Pursuing Liberal ends in Conservative ways ...

Fiscal Crisis for Dummies

2008-12-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

This is something i picked up.

If you have difficulty understanding the current world financial situation, the following should help...

Once upon a time in a village in India, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10.

The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50.

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! Welcome to WALL STREET.

The beautiful game

2008-06-24T02:05:00.000-07:00

That’s what they call football.

But watching the game these days makes me think against it. Most of the teams with flair get pounded by their more physical counterparts.

The Brazil – Argentina copa America final game is a perfect example. The Argentineans played with their typical panache in the previous rounds but were floored by the arch rivals who played a more physical game. The game was dominated by tactical fouls. The Argentineans have tried to maintain their footballing tradition with their incredible passing game while Brazil have transformed their game to a more a physical game. The youth academieshave placed a lot of emphasis on nutrition to develop stronger physically bigger players to match their european couterparts. The present coach Dunga clearly stated that jogo bonito, despite its virtues displayed by Pelé and previous generations, is secondary to effective soccer.

Even in this year’s European Championships, you had the efficient Germans easily beating the free flowing Portuguese. It all boils down to a tradeoff between flair and efficiency.

So lets wait and watch and see who wins this year. But all indications are that the mannschaft will rein supreme again.

About the draft

2008-06-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have a skewed view of the draft. They are’nt exactly wrong , the draft has been pretty unpopular in countries previously and there have been movements against it. But in a present day scenario where the chances of a major war are pretty bleak( inspite of threats from a nuclear iran and some other nuclear wannabe countries). The point is not many countries can get into a sustainable war as easily as they could in the 50’s or 60’s mainly due to globalization. More and more countries and depend on other countries for their economic survival. The Golden Arch theory by Thomas Friedman is a great example . It basically suggests that no two countries having a McDonalds outlet can ever goto war. That’s another issue altogether so I am not getting into that.

Coming back to the draft… a draft symbolizes a more just contribution from the society to the nation. It will help the country to develop a more pacifist foreign policy. Let me explain … the army (talking about actual combat forces) mainly contains people from backward communities. These are the people closest to enemy fire and have very few people who would stand up for them. The people running the country are generally elitist and are greatly influenced by lobbyists. A draft would force the government to look at war as the last resort in the” true sense”.

Putting it into perspective, this idea may not work in india. We have a huge army and huge youth population. So we can expand the draft to other non armed groups – there are loads of other groups that are struggling with attrition.

We make beautiful army movies and love them thoroughly but that’s about it. The army remains a institution that we admire from the outside and throw showy medals. But do we really care???

About including it in education reforms, I intended to suggest a way to pay our debt to society in response to people leaving their country after college and not returning. Look at it in the broader perspective

Education Reform Specifics

2008-06-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

After all the cribbing about state of affairs in the country and blah blah, I have decided to propose some reforms (specifics) in the education sector that could help our economy.

Introduce the draft – Sounds crazy. Think about it. There is no greater honour than to serve with the armed forces of our country.

We could have a system where everyone in the age group 16 to 25 has to serve a mandatory year of service at a time of his choice before the age of 25. It is a pretty novel way of paying our debt to the country. We could even expand it to include other non armed forces voluntary groups like the coast guard etc.

The compulsory draft is widely accepted around the world and helps to improve the overall ethos of the country.

Flaws - But this idea could bomb in a time of war when everyone will be more interested in saving their own skin. But the likelihood of war in the near future has greatly diminished. Pakistan seems to be moving to a more stable democracy and China would not attack for economic reasons.

Bond – This could be more acceptable to the people.

The government spends on an average 2- 3 lakhs on every engineering student passing out of a government funded institute. While the student pays a very nominal amount of around 30k for the course. In most cases the brightest students either go abroad for their masters (and never return and if they do well past their prime ) or take up jobs at foreign mncs which indirectly help their home country.

We could force the students to compulsorily work for Indian firms for a period of 2 years. We could even make it part of the curriculum by making it mandatory to work for six months in the rural sector after the third year.

Flaws - The health minister tried/is trying (not quite sure) to bring about some sort of similar reform but was panned by students as it extended the mbbs course from 5 years to 6 years. Their contention was that that no one would marry them as the course was too long (lol). I still have to research this.

Pay as you go – This is based on the principle that a person pays half his salary to the institution that helped him get the job. This principle is applied by recruitment agencies.

The universities/ colleges could ask the students to pay half their salary of their first year at work to the college if they utilize the college placement services. Since off campus placements pay less and are harder to get, students might stick to campus placements itself. If this is complicated make students pay half their salary of their first job for a year to the last attended college irrespective of how they get placed. This could help colleges build endowments and subsequently improve infrastructure and increase scholarships.

Flaws - Students could crib that the money they earn is their right and all that crap.

The above reforms are just a few ideas I could think of - some radical but the others tenable.

The above post is dedicated to my surrogate Raghavan for his passionate defense of my blog and demand for more specifics. For the record, markets are still down and I am totally jobless.

Ice cream at Mc Donalds ??? not me

2008-06-16T01:21:00.000-07:00

Mumbai is one hell of a city. You will literally find all kinds of people here. It really is a city of innovators and opportunistic people. No wonder you have thousands of people coming here every day to realize their dreams and ambitions.

If you are looking for an eventful life, Mumbai will definitely not disappoint. There is always something happening that sets your mind thinking.

One day, as I was getting to the station after work, I decided to stop by at McDonalds for some ice cream. I went to the express counter outside the shop and asked for a softie – the one with a hot chocolate layer. As I paid the guy for the ice cream, there was this beggar (typical - torn clothes and partially maimed) who came and stood beside me. I was a bit surprised but not bothered. He told me to take my ice cream and I just stared at him giving him the why u telling me look. I ignored him and I took the ice cream and started walking when …

He grabbed my bag to hold me back and starting pointing to my ice cream. I tried resisting him but realized he wanted my ice cream and he wasn’t going to let go without a fight. Being the docile, peace loving guy that I am, I gave him the ice cream. I didn’t see any point in fighting with a partially maimed beggar, he was definitely very hungry. I left immediately hoping he had a good meal.

I was initially embarrassed but I shrugged it off as usual and boarded the train back home.

Leaving aside how I should have reacted in such a situation, if you look at the big picture there are a hell lot of questions that need to be answered. Are we really developing as a nation in the true sense? Is the growing divide between the rich and poor controllable? Are the left parties right in saying we don’t care for the poor? Are we obsessed on becoming the number 1 country in the world that we neglect the poor?

I am a firm believer in free market policies. The government cannot solve our problems and its only the people who can do it if they have the will to do so. We have seen record growth levels in the recent past. We have seen skyscrapers come up and mnc’s expand tremendously. We have seen a spurt in high pay jobs and suddenly brand India is fashionable and everyone wants a chunk of it. In every major forum world leaders mention India as future super power. If you closing analyze the Indian economy, you will see that our huge middle class fuels the economy. We have a huge market that’s waiting to be captured. Our industries have grown on their own capability and have not depended on the government for support.

But we cant expect the industries to keep growing at the same pace with the government trying to regulate nearly everything. Apart from that we haven’t seen much development in the primary sector. Our farmers are struggling to pay debts and governments have been elected on the plank of preventing farmer suicides but with no avail. In fact their farmer suicide packages have abetted suicides. The food grain production has not kept up with the rise in population and increase in demand for better nutrition. Stop Gap measures like cutting down on exports will not help the industry in the long run. The Big Indian farmers don’t pay taxes and make millions at the expense of the landless farmers and you have people trying to take advantage of this loop hole in the tax law. The primary occupation of top actors like Amitabh Bachanan and Aamir Khans is farming !!! , who can blame them ,everyone tries to evade paying taxes, some more popular than the others.

True development happens when all communities are taken along together on the road to development. Superficial development is easy but we need to be ready to work hard and sacrifice to attain balanced development. We need comprehensive reform in all fields.

Else the above mentioned incident will be commonplace and you will have people joining naxal movements and other violent movements that can only harm our cities like Mumbai where slums and skyscrapers peacefully coexist.

Till then keep your comments flowing.

And the nominee is…

2008-06-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

It just had to be him.

Most people acquainted with US politics would have been aware that the nominee had to be Barack Obama. It was a mathematical impossibility for Hillary to even come close to overtaking Barack in the pledged delegate count due to Baracks incredible grass root caucus oriented strategy. The Black man won and the white woman lost. Period.

This election is a once in a lifetime election that I will probably never witness again. Breaking racial and sexist stereotypes, this was the first relevant 51 state primary in decades.

At the start of the primary reason I vehemently opposed Hillary Clinton mainly because of her polarizing nature and the ‘bill factor’. The other guy was someone lovable, multiracial, Harvard educated , smooth talker , traces of JFK , all qualities of a true rock star. But as the primaries progressed and the barack crust passed, I have come to realize that she may not be that bad after all. She is a policy wonk, talk’s substance, strong on national security, worked with republicans in the senate, all qualities of a really good president. It all boils down to choosing a candidate who can inspire a nation with no fixed policy but just a general outline or a candidate who has everything worked out but will have constant republican attacks pointed towards her. In terms of electability Barack is high risk high uptick candidate and Hillary a low risk low uptick candidate.

The democrats now might be wary of electing a high risk candidate like obama in an election that all historical factors point to a dem win – unpopular president, low republican congressional and senatorial support, low republican party ID, a republican candidate who doesn’t excite the republican base. All swing state poll are very tight in an obama –McCain election while on the other hand Hillary thumps McCain in these same bellwether states.

Only time will tell if the democrats have made their right choice else a period of oblivion beckons for the dems.

For all those who think why I should be bothered about an election that will have no direct impact on me. My answer is simple, I can’t identify with the political parties of my country and I don’t see myself as a vote bank that will be pursued by any of the major political parties at least in the near foreseeable future.