The Lexus and the Olive Tree - 4 - Ten books that influenced me

I bought and read this book in 1999. I was stunned. It related a set of major and historical events in the 1980s and 1990s of which I was unaware, either totally, or tangentially. I was an avid reader of newspapers and a somewhat less avid consumer of television news : or so I thought.

Apparently I was reading the wrong news : mostly politics, sports, entertainment or science. Business, economics, finance etc didn't excite me in those days. It is just making money, I thought, simple arithmetic, accounting etc. What could possibly be complicated about it? 

This book, and The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner, which my cousin Deepa recommended, transformed my thinking on these subjects. (Or at least, made me aware that I was utterly ignorant of these matters, and was ignorant of my ignorance). I have since realized that almost every educated person suffers from this prejudice and ignorance - they don't think economics or finance is complex enough to read books about.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree is held in utter contempt by almost everyone who was educated in finance, economics or business, or involved in these fields professionally. It probably outsold all books written by experts in those fields COMBINED, the year it came out. Few of those experts can write for the general public. It is like complaining that Justin Bieber outsold Beethoven or that a railway timetable is not as sophisticated as the Theory of Relativity.

But for someone ignorant of the stock market, currency rates, the impact of the internet, of television, the sharp economic divide between capitalist and communist countries, the subtle variations between the philosophies of France and Italy or Boston and San Francisco or Indonesia and Bangladesh - in fact, the vast majority of the general public, Friedman's book was an excellent, brilliant, pacy, readable, eyeopener.

The book captured the difference between 

• those who adopted cutting edge technology and those who didn't
• the transition from the world of the Cold War to one of globalization
• the power of markets of various kinds
• the stunning effect of new kinds of securitization
• the limits of diplomacy
• the futility of some wars and a general cluelessness about different cultures

Very few people in the 1990s other than the foreign affairs correspondent of one the world's richest media organizations, could experience these, let alone understand or explain them.

Since then I have learnt some degree of economics and economic history from other books, but this one was a path breaker, a delightful read, and an eye opener.

What is "news?"

My essays on Economics

My essays on Literature

Four Napoleons and the Steam Engine

 

Dr VS Ramachandran sent me this clipping and photo by email a few days ago. It is a memorial  to Sir William Jones, founder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, at the University College chapel in Oxford university. Ramachandran is a huge fan of Jones and his scholarship, and the founding of Indology (one branch of Orientalism). He believes that the Tamil Heritage Trust can continue where the British Indologists left off, and we can do this best by forming a new Indology society.

The sculpture shows Jones seated at a table, taking notes from Hindu pandits (Sanskrit scholars). This is an artist’s interpretation. One line in the website of Prof Faisal Devji, says “He was of the 'Orientalist' party, opposed by the 'Anglicists' who thought Indian knowledge and traditions worthless.”

For this essay, I use this line as a launching pad for my thoughts about this period.

I think this a very poorly studied period, except from the view of colonialism. Before the arrival of Jones and the discoveries of the Asiatic Society, Europeans had an extremely poor understanding of India. They were completely unaware of Sanskrit, its riches, Hinduism, Buddhism, Indian architecture: in fact all the sixteen items listed in Jones' list of things to study, on the ship to India.

But equally, India was almost completely unaware of the amazing progress in Europe since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In science, in economics, in military techniques, in seafaring, in conquest. These filtered through to large sections of society, especially Hindu society, only via the Industrial revolution and English education.

Also, there is a reason the Anglicists gained the upper hand by 1840 or so - before that Europeans may have considered themselves superior, but between 1770 and 1840 they had indisputable proof that they were superior, in several fields – science, technology, military ability, seafaring, economics, management. They were not superior to Indians in music, agriculture, medicine, art, architecture, law and order, judiciary, dispute resolution, taxation, water management, etc.

But let us look at some technological and military achievements of the British (not just Europeans)

1740s-1760s The Cotton Revolution, the first Industrial revolution in England

1746: The Battle of Adayar, France captures Madras under Governor la Bourdannais

1747: Major Stringer Lawrence creates the The Madras Regiment, the mother regiment of the Indian Army

1749: France returns Madras to England

1757 : Clive gains an empire, Madras and Bengal

1774 : Lavoisier / Priestley discover modern chemistry

1775 : James Watt patents steam engine

1776 : Adam Smith publishes Wealth of Nations

This is all very inconvenient to the political historians. We have at least three isolated islands of history, one of military conquest and colonialism, one of technological and scientific leaps and a third of the massive collection of information about India and its civilization, the project of the Asiatic Society and similar organizations. We get these as separate streams of discourse, because for each group the other two are quite inconvenient. 

At the start of this period 1770, Imperial France was a mighty rival to England in politics, finance and military strength, perhaps considered superior culturally. The Netherlands was a business equal to England. Germany equal in science and technology, but not quite unified, or even Germany. Spain and Portugal had a larger political base, but far behind in science, technology, trade.

1789: French Revolution, effective American independence

This saw French decline in the colonies, especially their rivalry in India, but Napoleon soon became a major challenge in Europe, and threatened to even make England a French colony. In India there were three Napoleons who were a threat to England : Hyder Ali / Tipu Sultan, the Mahrattas and the Sikhs. These are insignificant names outside India, but the victories over the first two were among the most torrid and coming within such a short time, of very great significance.

But between 1799 and 1840 England saw amazing and significant military conquests in India. Lord Cornwallis who had lost to George Washington in the Revolutionary War that led to the formation of the USA, held off Tipu Sultan in one of the Mysore Wars in 1793. Tipu Sultan was completely routed and killed in 1799. Arthur Wellesley, who served first under Cornwallis, and was Governor of Mysore after Tipu’s defeat, later defeated the Mahrattas at Assaye, in 1803, and used this experience to beat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. Wellesley later became the Duke of Wellington. He himself said, that while his defeat of Napoleon was more significant, the battle against the Mahrattas was the fiercest he fought in his life.

And after the death of Ranjit Singh, the Sikh kingdom also fell to England. Only the weak Mughals in Delhi were left to conquer in 1857. In about forty years they conquered as much of India as Muslims did in nearly 700 years (but still less the either Chandragupta Maurya or Samudragupta did). And they were discovering things about India, Egypt, Sumeria, Persia, etc all old civilizations in steep decline, and barely aware of their own past greatness

This was also the period 1799-1840 when England discovered electricity via Faraday and others, improved the steam engine and built the railways, massively exploited mines and discovered minerals and new elements, explored the world, and went far ahead of others in the Industrial revolution.

No wonder the Anglicists felt superior, and triumphed over the Orientalists. No wonder Macaulay and Mill became the guiding lights who would bless and improve India with the benevolence of British knowledge and wisdom.

This was helped by the fact that Indians themselves wanted all the new marvels that the English brought along (long before the steam engine). Paper, printing, clocks, telescopes, a hundred tiny engineering marvels. A number of liberal and progressive Hindus also used the English to reform Hindu law and a number of customs.

Which set the stage for the next quote. Which I will write about in a separate essay. 

“Both parties, however, agreed on the need to codify the laws of India's communities”

Links 

New Asiatic Society needed – Times of India report

THT program video - VS Ramachandran announces a new Asiatic society

William Jones and the Asiatic Society

Antoine Lavoisier - The Discovery of Modern Chemistry 

Macaulay, Sanskrit and English

History blogs

I am black, I am not oppressed, I am free

I saw this video on Twitter, today (June 4, 2020) This is at one of the protests against George Floyd's death. This picture below is from one of the comments following this tweet. I think that there are black conservatives might come as a surprise to some people.

This is my transcript. If you see any mistakes, please let me know. If significant, I will correct them.

My transcript of the conversation  

Black lady: When black people kill black people they (social justice protestors) dont come and do this crap (protest, riot, etc). You only do this when white people kill black people. They are the racists.

It is wrong for white cops to kill a black person, that is for sure. But if it matters, it should matter at all times.

White Lady: What are you fighting for? You are not here to fight injustice...

Black Lady: This is about violence, this is not about blacks

White Lady: It is about a uniform world

Black Lady: You think blacks are oppressed. I am black, I am not oppressed. I am free

White Lady: Good for you, you are an individual person This is a systemic issue.

Black Lady: Where? I am black lady, this is  a country where you can can do what you want,  you do it. Stop forcing on people that they are oppressed. I am not oppressed. I am black.

Stop forcing people into accepting that they are oppressed. You are forcing a rhetoric into their minds, which is not true. Violence is wrong, period. It is not about blacks. You see white people kill white people too, right? Have you ever seen anyone complain that white lives matter? No! Violence is wrong.

White Lady: (something indistinct)

Black Lady: Blacks kill blacks in black neighbourhoods every single day. I have never seen Black Lives Matter in those neighbourhoods. When a black person kills a black person, do you know what they say : "When the police come say Snitches get stitches." (waves her hands in exasperation) Snitches get stitches. But when a white person kills black people, Black Lives Matter. 

Stop the hypocrisy. 

If it matters, it should matter in black neighborhoods. Stop killing at home.

White Lady: So why dont you start? why dont you start?

Black Lady: I dont need to be told black lives matter. I know I matter. You guys are wasting everybody's time.

End of transcript and video

Corrected July 1, 2020: The twitter link was flawed, I have corrected it, you can see the video

Related Blogs

What is news

ஜாதியை மாற்றும் மூலதனம்

Is India secular - Michel Danino

Political Situation in Nepal

Is India Secular - Michel Danino lecture

Michel Danino, at CLT, IIT Madras

Michel Danino, a professor at IIT Gandhinagar delivered the second Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Memorial lecture for the Vande Mataram group, at Central Lecture Theater, IIT Madras, on April 23, 2018. The topic of the lecture was “Is India a secular nation?”

He first showed a picture of Rani-Ka-Vav, a magnificently sculpted 11^th century stepwell built by a queen of the Solanki dynasty at Patan, Gujarat. He asked if any student could recognize it. One did.

 

Circular segments, Rani-ki-Vav
This is my photo when I visited it
This is not the photo Danino showed

These are my notes from Michel Danino’s lecture.

A well is a secular structure, but this one is replete with Hindu sculptures. It has a central sculpture of Vishnu as Anantasayana, reclining in the ocean. Is it Secular?

The slabs of the well are segments of large circle, ten metres in diameter, sculpted on the ground, then lowered, and assembled. No craftsman in India can do this today.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the darling of the secularists today, said this in the Constituent Assembly: “I would advise those gentleman who throw about the word Secularism to consult a dictionary, before using it.”

Socialism and Secularism were not in the Constitution of India in 1950 but added in the Forty second Amendment by PM Indira Gandhi in 1976 during the Emergency

Secularism is the principle of separation of state from religion, according to the Oxford English dictionary.

It was introduced as a principle of government Established by Europeans like French philosopher Voltaire, who wanted to free  their governments from the influence of Catholic church.

In the Muslim world, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk brought about the Turkish revolution  to establish a secular republic.

Before 1947, there was no word of Secularism in any Indian language. Words coined in Indian languages like “dharma nirapeksha” in hindi and “madha chaarparra” மதச் சார்பற்ற in Tamil express indifference to religion, not so much separation of religion and government.

In ancient India there was no state religion. Medieval Europe though, suffered from religious rule. No ancient Indian ruler ever imposed his religion on his subjects. Not even Samrat Asoka the most powerful king imposed his religion. In fact, his edict declares these principles:

• All should be well learned in good doctrines of other religions
• No condemnation of any religion
• No excessive devotion or praise for one's religion

Kharavela, the Jain emperor of Kalinga around 150 BC has inscribed his own edict in Prakrit in the Udayagiri Khondagiri hills near Bhubhaneshvar, Orissa. He says, he fought to bring back Jain images, which were taken away by invaders. But he portrays himself as "worshipper of all religious orders,  the restorer of shrines of all gods."

People call this tolerance, but this is much more than mere tolerance. Tolerance is such a condescending word.

If there is no state religion, why talk of Secularism? It has no relevance in Indian context.

The only thing Indian kings were under a theoretical compulsion to follow were a code of ethics.

“India has been a nation of pilgrimage from South to North to places like Amarnath Badrinath etc and North to South to places like Kanyakumari.” This was said by Jawaharlal Nehru, at Madurai Congress session, in 1961.

Let us look at Vande Maatharam, a song composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. It is now controversial because he says let's worship our nation as a mother (maatharam), a Goddess. It became a popular song against Partition of Bengal in 1905, among both Muslims and Hindus. But later on Muslim politicians said they cannot sing any song that portrays a nation as a Goddess.

The Preamble of India’s Constitution guarantees equality of status irrespective of religion caste or gender. But Articles 28, 29, 30 give religious and linguistic minorities special rights to manage their

• Places of worship
• Educational institutions

But Hindus are not given  right to administer their own temples with the argument that they are too divided. Only Muslims and Christians are discussed as minorities. Not Sikhs Jains Buddhists Parsis etc.

Muslims are 190 million in number in India. This is three times the population of Britain. Can this huge a community be considered a minority? Are they oppressed minority in any way? 

I used to live in the Nilgiris in Tamilnadu for twenty years. In Nilgiris, Christians own almost all the big bungalows, the estates, educational institutions. Is this an oppressed minority?

Is the Hindu majority monolithic? Being Bengali is very important for Bengalis, being Tamil is very important for Tamils etc. Sometimes, more so even than being Hindu.

Tajamul Hussain, a Member of the Constituent Assembly  said: “Sir I don't believe there is any minority community in this country. I don't believe I'm from a minority. We all have equal status.”

Damodar Swarup Seth, another Member of the Constituent Assembly, said: “Minorities based on religion or community should Not be recognized in a Secular Nation. If done that would be negation of Secularism.”

How Secularism sometimes became allergic to Hinduism became apparent in the episodes relating to reconstruction of Somnath temple.

By the prevailing standards, Hindu community should be declared a minority in Kashmir. But the Supreme Court asks Parliament whether it should be so declared and Parliament asks the Supreme Court to decide on this. It's just a political football with no conclusion.

Even teaching Sanskrit was considered against Secularism, until the Supreme Court declared that you could teach Sanskrit without violating the Constitution.

I teach at IIT Gandhinagar and I'm afraid most Indians are terribly unaware of their own civilization and culture. Unlike say Egypt whose modern citizens have no continuity with their past civilization  of pyramids and pharaohs, India has a continuous living tradition.

Not everything about India was the best, there were dark spots, but the best of India is amazing. 

My words are not a final answer, but just a contribution.

Danino concluded with this statement made by Aurobindo Ghosh in 1908-09.

“In India we have been cut off by a mercenary and soulless education from all our ancient roots of culture and tradition… National education… [is] the education which starting with the pastandmaking full use of the present builds up a great nation. Whoever wishes to cut off the nation from its past is no friend of national growth. Whoever fails to take advantage of the present is losing the battle of life. We must therefore save for India all that she has stored up of knowledge, character and noble thought in her immemorial past. We must acquire for her the best knowledge that Europe can give her and assimilate it to her own peculiar type of national temperament. We must introduce the best methods of teaching humanity has developed, whether modern or ancient. And all these mwe must harmonize into a system which will be impregnated with the spirit of self reliance so as to build up men and not machines”

In response to a student’s question where “dharma nirapeksha” is a suitable Hindi word for secularism, and wouldn’t madham rather dharma be the word for religion, Danino replied, “Dharma is a Sanskrit word that is quite different from religion. But it is used to mean religion in Hindi. It's a great injustice to the word and concept.

Dharma doesn't even require a belief in God or belief in particular Gods, which religions do.”

Another questioner asked if secularism is not important given the "current government which is inspired by Nazism". Danino retorted that this is the kind of uncivil language used by most advocates of secularism, that discourages honest debate. If this government is inspired by Nazism, where are the concentration camps, he asked.

Danino has written a book about the lost Sarasvati river and delivered a lecture about it for Tamil Heritage Trust. He was bestowed the Padma Shri by the government of India in 2017.

Links to related topics

Video - An explanation of the Kharavela inscription

My other lecture notes

Politics

Gurumurthy on Demonetization

Political Situation in Nepal - Kanakmani Dixit

Science

1493 – The Columbian Exchange - Charles Mann

Art and the Brain - Vilayanur S Ramachandran

Sanskritam and Mathematics - Manjul Bharagava 

Faraday and GN Lewis - CNR Rao 

Clouds - Rama Govindarajan

Economics

Renminbi as international currency - Jacob Kurien

Literature

Subramanya Bharathi’s Essays - KRA Narasiah

Rajaji the writer - Va Ve Subramaniam

Vai Mu Kothainayaki - Va Ve Subramaniam

Siddharthan book on Samrat Asoka

Sociology

Marriages and Divorces – some statistics - K Srinivasan
Parsis of Chennai - Tehnaz Bahadurji

Law

Experiences of a lawyer and judge

Political Situation in Nepal

These are my notes from a lecture by Kanak Mani Dixit at Roja Muthiah Library, Taramani, Chennai on March 1, 2018. His talk was titled “Nepal turns a corner”

-----

The priest of Pashupathinath temple is a Namboodiri. The soldiers in Nepal are called Telinga. The Karnataka people have a strong connection to Nepal. The Nepalis left to various parts of India and became Gorkhas in Indian and British armies.

The rath yathra of Katmandu makes the Puri rath yathra look staid in comparison. The murthi Matsyendranath is from Kamarupa, is also called by Bundeo and has another name associated with Vajrayana Buddhism.

Nepal is deeply connected to India, more so to the south than the Gangetic plain. There is very little trade now between India and Tibet via Kathmandu but it used to be high volume.

Jesuit priest Ludwig Steller in his book Silent Cry, listed the exploitation of Nepal by Katmandu government and resultant poverty. Ranas and British became richer, but people became poorer. But Nepal maintained autonomy as princely state.

Jang Bahadur in 1800 went to London, his portrait is central in the hall of Indian Potentates in the India Office library. He supported British in 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, but allowed refuge for Nana Sahib and Begum Hazrat (??) as a way of displaying his autonomy.

Koiralas fought with Indian freedom fighters, went to prison with Rajendra Prasad, hoping to overthrow the Ranas, which was only possible if British were overthrown. After 1947, Koirala had a chat with Nehru, when he realized he was no longer talking to a fellow freedom fighter but to a Prime Minister

First election in 1959. Nepal has altitudinal diversity which no other countries have. And this affects its polity. It has the ravines of Afghanistan and the forests of Vietnam.

Koirala had the most inclusive cabinet, but he was overthrown by king Mahendra in a coup supported by the army, then exiled.

In nineties, when the Maoists realized they were getting no support at the voting booth, they exploited the romantic delusions of the youth, and brought in physical violence never seen in Nepal’s history. Local government was killed off. Army was violent by day, Maoists by night. In earlier eras, murders were confined to the courts.

After the formation of republic, GP Koirala gave Maoists equal seats as formal communists UML. Maoists never picked up gun against monarchy, only against democratic government. They were more opportunists rather than fighters. The gora sahibs, western activists, entered under UN auspices, and turned every Nepali who could speak a few sentences in English into a consultant. The Maoists try to impose a North Korean style constitution for a while.

Maoists and Dalits were funded, so there was a functioning workshop and seminar economy for them, but the Madhesis were totally ignored. And they rose up against that neglect.

Nepal had not suffered partition and 1971 and such trauma as India or Bangladesh, but all of it telescoped from 1996-now. Insurgency, foreign intervention, Communal tension, blockades, economic hardship, earthquakes.

Largest community in Nepal is Hill Kshatris sixteen percent, next is hill Brahmins is twelve percent. All are micro communities, so no serious communal violence. Nepal has both castes and ethnic groups, and castes within the ethnic groups.

I think Nepal has turned a corner, but I have said that before, many times, and been wrong, so you can take it with a pinch of salt.

Added December 4, 2020 A Quora essay on Nepal - frankly, this essay was more informative than anything I have ever read ir heard about Nepal

My blogs on Politics

Gurumurthy on Demonetization

Marriages and Divorces – some statistics

Vote for Google

Democracy or free market

Some Quotes I like

Margaret Thatcher – in memoriam

Some other lecture notes

Science

1493 – The Columbian Exchange

Art and the Brain

Manjul Bharagava on Sanskritam and Mathematics

CNR Rao on Faraday and GN Lewis

Clouds

Economics

Renminbi as international currency

Literature

Subramanya Bharathi’s Essays

Rajaji the writer

Vai Mu Kothainayaki

Siddharthan book on Samrat Asoka

Law

Experiences of a lawyer and judge

Gurumurthy on Demonetization

S Gurumurthy, Editor Thuglaq, lectured on Demonetization at Chennai International Center, Madras school of Economics, today, September 22, 2017. Here are my notes from that lecture, in his voice.

Jagdish Bhagwati on being asked what he thought of my opinions, quipped, If Gurumurthy is an economist, I am a Bharatha Natyam dancer.

I'm not here to defend the government. I'm here to explain the necessity for demonetization. This cannot be done without explain the history and context of global economics and its changes.

Fundamentally, the world had a single economic model, "one size fits all", after the Second World War. They changed this in 2005, saying one size does not fit all, and each country should develop its own model. Nobody in India discussed this at all.

The world has dramatically changed after the 2008 financial crisis. Most have given up globalization and are adopting economic nationalism, except India, which is still enamored of Globalization.

The USA has eleven trillion dollars of trade deficit. Any other country would be insolvent with this deficit, but USA runs not on economics but on physics. Why physics? Scientists say there is something called dark matter, which holds the universe together, which they cant explain. The dark matter of the USA economy is its military power, its administration, the dollar as the currency of the world, etc.

India has run trade deficits in every year since independence, except 77,78,2002,2004. Deficits didn't use to  matter because of the small size of the Indian economy. But since 1991 the economy has grown significantly.

India had 515 billion dollars of oil imports between 2004-2014, but our capital goods imports was 585 billion dollars in the same period. It's not expensive oil, but this massive trade deficit that was a huge problem. Indian trade deficit with China alone in one of these years was five times Indias defence budget and three times China's defence budget.

Also India became a favorite destination of foreign capital. But big chunks of this was not for products or services, but for financial chicanery. Indian economy grew on average 8%  during those years, but gold and stock markets jumped 300% and real estate between 200% and 2100%. This was mostly phantom growth in the value of these assets because of massive printing of high denomination currency bills. We needed high denomination bills to deal with the explosively growing economy, but the percentage of these bills was nightmarish. It went from 38% to 88% of all currency notes  in the period under the UPA government. Then RBI governor YV Reddy warned against the massive influx of capital inflows, but he was ignored. 

1999 was the highest job growth year in Indian history, we added sixty million jobs that year. But since then, especially under UPA, India has had mostly jobless growth. Even real estate became an asset inflation game, with bulk of buyers being not homeowners but people who bought and sold houses for profit. How can it be otherwise, when most of growth happens not in products or services,  but in phantom asset inflation. Demonetization was required to primarily stop this insanity. No economist would have implemented demonetization. Economists caused this problem. Only a bold non economist, in this case Narendra Modi, would have implemented it.

Income disclosure and demonetization should have been done simultaneously, but this didn't happen. Income disclosure should have been announced first. This was a major problem.

But look at the atmosphere demonetization created. The media, the intellectuals and even the Supreme Court wanted riots. But the Indian people did not riot. This is astounding, a marvelous facet of our civilization. Only the rich were really upset, because of queues, they said. Most Indians stand in queues all the time. The whole debate was framed as about black money alone, while several issues were involved.

Modi can take bold and unpopular decisions. GST is extremely unpopular. Kirana stores and small businesses are suffering. But it was an essential step for the economy. No government is foolish enough to continue long with a highly unpopular move that could cost it the next election, so some of this may change soon.

The poorest of the poor pay 350 to 480 percent interest per annum. No one in government or banks or economists care about them. Or even think about relieving their burden. My washarman came to me lamenting about debt at 360%, and I gave him a few lakhs to get out of his debt hole. The chattering classes have not even bothered about the lack of banking for such people.

Politicians can fix this system, if they muster the will. But civil service and stop anything brought in by parliament or legislatures. Civil service has no inward looking perspective, their education and outlook is entirely foreign.

Inspite of this India still is quite robust. I have traveled to so many cities as part of my job, and understood so many aspects of the Indian economy. The listed corporates of india only contribute 5% to economy of India. It's local businesses that are the bulk of Indian economy, jobs, and  growth. 

Bank managers are just bureaucrats. They know nothing of local economy, which is why Non Performing Assets are such a huge problem. One day a bank officer is transferres from Patna to Vilupuram. He knows or bothers to learn nothing about either community, but uses text book metrics to evaluate anything. Some people now say privatization of banks is the only solution. It's not at all a solution. The managers and staff will be the same people, how will privatization change anything?

RBI and several banks have colluded to convert money for people. Vans have gone from RBI to individuals. Our system is very bad in this aspect. Demonetization has been implemented, now its up to the tax authorities to catch and take action against culprits.

Added note Saturday 23 September, 1pm: Compare and contrast my essay above with the report in the Hindu this morning. In my understanding, the crux of Gurumurthy's speech was that in spite of flaws in the rollout, Demonetization was absolutely necessary. The Hindu's report is that demonetization is a blow to the economy, a gas chamber. Akbar josiyam.

Related Essays

1. தடை கேளு தடை கேளு
2. Renminbi as International currency reserve
3. A lack of economic knowledge
4. Video (in Tamil) - Book review of False Economy
5. Audio (in English) - Book review of False Economy

6. What is news?

Vote for Google!!!

Vote for Google!!!

Kamaraj : free school lunch
Karunanidi : free tv
Jayalalitha : free cow, goat
Modi, Mulayam : free laptop
Kejriwal : free water
Bush, Obama : bombs for freedom
Sonia : free spectrum, coal mines, aadhar ID card, free inflation

Google : free email, free YouTube, free blog, free picasa, free Android, free maps, free google+, free browser......

Come on we have a winner!
Sergey Brin for Prime Minister of india!

Democracy or Free Market

An excellent quote from Matt Ridley's latest blog. It best illustrates the differences between political and economic freedoms. Democracy is usually vastly oversold and hyped, while the free market is usually vehemently criticized. It has also been stated that the market votes every minute with its money, whereas the electorate votes once every few years. 

"Free-market economists are wont to point out that economic freedom is in one sense more tolerant than political freedom. If you like apples and I like oranges, then economic freedom means I can have one and you can have the other, and we are both happy. Political freedom means that we take a vote on whether we all should have apples or all should have oranges, and the loser is disappointed."

Note that Ridley makes this important observation in his last paragraph. Briefly it is: "The real benefit of democracy is stop the rulers using violence against you."

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/when-political-tyranny-allows-economic-freedom.aspx

Some quotes I like

Politics is the art of the possible - Otto von Bismarck
Science is the art of the soluble - Peter Medawar

Guano, while no saint, performs many miracles - Alexander von Humboldt

A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing - Oscar Wilde

Self-sufficiency is just another word for poverty - Matt Ridley

Understand what a miracle a flower is - Gautama Buddha

Ordinary people admire the extra-ordinary. Extra-ordinary people admire the ordinary - Confucius

The human race is the only one that gets more prosperous, as it grows more populous - Matt Ridley

When one’s calculations disagree with planetary positions, one must revise calculations, since planet wont adjust their paths & speeds to suit your calculations - Parameshvara

Margaret Thatcher – In Memoriam

While I was school student and The Hindu newspaper was my only source of news, I was under the foolish impression that Thatcher and Reagan were unsympathetic, evil people, who destroyed people’s lives. This was in keeping with the mentally retarded, zombie socialistic, economic superstitions of the world at large and the Indian media and public at large, not least the Hindu. Add to this mix of factless poison our Congress school syllabus of hatred for all things colonial, except cricket and the English language, and the Falklands situation – where Argentina seemed to have fairness on its side. 

It was long afterwards – a decade of living in the US, feeling and basking in its wealth and wisdom; another decade reading the brilliant books and essays of economists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Milton Friedman and an army of free market philosophers, most of whom the general public is kept ignorant of; a decade of seeing and experiencing India, China, Korea, Easter Europe, Africa, South America, all surging in growth, prosperity and better standards of living under free markets; and a decade of venomous Indian socialism under the UPA with the Manmohan Singh mask, and also the resurgence of socialism across Europe after the 2008 crisis – it is after all this, that the marvelous rejuvenation of the world’s economy under Thatcher and Reagan, shines through and tells us what wonders they achieved, just by believing in what is right and governing with that conviction.

Historians and journalists will tell you that the world changed with the fall of the Berlin wall, or with collapse of communism in the USSR. And with the death of Mao Tse-tung and the rise of Deng Xiaoping in China, and the election of Narasimha Rao as PM in India, and his choice of Manmohan Singh as Finance minister. 

True, but they happened substantially because of phenomenal success of Margaret Thatcher. Reagan’s turnaround of the United States would not have sufficed, America has been rich for a century and its success would have been credited to the dynamism of its businessmen and the brilliance of its scientists and engineers. It was Margaret Thatcher’s unwavering reform of the British government, industry, economy and way of thinking, which   turned the tide.

Thank you, madam. I salute you.