage that has already been done and brandishing an air of superiority that it is the poor countries who have to take the initiative to save themselves. There is no fine being slapped because no one is asking. No technology transfer because no one is giving. No pledge to remedy the mistakes because no one is apologising. I will tell you what is binding. Rice. Ha ha.
Non-material Gifts – Dr. Seuss – Earthy Ideas
During the holiday season there is a lot of pressure to consume. Walmart becomes Wal-Santa and touts that it is now organic. Santa is one big buffoon indirectly telling us to go shopping, ho ho ho. But the truth of the matter is everybody likes presents and nobody wants to be percieved as the cynical evil green grinch (who once stole Christmas according to folklore) or frail old Scrooge (who had ghosts a visiting as per some silly book used as a metaphor too often) who have the gall to say that one hates gluttonic consumption, er Christmas. That is why lots of people are turning to “non-material gifts” which are presents that do not use up our natural resources but still make their recipients say, “whoa! awesome! tubul!”. Here are some ideas:
* Tickets to concerts, sporting events and movies
* Your own time and skills like free babysitting, gardening, cartooning, etc.
* Unique food experiences (people eat anyway, so these are “material-neutral”)
* Weekend getaways (no matter if it involves driving cars – humans are nomads)
* Crafts made from old throw-away items that nobody needs
This is what I have to say. This is a load of parrot droppings. Good luck to followers.
COP15 Rain – Capitalist Pig – Subservient Countries
Simply put, what is going to happen on and after the summit is that things will be the same and only get worse. Thank universe for entropy. The rich nations (I make it a point not to call them by misnomers of ‘developed’ or ‘civilized’ or ‘industrialized’ for many reasons least of all, decadence, immorality/brutality, laziness) who are the ones mostly responsible for the mess and 80% of the emissions even today with their meagre 20% rudderless population, are depicted as well, greedy capitalistic pigs. All this talk and noise of “climate change” even if it is made out to be a hoax thunderstorm with striking lightning, will be like raindrops on thick skinned pigs. Ergo, no effect at all. These pigs will be munching the worlds poor without a care in the world. After all, pigs apparently are the best beasts to dispose of with human bodies as this character in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells” confirms –
You’re always gonna have problems disposing of human bodies. They are heavy and smelly. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together. And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it’s no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies’ digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don’t want to go sieving through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, ‘greedy as pigs’ (and ‘capitalist pigs’).
If a pig is fed, it will feed. It is free food on a platter. What does it gotta lose? What concerns me is to see about the hand that is feeding the pig. Sadly unsurprisngly enough, it is the subservient poor countries who will have no qualms nor presence of the mind nor common sense of the future nor the grey matter of what this slavery is doing to their own nations. They will feed the pig everything, the earth, the forests, the minerals, the blood – and will do so collaboratively with one country supplying the fuel, another the timber, another to puff at the fire – without even knowing that they are but feeding, nay, disposing their fellow live humans for short-term foriegn currency reserves which at any point can lose in value. It is wrong at so many levels.
Think about it, today, if someone in the USA buys a bloody sneaker, the chain of the production is completely outsourced. Everything except the design is produced in some poor country by some underpaid malnourished chimp sweaty ugly hopeless illiterate sick bastard. The shoe might be priced at say, 100$, earning a profit of 90$ to the shoe company based in Europe which has an operating expense of 5$ tops for chaining the natives but what the poor country gets is far less than what it loses in the bargain in both monetary and resource terms. The actual cost of the shoe is not 5$ because the cost of the raw materials is heavily subsidized by nature (or externalities as economists would say) and in some cases, the government. In the end, the poor country might be getting 5$ but it is actually losing a lot more in the bargain because of depletion of resources, pollution caused, toxic waste generated and indisposed of, loss of freedom/opportunity and gross violation of human rights. By manufacturing and selling the shoe, the poor country is actually losing – a lot. It can be called a lose-lose situation if there ever was one. So, the idiots who run poor countries (democratic or communist or monarchial or theocracy or dictatorship or terrorist or military) who show so-called strides in development with skyscrapers, roads, statues, fly-overs, cars, middle-class et al. combinedly are fattening the pig with illusions of grandeur. No wonder the pig is drunk with power and has absolute disregard of an ailing planet. What fools, we humans can be. How did we get to this fucking world order? Oh wait, it was with invention of dynamite. And who pioneered that? Alfred Nobel no less. Kinda makes the peace prize hara-kiri to war mongering US presidents (can you believe there are oddly 4?) fathomable. It is a wow moment.
Size Zero Jealousy – Poverty Fashion Show – Thin In
If I kept the balloon emprty, most people would come up with a similar caption am sure. I also bet if the impoverished African lady were looking at the model, she would be thinking the exact same thing too and then some more, “Gosh! If only I was born in USA and found a fashion designer”. Well, that is women for you. Cant live with them. Cant rationalize with them. Cant survive without them. Cannot really blame them for the vanity becase society has always placed a high premium on slimness and has set, what some claim to be, impossibly high standards of glass figurine shape for girls. No matter what one says, beauty business is very big and is one of the growth engines even if the world is going to fall apart tomorrow.
Coming back to “size zero”, on hindsight (I probably dont have to say this because no one can stop a woman hell bent on becoming wafer thin or anything she sets her wonky mind to for that matter), no amount of reverse literature can stop this fad from spreading (to media controlled countries to be specific) because when you look around, it is the ill waifs (from Kate Moss to Ann Coulter to Kareena Kapoor) who are making the big bucks and horror of horrors are proclaimed by many to be role models. You dont see regular/fat women on billboards or modelling or selling lightweight laptops or power drills or starring as evil desperate housewives, crime scene investigators, bounty hunters, world peace protectors, braided archaelogical heiresses and what not, do you? I think women can make that connection. One might have no talent, not an iota whatsoever except for going for long periods of neglect, crapping and puking and yet, one can land into shit-loads of money. Thin is in. Good luck to the fat feministas. If not yet apparent, I for one support “size zero” as long as it is done through starving oneself and exercise and NOT through smoking, pills, eating disorders, fast unto sickness/death (hey, this could be good) and worst of all, bulemia. If more people dont eat, it is better for the world in general, no? I think thin people are more attractive because after all that is how nature intended the human body to be. Anyone can become fat – one has to just sit on bums all day and be indisciplined – but it takes real effort to stay thin. Think about it folks. Thin people eat less food, occupy less space, need less clothing et al. Just economics.
Mistakes in Causal Direction – GDP and Education
When you find a correlation between two phenomena, you’re tempted to conclude there’s a causal relation as well. The problem is that this causal relation – if it exists at all – can go either way. It’s a common mistake – or fraud – to choose one direction of causation and forget that the real causal link can go the other way, or both ways at the same time and space. Or not.We often think that people who like violent video games are more likely to show violent behavior because they are incited by the games to copy the violence that’s featured in these games. But can it not be that people who are more prone to violence are more fond of violent video games? We choose a direction of causation that fits with our pre-existing beliefs. Another widely shared belief is that uninformed and illiterate voters will destroy democracy, or at least diminish its value. No one seems to ask the question whether it’s not a diminished form of democracy that renders citizens apathetic and uninformed. Maybe a full or deep democracy can encourage citizens to participate and become more knowledgeable through participation. A classic example is the correlation between education levels and GDP. Do countries with higher education levels experience more economic growth because of the education levels of their citizens? Or is it that richer countries can afford to spend more on education and hence have better educated citizens? Maybe both. Or perhaps it is just old boy Pareto Law. Or simply, random twist of fate.
Bakes your noodles, no? These are chicken-egg problems and hence, solvable.
Manmohan Singh NRI Call – Return Home
Fish Monger and PETA Environmentalist
True story. I am not making this up. Or maybe I am. A little exaggeration has not hurt anybody and has always helped in getting the point through. So, for all you PETA and environmentalists morons out there, beware with whom you pick your battles with. Go fight the mega fishing/export corporations if you dare and leave the small business peope alone. If they don’t beat you up and deservedly so, they will soon be protected as under the “safety of social entrepreneurs act” underway anyway.
Food Price Inflation – WPI at 15.58% – Subsidy PDS
Food prices kept their upward trend hitting the common man hard. Food inflation rose to 15.58% for the second week of November with potato prices rising by 111% As compared to last year the prices of pulses were up by 35.60%, wheat by 12.53%, cereals by 13.04% and rice by 11.89%. Also prices of vegetables moved up by 11.96%, onions by 27.33%, fruits by 10.97% and milk by 11.36%. On a weekly basis, products which saw a rise in their prices are urad and poultry chicken (15% each), eggs (8%), moong (6%), arhar (5%), fruits and vegetables (3%) and milk and wheat (1% each). However, the prices of barley (2%) declined. The increase in food prices is due to shortages caused partly by a weak monsoon and partly by floods in some parts of the country. Said Mr Trehan and Mrs Mathur respectively –
In a country where even a simple vegetable like potato has become so expensive, how can one expect to have three meals a day. Survival has become really tough. How frugal can one become?
One has to think twice even for grocery shopping. Everything has become out of reach. Be it milk, vegetables or pulses. And worst, public transport has also gone so expensive. How can we honestly manage?
Inflation for all commodities more than doubled to 1.34% for the month of October from 0.50% in September due to costlier minerals and fuels, as per data released earlier. The finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said on Thursday that government is very deeply concerned about rising prices and will take all fiscal and monetary measures to contain it. Arjun Sengupta in his “Fair Food Deal for All” in DC on 30-November-2009 comments that it is high time that the government initiates a universal public distribution system (PDS) covering at least the essential commodities because the bulk of the population, about 70%, remains poor with their dire struggle for minimal livelihood –
About 350-million people remain below poverty line (BPL). The prices of essential commodities have been rising at an unprecedented rate. Not only foodgrains but vegetables like onions and potatoes are becoming costlier day by day. These affect all Indians but for the poor they are devastating as all their meagre incomes get exhausted, not meeting even a portion of the necessities. Prices of these products are no doubt largely due to shortfall in production but there are clear signs of market cornering, hoarding and price fixing. It is, however, very difficult to control speculatory tendencies by physical measures because the players are too many in the country and not just big traders and producers, even the common rehriwalla is hoarding. Unless those expectations are dampened they cannot bring down the speculation. The only way to do that is to increase supplies, if not through temporary production increase measures, then through additional imports.
To mitigate this problem, the universal PDS would be the first important step beginning with the BPL population by supplying them with the essential commodities at cheap and affordable prices. If PDS is targeted to a limited BPL population it may also be possible to increase their supplies through market purchase of these products and sell them at subsidised prices. This would push up the open market prices somewhat further. But targeted PDS can be sustained if the government is willing to subsidise the difference between market price and issue price of commodities. Hopefully increased prices, supported by planned increase in production incentives, will raise output in a short period reducing the supplies bottleneck. But in the immediate future, the government has to be ready to bear the cost of maintaining the PDS. However, the most important requirement is organisation of the system. That cannot be achieved by market incentives or subsidies. The government has to build up a huge and efficient structure of distribution throughout the country. It has to procure, purchase or import products and reach them to different destinations of the PDS. This can be done only with the help of state governments, first to identify the BPL beneficiaries and then to have fair-price shops supply the products efficiently. National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NACMFoI) or similar organisations can be created for vegetable and other such products. They should build up storages and have contract farming both at home and abroad. The time has now come for all kinds of out-of-the-box thinking to meet a serious problem of economic management in the country. Indian development, if it has to follow an inclusive path, must reinvent itself so that the poor develop an equal stake in our growth process.
Well, I agree in moral principle to Dr Sengupta (a Member of Parliament and former Economic Adviser to assassinated-good-riddance Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) but does this universal PDS not sound too communist? Why should the poor be further subsidized when already farmer markets, ration shops and pink/white cards etc. exist? Are not the high prices a result of supply-demand and greed (read, free-market capitalism) and therefore, market-based solutions are needed? Let missionaries, NGOs, social enterprises and fortune-at-BoP marketing gurus deal with solving something tangible like hunger for a change other than human rights, empowerment or whatever cause. Oh wait, they tried. And failed. And chickened out.
Public Sector Units – Disinvestment Offer
Carbon Capture and Sequestration – Earthly Ideas
The idea of “Carbon Capture and Sequestration” (CCS) is a highly controversial one. Some environmentalists (for whom nothing seems to be good enough, ever) think it is an excuse to keep relying on fossil fuels for energy. Managements of coal plants and oil companes swear to clean up their act (as these assholes have been doing it for ages). In reality, it is an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels but it is not JUST an excuse because let us face it, every week there are new coal-fired power plants popping up around the world (to satisfy an insatiable appetite for electricity) and the owners of these plans are going to do their best to make sure they are used. After all, power plants cost billions of dollars (provide employment and development) and it is in no one’s interest (except sissy activists who BTW most of them dont even know the definition of ‘power cuts’ and ‘energy poverty’ and there is no evidence of this joke collective switching to expensive greener power or living off-the-grid for even a few hours a day to do their bit except on some hyped about 1 lousy hour per year, what was that? Earth Day?) to just try and shut them down.
The point of CCS technology is to allow all these plants to keep producing energy without
Prices to Fall – Give Time – Cuckoo Montek Singh
This is a perfectly good explanation and excuse for poor junta who only have tomorrow to look forward to. But for the educated of us lot (not those with degrees, mind you), one has to ask, how will prices decrease when the demand for everything is on the up because of simple population (not overpopulation, mind you) and climate (not global warming, mind you) dynamics are transpiring to stress available/meagre/limited resources? In my 3 years of returning back to India, I have not seen one single thing which has got down in prices other than the obvious ones like electronic goods (or e-waste as I call it) which are out of topic. The basic necessities of life – roti, kapda, makaan – have spiralled. This matter-of-time stuff reminds me of that other looney Rosling of TED. The only thing that can happen over time is that one gets used to the pain and suffering. After all, time does heal.
India Buys 200 Tonnes of Gold
More Summits – Less Solutions – More Inequality
(*) Inequality is defined as the income gap between the top and bottom 10 per cent of wage earners. The data is via World of Work Report 2008 – Global Income Inequality Gap is Vast and Growing. The numbers of course have been normalized to somehow limit axes overflow
Hindsight is always 20/20 but this is hardly unexpected of course because if the leaders (and I use this term very loosely) of the world are jetting off to exotic locations for meetings, their countries are left to the dogs, which while better on one hand, is proving a detriment to general populace. It seems to me that this is a contagious disease. With politicians being in the Top-10 percent of wage earners, the sheer number of summits and thereby the taxpayers money they claim/guzzle to attend this nonsensical meetings is maybe, contributing to the inequality. Just me.
War, Peace, Obama – UN Duplicity Toward Iran
Passed unianimously, the international media hailed it as a victory for Obama because it strangles Iran. Stupid Indian gits welcomed it saying that it would somehow allow them to build nuclear weapons. What did NOT make the news rounds is that Israel was asked, rather nicely to join the NPT and open its nuclear facilities to inspection which USA and Europe tried to block assuring Israel that they would support Israel’s rejection of the resolution – reaffirming a secret understanding that has allowed Israel to maintain a nuclear arsenal closed to international inspections, according to officials familiar with the arrangements. This is perhaps the clearest evidence for the world to see the duplicity apparent in the treatment of countries and power of propaganda. Because the mainstream media are silent, here is me doing my bit. Now you are in the know. Go pollinate.
Right. With my job to make some noise about the 1887 resolution and exposing the blatant hypocrisy done, let us get back to the other topic that is the joke called Nobel Peace Prize 2009 to Barack Hussein Obama in the words of a rambling Chomsky. Some quotes, worth mentioning in my honest opinion (hey, ’tis my blog) are…
The hopes and prospects for peace aren’t well aligned – not even close. The task is to bring them nearer. Presumably that was the intent of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in choosing President Barack Obama. The prize “seemed a kind of prayer and encouragement by the Nobel committee for future endeavor and more consensual American leadership,” Erlanger and Stolberg wrote in NYT. The nature of Bush-Obama transition bears directly on the likelihood that the prayers and encouragement might lead to progress. The Nobel committee’s concerns were valid to an extent. They singled out Obama’s rhetoric on reducing nuclear weapons. Silence is often more eloquent than loud clamor, so let us attend to what is unspoken.
The day before he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his inspiring commitment to peace, the Pentagon announced it was accelerating delivery of the most lethal non-nuclear weapons in the arsenal: 13-ton bombs for B-2 and B-52 stealth bombers, designed to destroy deeply hidden bunkers shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete. It’s no secret the bunker busters could be deployed against Iran. Planning for these “massive ordnance penetrators” began in the Bush years but languished until Obama called for developing them rapidly when he came into office. The Nobel Peace Prize, of course, is not concerned solely with reducing the threat of terminal nuclear war, but rather with war generally, and the preparation for war. In this regard, the selection of Obama raised eyebrows all over the world, not least in Iran, surrounded by U.S. occupying armies.
Not for the first time, what is veiled in silence would receive front-page headlines in societies that valued their freedom and were concerned with the fate of the world. On Iran’s borders in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, Obama has escalated Bush’s war and is likely to proceed on that course, perhaps sharply. Obama has made clear that the United States intends to retain a long-term major presence in the region. That much is signaled by the huge city-within-a city called “Baghdad Embassy,” unlike any embassy in the world. Obama has announced the construction of mega-embassies in Islamabad and Kabul, and huge consulates in Peshawar and elsewhere. He is on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since World War II. And that’s not counting the additional $130 billion the administration is requesting to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, with more war spending slated for future.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee might well have made truly worthy choices, prominent among them the remarkable Afghan activist Malalai Joya. This brave woman survived the Russians, and then the radical Islamists whose brutality was so extreme that the population welcomed the Taliban. Joya has withstood the Taliban and now the return of the warlords under the Karzai government. Throughout, Joya worked effectively for human rights, particularly for women; she was elected to parliament and then expelled when she continued to denounce warlord atrocities. She now lives underground under heavy protection, but she continues the struggle, in word and deed. By such actions, from unknown people, repeated everywhere as best we can, the prospects for peace edge closer to hopes.
That is all one has to say about Obama, Nobel Peace Prize and everything that followed. As for Iran, well, they have a fundamental right to explore all energy options for the benefit of their country. Maybe it has to do with crusades or maybe, a remnant of history earlier than that but there is a foreboding ill-will and fear of Iran, erstwhile Persia. Iran hasn’t invaded another country for hundreds of years – unlike the United States and Israel. In naval maneuvers in July, Israel sent its Dolphin class subs, capable of carrying nuclear missiles, through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, sometimes accompanied by warships, to a position from which they could attack Iran – as they have a “sovereign right” to do, according to USA Vice President Joe Biden. No humane person wants Iran – or anyone else – to have nuclear weapons. But a little honesty would not hurt in addressing these problems. All the same, it is about free-will and choice. If Iran wants nuclear weapons, let them have it. No hypocrisy please. The threat from Iran is minuscule. If Iran had nuclear weapons and delivery systems and prepared to use them, the country would be vaporized. Sure the President and Mullahs are a wonky lot but they are not THAT crazy to see this eventuality. They definitely cannot hold a candle to the screw loose Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee in cocooned wintry dark cosy Oslo.
Tainted Elections Club – Karzai – Economist Cartoon
Genetic Engineering and Bt Stuff. Scary? Maybe
While Suman is a gender neutral name, I can sense that this Sahai is a woman. All she does is talk some mumbo-jumbo and complain. And complain. Taste this…
What, you may ask, is common between potatoes, tomatoes, brinjal, chilli, datura, tobacco and the deadly nightshade (belladonna)? They all belong to a plant family called Solanaceae. The Solanaceae family contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many psychoactive and toxic plants. Solanaceae species are rich in complex chemicals called alkaloids and contain some of the most poisonous plants known to mankind. They produce alkaloids in their roots, leaves and flowers. These alkaloids can be hallucinogens, stimulants or outright toxic. Farmers have been working for thousands of years to domesticate wild plants like those of the Solanaceae family, to make them safe for eating. This continues to this day and age.
Now brinjal, a member of this family, has been genetically engineered (GE) to produce a toxin to protect itself against a particular pest. This seems to be a process working to reverse several thousand years of efforts to detoxify natural plants to make them fit for human consumption which could be dangerous since disturbing their genetic material through the process of inserting new gene constructs containing a battery of genes – including the toxin producing Bt gene – may trigger off metabolic processes that have been lying dormant. There are apprehensions that not only could new toxins develop but that old toxins that were removed by selective breeding may reappear. Disturbing cell metabolism of species that are naturally genetically hardwired to produce toxins, is likely to call up old plant toxins in species.
Testing for food safety is key in GE plants; it becomes more so with the Solanaceae family. At present biotechnology companies rely on the concept of “substantial equivalence” to demonstrate the safety of genetically engineered foods. In this method, the overall chemical composition of the genetically engineered food is compared to an equivalent conventional food. If there is no significant difference between the two, the GE plant is considered to be safe. Mahyco seed company has also tested its Bt brinjal in the same way. However, “substantial equivalence” is a highly contested paradigm, favored by the biotech industry but rejected by most countries. This is because there is no mechanism in such an approach to detect unexpected or unintended changes like new toxic compounds in cells.
She does not stop there. She yaps and yaps and yaps about food labelling, Codex Alimentarius (that is a mouthful), Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), consumers right to informed choice (yeah right), consumer protection act (oh, stop the tickling), identity preservation, rural awareness and what not. If I were in the same room, I would ask her to just zip it and shut up. She seems to be the only geneticist in the whole wide world who seems to know about GE foods and Bt crops and that everyone else out there are in bed with big corporates to kill off the human species by poisoniing with Bt brinjal. As some of the comments have said, such kind of doubts were and will be there before every scientific advancement of agriculture, like hybrids. The gene modified in brinjal or cotton is only poisonous for the insects/borers not humans. Latest hybrids and GE fruits and vegetables are supposed to be a proof of successful experiments and progress in the field of agricultural science giving rise to bigger, colourful and plentiful produce. It could be that they might cause health problems in the future and when it happens, we will still not be able to isolate the cause. If due testing has been done, and there is no counter evidence, I am all for food security needs of overgrowing population. Of course, natural things are the best. Everybody knows that but sadly, there is a limit to that (look at sad staggering figures of malnutrition) and it would be an awful waste of human intellect if we cannot manipulate nature to solve our problems.
Austerity Drive – Update – Government Inefficiency
While the finance ministry has no real numbers on how much was actually saved, or if the austerity drive has been implemented, and in those cases, if it was successful (there have been several jokes and cartoons in the media) the bigger question is how did they even arrive at a goal/aim/objective of saving 30000-crores? Who did the analysis and the planning? Further, if this was just an initial conservative estimate as has been told, what is the potential savings? Digging deeper, if this is just the savings from becoming more austere, what are the projected savings from becoming more efficient and being more accountable to taxpayers? Midway through the hole, we also have to ask how grossly inefficient is the Indian government and bureaucracy? These are not small numbers that we are talking about. These are GDP scale numbers of small emerging countries and large corporations to put things in perspective. So, we have to ask big questions.
Food Shortage – Diwali Diyas in Ration Shop
There is no food but diyas (mud light holders) aplenty cheap this Diwali as per…
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