2008 - The Year That Was

2008 is almost drawing to a close. If I were to describe the year in a few words, this is how it would be for me.

2008 was the year of when racial barriers did not matter in US presidential politics. This was the year of hope and change.

2008 was also the year of great triumph with Michael Phelps winning 8 gold medals in a the Beijing Olympics

2008 was also the year of great tragedies with India being attacked by terrorists multiple times.

2008 was also the year of great turmoil, with the world facing the worst financial crisis since the great depression.

I cannot remember any single year in recent memory where there was a so much positive and negative news in the same year.

Hope that the coming new year is filled with more positive news and energy.

Is the Time Ripe for a Federal Gas Tax Hike?

For the week of the 22nd of Dec gas average US gas price was $1.653 a gallon. This is a far cry from the average price of $4 a gallon which we saw in the summer months.



The drop in gas prices has been as precipitous as a drop from a roller coaster. As the gas prices have dropped precipitously, there has been a slow rebound in sales of gas guzzling trucks and SUV's. According to research by Edmunds, low gas prices and fat discounts on trucks and SUV's are reigniting sales.

The US government just bailed out the auto industry to the tune of $17 billion in emergency loans so that they can re-tool to make more fuel efficient vehicles. But if demand for these fuel efficient cars continues to go down with the gas price, what is the incentive for the car manufactures to produce more fuel efficient cars?

In addition, the low price of gas also ups the demand for gasoline which means more gasoline imports and additional money into the pockets of petro-dictators like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Not to mention the impact additional demand on global warming.

So what is the solution. Keep the demand for gasoline as low as possible and the price as high as possible. Currently the only way to keep the demand low is to raise the price of gasoline by adding additional tax to every gallon of gasoline consumed.

Think about this; the additional tax dollars could be used on infrastructure related projects, invested in research and development for alternative fuels, developing more fuel efficient cars or for that matter just curb demand for gasoline to reduce the green house gas emissions. These alternatives much better then throwing money on Middle Eastern oil.

Granted that in a recessionary environment, new taxes are a no-no. But, during the campaign, Obama had the guts to speak out against the Federal Gax Tax Holiday proposed by Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Now that he has been elected president he must show the courage and seriously consider this and make it one of his top priorities, as it is a win win solution.

Is WikiPedia the New Encyclopedia?

During my flight from Columbus to New York, in the Delta Sky magazine, I read an interesting article on the discussion about whether Wikipedia is the new Encyclopedia

Below is Andrew Keen's point of view:
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I wouldn’t call Wikipedia an encyclopedia. And that’s not a criticism. “Encyclopedia” is something where you have centralized editors who make calls on whether something is more important than something else. So they’ll decide that, you know, Henry VIII deserves a larger entry than Henry III or Henry II or Henry the Nothing. Wikipedia is, in my view—and again, this isn’t necessarily a criticism—Wikipedia is an editorless information resource in which anyone is free to enter what they consider to be important information, and other people are free to edit that information.
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What Would Keynes Have Done?

In the current financial crisis there is no lack of suggestions on how to tackle it. But how would have John Maynard Keynes tackled the crisis.

Martin Wolf writes for the Financial times
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Keynes’s genius – a very English one – was to insist we should approach an economic system not as a morality play but as a technical challenge. He wished to preserve as much liberty as possible, while recognising that the minimum state was unacceptable to a democratic society with an urbanised economy. He wished to preserve a market economy, without believing that laisser faire makes everything for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

This same moralistic debate is with us, once again. Contemporary “liquidationists” insist that a collapse would lead to rebirth of a purified economy. Their leftwing opponents argue that the era of markets is over. And even I wish to see the punishment of financial alchemists who claimed that ever more debt turns economic lead into gold.

Yet Keynes would have insisted that such approaches are foolish. Markets are neither infallible nor dispensable. They are indeed the underpinnings of a productive economy and individual freedom. But they can also go seriously awry and so must be managed with care. The election of Mr Obama surely reflects a desire for just such pragmatism. Neither Ron Paul, the libertarian, nor Ralph Nader, on the left, got anywhere. So the task for this new administration is to lead the US and the world towards a pragmatic resolution of the global economic crisis we all now confront.
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Read the full article at What Would Keynes Do?

E Squared Continued......

Was it a conscious decision, or a momentary lapse of reason? How did progress take priority over humankind? Could harnessing the world's energy that allowed our ascent now be the lynchpin of our downfall?

The questions raised by the E Squared documentary got me thinking. This thinking raised a lot of questions for which I do not know if I have answers.

What is our responsibility towards the only inhabitable planet that we currently live on? How much progress is too much? Isn't there a limit to humankinds progress? If there is a limit how is that limit set? Is it a function of the human minds capability, or nature acting to keep the checks and balances or both? Has humankind by its actions triggered a reaction from nature to keep the checks and balances? In this battle of checks and balances will the human mind prevail or will it be nature that has the last word spelling the doom of the earth and all of its species as we know it?

E Squared: The economies of being environmentally conscious.

Was it a conscious decision, or a momentary lapse of reason? How did progress take priority over humankind? Could harnessing the world's energy that allowed our ascent now be the lynchpin of our downfall? Could it be we are connected to all living things in the universe, not the center of it? That decisions in Washington affect the mountain glaciers of Peru, deforestation in the Amazon affects the heat waves of Paris, that power plants in China affect air quality in Los Angeles. It's about facing what seem to be insurmountable challenges for what they really are: opportunities, to reinvent and redesign. E Squared: The economies of being environmentally conscious.

This is Morgan Freeman's introduction to PBS series E Squared Energy

The series includes 6 half hour episodes talking about wind energy, Energy Solutions for the Developing World, Advances in Automotive Designs for Fuel Efficient Vehicle, Growing Renewable Energy, Coal and Nuclear Energy, and California's Progressive Energy Policy.

A Genius for Sure

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Pianist, composer and world-class entertainer Ethan Bortnick has appeared on Oprah, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Good Morning America, and Martha Stewart. He's shared a stage with Beyonce, Josh Groban, Santana, Natalie Cole, Nelly Furtado, Wyclef Jean, Smokey Robinson, Gloria Gaynor, Patti LaBelle, and The Pointer Sisters. He can play more than 200 songs from memory, has composed more than 30 pieces of music that are being published, and has raised record amounts for children's charities.
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If you are like me who knows nothing about a piano or music for that matter, what Ethan Bortnick has accomplished is a big deal. Why you ask? Because he is all of only 7 years old....

Listen to the complete interview of Ethan Bortnick on Morning Edition

Bernie Madoff and the Wall Street Ponzi Scheme

Paul Krugman writes in the op-ed column for the NY Times:
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I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?

The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And it’s not just a matter of money: the vast riches achieved by those who managed other people’s money have had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole.
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Read the complete article at Madoff Economy

Amar Singh Donated $1million to $5million to Clinton Global Initiative

Clinton Global Initiative today released the list of donors who had donated money to to his charitable organization. The list of donors included the who's who of the world including the political figures, royalty and businessman.

The list also included some familiar faces from India including Amar Singh, the Samajwadi Party general secretary and a Member of Parliament. His humble contribution to the Clinton Foundation, $1 million to $5million.

Recently Mr Amar Singh in filing his nominations papers for the Rajya Sabha elections declared assets worth Rs 37 Crore or about $7 million. This is in addition to the $1million to $5 million he donated to the Clinton foundation.

Now my question is this: How is it that Mr Amar Singh seemed to have amassed wealth to the tune of $12 million on a meager salary of a Member of Parliament?

Read more about the other list of notable donors at Millionar Donors

The Brazilian Nostradamus?

Monteiro Lobato, a Brazilian writer, had written a sic-fi novel in 1926 in which a crytal ball like machine predicts that the United States would have a African American president in the year 2228. To top, this African American president runs against a female white blond and defeats her in the elections. Hillary Clinton anyone.

Though the above mentioned event came true in real life 220 years earlier then stated in the novel, is it just a coincidence that he wrote about this or did Monteiro Lobato predicting the future?.

Wall Streets Legal Ponzi Scheme

With the financial crisis biliking out billions of dollars of investors wealth by the day, Thomas Friedman in his op-ed for the NY Times writes:
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I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is, his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the “legal” scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed. What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds — which Moody’s or Standard & Poors rate AAA — and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn’t a pyramid scheme, what is?

Far from being built on best practices, this legal Ponzi scheme was built on the mortgage brokers, bond bundlers, rating agencies, bond sellers and homeowners all working on the I.B.G. principle: “I’ll be gone” when the payments come due or the mortgage has to be renegotiated.
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Paul Krugmans Four Rules of research

Paul Krugman in his Nobel acceptance lecture, revealed his four basic rules of research.

1. Listen to the Gentiles
2. Question the question
3. Dare to be silly
4. Simplify Simplify

Listen to the complete lecture and view the slide show at Nobel Lecture

And She Want to be Our Next Prime Minister

Check out the BSP website, especially the entertainment section.

This just makes me roll over and laugh. For a party whose leader aspires to be the next Prime Minister of India, this is what we have for a website for the party.....

Imagine Mayawati as the new Prime Minister, Enrique Iglesias as the new Information and Broadcasting minister, Kylie Minogue as our Tourism and Culture minister and Alessandra Ambrosio as Minister for Minority Affairs.

Who wouldn't want to vote for that cabinet?

Excellent Article on Mumbai Terror Attacks

An excellent article on the Mumbai terror attacks by Arundhati Roy published in the Guardian newspaper.
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The Mumbai attacks have been dubbed 'India's 9/11', and there are calls for a 9/11-style response, including an attack on Pakistan. Instead, the country must fight terrorism with justice, or face civil war
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Also read another excellent article by Priyamvada Gopal, again, published in the Guardian newspaper.
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We must not let '9/11' become a horrific status symbol signalling arrival into the fraternity of wounded superpowers
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Why Wall Street Blew It?

Henry Blodget in a recent article for the The Atlantic Magazine offers a very plausible explanation for why Wall Street seems to get itself into trouble often. He should know, because he was an Wall Street insider during the dot-com bubble.

His argument, for all their Ivy League degrees and financial acumen, deep down all Wall Streets are human beings who carry all the same emotions as any human being, acting in their own self interest.

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That’s especially true for the professionals on Wall Street, who’ve come in for more criticism than anyone in recent months, and understandably so. It was Wall Street, after all, that chose not only to feed the housing bubble, but ultimately to bet so heavily on it as to put the entire financial system at risk. How did the experts who are paid to obsess about the direction of the market—allegedly the most financially sophisticated among us—get it so badly wrong? The answer is that the typical financial professional is a lot more like our hypothetical home buyer than anyone on Wall Street would care to admit. Given the intersection of experience, uncertainty, and self-interest within the finance industry, it should be no surprise that Wall Street blew it—or that it will do so again.
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Read the complete article Wall Steet Blow Up

Good Old Government at its Best

An Administrative Reforms Panel (ARC) under the leadership of M Veerappa Moily, has recommended a performance based system for all senior level bureaucrats. At first you think, well, at last the government is holding bureaucrats for their performance.

But wait a minute. Does this mean that there is no system in place for holding them accountable like everybody else in the real world. If you read the article it really gets even more interesting.

"Suggesting new conditions of performance-based appointments and continuation of service, the ARC report - Refurbishing of Personnel Administration - said that all public servants should be subjected to two intensive reviews on completion of 14 years and 20 years of service, respectively."

Ok, so does this mean that they get a free pass till the first 14 years of their service, no matter how bad they are at their work. Also does this mean they get another 6 long years to rectify whatever short comings that they had at the 14 year review? Where is the incentive for them to perform when they know upfront that they are safe in their job for 20 years no matter what they do? Does this mean that we the taxpayers who pay for them have to suffer for 20 long years for each bureaucrat appointed? If Mr Moily was a owner of a private company, would he have recommended the same 20 years service before any sort of action against his employees?

I am sure he would have not done that, or his company would have to close doors in a few years. So why not apply the same standard to the government and have periodic review of government officials (i.e yearly) and fire the non performers regularly. Atleast that will bring some accountability in the government.

Read the complete article 20 Years of honeymoon at Taxpayers expense

Want a Dream Job - Become a Walkin Billboard

NY Post details the story of a out of work banker who landed a dream job after being out of work for almost a year. His innovative idea, wearing a billboard which read "MIT grad for hire" while walking the streets of New York.

As they say luck favors the brave....

Read the complete story at Walking Billboard

Angst of the Elite

Terrorists struck Mumbai last week killing almost 200 people. Sure terrorists have stuck Mumbai before. Remember 1993 Mumbai blasts or the July 2006 blasts. Both these terror attacks killed as many people as on the recent attacks. So why did the heads in high places i.e. Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh, State Home Minister RR Patil, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, roll this time.

Gaurav Kalra for CNN-IBN and Ajith Pillai for Outlook India Magazine offer one plausible explanation.

According to Gaurav Kalra," Elite India has for the first time been shaken out of its slumber as terror has attacked what were so far its impenetrable citadels.

The Taj Mahal hotel was insulated before that fateful Wednesday night from all that was wrong with India. It is here while sipping on over priced coffee or gorging on grotesquely expensive stir fry noodles that corporate honchos ridiculed the real India; an India they were squeamish to be part of. Fake sympathy for terror victims in Delhi or Ahmedababad or Bangalore mixed well with the cocktails in the secure environs of the Taj and the Oberoi. It is here that the mafia of new age cricket struck its big ticket deals, here that film producers with suitcases full of cash lured overpaid actors to act appear in their soulless films."

These POV's raise more questions then provide answers. Granted heads have rolled in high places in government circles both at the state and central levels. But is this because high profile targets like the Taj Hotel and Oberoi Hotel have been attacked? Or is it because there have been several terror attacks within the last few months, and suddenly the government realized that it had to tackle this menace? Or is it because we have a general election coming up in May 2009 and the ruling UPA government realized that if it did not act now, the voters may not elect it in the upcoming election?

The pundits may try to analyze it from every angle, but the answer may not be one or the other, but a combination of all of the above.

Nepotism or Sexism - You Decide

Well our politicians are at it again. Janata Dal(S) has nominated "Anita Kumaraswamy", wife of HD Kumaraswamy, daughter-in-law of HD Deve Gowda as the party's nominee to contest the Madhugiri assembly constituency by election in Karnataka.

In response to this BJP spokesperson V Dhananjay Kumar by saying ""I pity the JD(S). I wish Deve Gowda's family is not reduced to the same position as that of the Pandavas, who pledged their wife in the gamble. Anita is a weak candidate and she is no competition to BJP" .

Link obtained from Churumuri

Also see my previous post on Nepotism In Indian Politics

Z Plus Security for Politicians - No More

Sudarshana Dwivedi, a guest columnist for Rediff makes the case for removing the security blanket that envelopes all of India's politicians from an MLA to the Prime Minister.

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They, the politicians, are called the leaders of the country. They use my -- taxpayers' -- money to guard their precious selves and leave me at the mercy of terrorists; like the defenceless ward boy of Cama hospital who manned the gate against terrorists -- and got a bullet as reward.

Why do these so-called leaders need to be guarded? Even if all of them are killed in terrorist attacks, is there even a single one of them who cannot be replaced the very next day? What entitles them to deserve the security for which I pay with my hard-earned money, and which is diverted from necessary weapons and protection to those who guard me?

They call themselves leaders. Who are they leading? With what?

Their insulated and inflated egos make them speak in deriding and patroniSing tones to a martyr's father. They make fun of a multitude of mourners. They make light of a calamity that has not only claimed lives but scarred whole families.

Do they care at all?

No sir. They resign listening to the voice of their muted conscience only when sure of being booted out otherwise. Some even then cling on to their chairs like a dying man does to an oxygen mask.

Politics has become big business. They call it service to the nation but in most of the cases it means amassing assets totally disproportionate to income. They enjoy unlimited clout and wield ruthless power on the same unsuspecting public whom they claim to serve.

Devoid of this only means of luxurious livelihood, most of them will not know how to fend for themselves. This is the only profession they are proficient in. This unique quality surpasses 'qualifications' of beliefs and ideologies.
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Read the complete article at No Z Plus security

This Just makes me Laugh

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"Can you run the country without politicians?" This is how former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda reacted to public outrage against politicians in the aftermath of terror attack in Mumbai.

Referring to the outburst against politicians, he took the media and the urbanites to task. "What nonsense is this? Why do you think only politicians are a burden? Can you run the country without politicians or without a captain or PM? Do you want autocracy and dictatorship," he asked here on Friday.
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I agree with former Prime Minister Devegowda. Not all politicians are a burden on society, but it is politicians like Devegowda and his sons who sure are a burden. Will the former Prime Minister and his sons ever realize this?

Read the complete Devegowda outburst.

Calendar for Life

If you are looking for a calendar for 2009 and beyond then you can find it at Free Calendar. All you have to do is change the year, year after year and you can use it up to the year 9999. If only I could live until the year 9999.....

Also get other cool Microsoft Excel tips at Pointy Haired Dilbert

Dr Doom Was Right!

A couple of months back, I had a post about Peter Schiff predicting that the United states was on the verge of a recession.

His reasoning:"What's going to happen is that the American consumer is basically going to stop consuming and start rebuilding his savings, especially when he sees his home equity evaporate," he said. "And when you have the economy 70 percent consumption, you can't address those imbalances without a recession." He also said and I quote, "You're going to start to see both the government and the lenders re-imposing lending standards and tightening up on credit — and these sky-high real estate prices are going to come crashing back down to earth."

When he made these comments, he was ridiculed and people called him Dr Doom. Well the supply side, naysayers like Arthur Laffer are nowhere to be seen.

Open Letter to the Prime Minister

An excellent article that aptly describes the state of internal security in India.
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So long as India’s response to terrorism will be characterised by a shameless appeal along religious lines with political parties trying to consolidate their vote-banks as opposed to coming together to fight the menace, we will continue to be viewed as a soft target by our adversaries and we will continue to fight terrorists in our streets. You will be ending your tenure in a few months from now but the damage that your government has done to the Indian internal security will remain with us forever. The fact that your predecessor’s record was equally pathetic is no excuse.One can only hope that the next government will learn right lessons from your failure. Otherwise, the very idea of India is in danger of becoming just a fond memory.
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Read the complete article Open Letter to the PM

What Should Pakistan's People Do?

In response to the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Tom Friedman, in his recent op-ed for the NY Timescalls on all of Pakistan's people to stand up and say enough is enough on terrorism.
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Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage. But at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”

Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city, anywhere, and just murdering everyone in sight — including some 40 other Muslims — in a suicide-murder operation, without even bothering to leave a note. Because the act was their note, and destroying just to destroy was their goal. If you do that with enemies abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.
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Where are the Young Leaders in India

For a country which boasts of itself as a young democracy and where 95% of the population is below the age of 64 years and a median age of 25 years, it is surprising that there are not many young leaders who can inspire confidence or leadership abilities. Average age of a Member of Parliament is 53 years with only about 15% below the age of 65 years.

For a young country like India, the upcoming and existing leadership does not inspire much confidence. Take Rahul Gandhi for example. Though he is a member of parliament and is projected to be the future Prime Minister of India, his only claim to fame is he belongs to the erstwhile Nehru Gandhi family. Does anybody know his stand on issues urgently facing India including terrorism, economic reform, domestic and foregin policy? Forget Rahul Gandhi, most of the other young politicians who are Members of Parliment (MP's), be it Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Omar Abdullah or Akhilesh Yadav have been MP's because they were kins of established politicians. They did not rise from the grass root level to become MP's. But we cannot blame them can we.

For a country whose political parties have no democratic system of governance themselves, where nepotism rules roost , the current crop of young politicians is just reaping the benefits of the seeds that their father/grandfathers sowed. Unless this politics of sycophancy and nepotism changes, we cannot expect fresh leadership to blossom out of the grass roots.

Hold Our Leaders Accountable

Having witnessed the recent elections in the United States, both the presidential and congressional elections, one thing that I find very interesting and unique is how the elected officials are held accountable by the media and the voters even before they cast their votes. Take the examples of the presidential debates. The candidates are supposed to outline their plans on how they are going to fix the immediate and not so immediate problems facing the country. This gives a chance for the voters at large to know where the candidates stand on various issues.

Now try translating it into the context of Indian politics. India has a parliamentary election coming up in the next six months. Do we know where the potential Prime Ministerial candidates stand on the various issues that matter? Atleast I have not heard anything from LK Advani, or Manmohan Singh or even Mayawati about their stand on tackling terrorism, keeping the economy growing, providing helathcare to all of India, providing employment and jobs etc.

With the world economy in a tailspin and India begin attacked by terrorists, I think the upcoming election offers an unique opportunity for the Indian voters to start changing all of this. We as voters need to care about who we elect to represent us. We as voters have a responsibility to ask each of candidates tough questions on how they are going to deal with terrorism, how they are going to keep the economy growing and other relevant domestic issues be it access to health care, creation of jobs or fixing the educational system etc.

Now people may point out that majority of the Indian people live in rural areas and villages who are not educated enough to ask these kind of thoughtful questions. My response would be let the urban educated elite start working on this. Let the media bring the candidates together to debate some of the key issues. Let us not be satisfied with politicians addressing generic rallies or parties releasing election manifestos without any meaningful outcomes. Let us hold our elected officials accountable on every aspect of governance. Let them know that just promising "roti, kapada and makan" without any meaningful plan on providing it would not be acceptable.

Has Anybody Heard from Raj Thackeray?

Mumbai had one of its worst days in history. But still there is no news from one of its self proclaimed son of Maharashtra Raj Thackeray or his so called army of no gooders. Where is he when the city needs him the most. MNS workers would have earned some plaudits for doing some recovery work and helping people of Mumbai instead of trying to drive honest hardworking people out of Mumbai.

More Raj Thackeray 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9