March 9, 2013 · 7:41 pm

Blank Portrait on Blank Landscape.

Rainy Day at Kolkata (Trekearth)

Rainy Day at Kolkata (Trekearth)

 

So what is it about Kolkata? Anyone from Kolkata cant get over dissing the place as if it was some sort of ruinous blackhole where Life comes to die. If you talk to people from the so called Bigger Cities then you get another perspective (ofcourse laced with their own outlook on life) A dilliwalla would generally be sulking while you are driving to some place and say “ kalkatta mein hai kya yaar? What is there? Narrow roads, no malls, itni soiee hui si jagah hai” Which basically means that he was part satisfying the urge that all Dilliwallas have 4 times a day – “Put some one/thing down” If you ask a chap from Mumbai, he`ll say “Kolkata is good yaar, so much culture and all.” Which means he`s saying the same thing as the Dilliwalla but he`s a generally nicer chap so he looks for what is good and all.

Kolkata mainly has two large communities that are visible, the Bengalis and the Marwaris. That Bengalis are visible in Kolkata is not surprising. For anyone who knows anything about Calcutta, he`d also know that it is the largest city of Rajasthan. Yup that is indeed not a typo.

Just saw a car with a sticker that said – “West Bengal Government.” My driver alleged that It moved. I think it didnt. #summingup

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August 1, 2012 · 5:45 am

Making Light of India`s Darkness.


This ad was supposed to be pun on the past intermeshed with the present. But this now reflects India Today and ofcourse India over the last Twodays. This ad could well be prescient in light of the dark events. (You must excuse the heavy pun on light) Power Struggles, I have seen in India, but this sort of struggle for power, not really. The ad does show a very poignant descriptor of the divide between Bharat and India where the rich have enough resources to light up their urban palaces (with no small help from the poor) while the poor remain in the dark, in the shadows of the light. Ajit Ranades tweet sums it up - In an unprecedented move, government restores connection between India and Bharat. For eight hours only.

Did Uttar Pradesh bring upon darkness on the country in the similar way that they generally do by electing the worst chipmunks to the Parliament? Or is it just that  lighting up all those elephant statues does consume a lot power? Oh but the fat elephant (Behenji) is no longer in Power (I know, I know. Power is quite a powerful pun today). So maybe it was the garages for Akhilesh Yadavs 20Lakh cars were the ones that consumed more power. Whatever it was. Its hardly the moot point.

Lets look at the power equation in India. When the grid stops, the Generators start running at homes and offices and factories. Power cuts are not exactly new to us are they? We have had the creatively named “Load Shedding” and what not for ages and are well prepared for it. What rankles is the fact that Diesel is imported, we pay for it with Dollars that we increasingly have decreasing quantities of. We subsidize it, thus bloating our deficit even more. Not to mention the costs. On the other hand, coal is ours, we have large reserves. Even the coal that we import for blending is at market rate and doesn’t cost as much as diesel. Its like having a wife at home and still paying someone else to nag you ! As that same wife will tell you, its bad home economics let alone national economics.

They changed the power minister the same day. And I thought that this government didn’t have a sense of humour. Its the most hilarious thing in the world. Ok, I agree that replacing one fat corrupt buffoon with another is not much of a change ! Ironically, a guy from West India was replaced by a guy from South India. No wonder North and East India suffered – neither had any political capital at stake !

It`s not an electrical problem. It`s a problem with our political wiring. If India was a character in a graphic novel or a comic book, it`d have a bubble with a broken light bulb rather than the glowing one. Pardon me for the Dark view, but  they were two grid collapses ! Its nearly as if someone said, “Uhuh, that’s how it works, lets try again.” Ek baar aur. The good bit though is that since Power Corrupts (inverse – Pawar is Corrupt), there was less corruption. That`s what we call looking at the bright side on a dark night.

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July 24, 2012 · 10:52 am

Is India Stagflating?

Sort of.

Stagflation is when Inflation rises even though the pace of economic growth slows down. So in a strict sense yes, we are.

However, the late learned Mr.Keynes conveniently ignored the “political angle” of economics at times. Why are prices rising in India? In other words what is causing Inflation?

So, is it a Supply Side or a Demand Side phenomenon?

The poor monsoons is the only indicator of reduced Supply. The jury, though, is still out on that and we dont know for sure.

Till the monsoons (ahem,the lack thereof), there were no other Supply side pressures.

So now we come to Demand.

And there, kind sirs, we have our answer since the crazy government borrowing that is supposedly trickling down via MNREGA into consumption spending is perhaps the single largest cause of inflation.

It may be the single largest cause, but it has a double impact.

ONE

Government borrowing crowds out private borrowing since nobody`s credit rating is better than the Sovereign as well as the fact that the money supply is finite and if one borrower (in this case the Government) corners most of the supply, then the others will have less.

As such, interest rates go up, which lead to larger interest payments for producers which in turn are passed on to consumers.

TWO

As MNREGA pays out copious amounts of money that work their way into the economy in terms of higher spending, prices go up. Especially for food since the first priority for most of India`s poor is better nutrition.

QED

There. Now you have a view of the causes behind the current inflation in India. Even though it is much too simplistic.

Back to Stagflation

Returning to beginning is an excellent way to end sometimes. So to answer the question at the top of the post, yes, we are perhaps Stagflating however not in the term is generally used.

To elaborate, the original Stagflation was the 1971 American one where Commodity Supply Shocks and the Oil Shock (Also supply, obviously) led to high inflation in a period of low growth.

In our case, there is no Supply Shock. Atleast as of now. (We dont know what will be the impact of the US drought as yet.) And no Oil Shock for sure. Infact, oil prices are Shockingly Low.

What we have, ladies and gentlemen, is an invention of our perverted political masters. Please welcome a global first – Demand Shock.

*thunderous applause in background*

By the way…

I was`nt the only one to have considered Stagflation to just be an unimaginatively named inflated male deer.

An inflated male deer ? http://www.awfullyclever.me

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July 20, 2012 · 1:55 pm

The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious

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If the pink papers are to be believed then we are in throes of an economic crisis again. Which is strange cos it seems just like a year ago that we came out of it. Oh, wait. It was a year ago. Comparing something to 1929 makes for good drama but what is really dramatic is when you compare on crisis to a one just a year ago. And the one a year ago was called the Biggest That We Have Ever Seen.

Fact is, indeed stranger than fiction.

It seems what happened in 2008 was basically banks and business` putting their debt on to the books of countries. Wait a minute. Whats a country? A country is its Citizens. What are Citizens. The ruddy tax payers.

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Ok. So basically a Ferrari driving investment banker messed up, then went crying to the Government because he really needed a Porsche Cayenne as a second car and the financial crisis was causing his bank to talk about giving smaller bonuses. The government read all that there was to read about big business colluding with big business and decided to continue the tradition.

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Money gushed in the system like waves gushing about the Titanic (and we know from our knowledge of applied maths that IF SYSTEM = TITANIC, then WE = _____ ) and all was well it seems. However like any decent self respecting iceberg, the trouble was actually only partly visible while the rest lurked beneath sea level fattening itself like Bertie Wooster at one of Anatoles dinners.

This rescue by money printing became quite a trend and spread across the world like the latest Harry Potter book and most Governments gave in to its magical powers. However, it is for a reason that JK Rowling cautioned against using magic with muggles. Our central banks are no Gringotts and even though some of our central bankers look like Goblins, they are hardly as steadfast in their approach.

Thus the global oceans roared in giant waves of cash which only went to the banks and big businesses via the banks, low tide or high tide. However, with all this money a strange thing happened, no one was getting rich. It is a matter of fundamental disbelief for many people and they wonder where all this money went if the banks are still crying.

I`d require to be  a wizard myself to answer that, though the amount of salaries some of these folk get may point to a direction. But you know what, banker bashing aside, the sums of bailout money were so enormous that even bankers well machined digestive systems would`nt be able to wolf all of it down.

So now we are in a situation where the top 50 of the worlds nations have a problem of too much debt. Some like India have too much debt and too much inflation. Some like China, have too much debt, too much inflation and too many bubbles. And this goes on like a game of drumsticks where for each country you can add another problem.

Add to this slowing growth in each of the countries except maybe Indonesia and Estonia and you have a problem that even the mighty Jeeves would not be able to solve by pacing the corridor or using his fish fortified brain.

So whats to be done? Well, a chap cant just Right Ho and go back to work when there is a problem of this sort on your hands can he? So one of the classes I dropped in at Harvard asked its students to sort the global financial crisis using systems thinking. I was intrigued… till the time the students started playing racquetball with hackneyed “bankers shouldnt be greedy” etc. instead of using any fresh thoughts. Our generation is a child of growth and we are nearly genetically incapable of dealing with a situation such as this.

Like the Austrian saying goes, The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious. Becuase no one is serious about solving this.

 

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Gallery

Instagram to New England

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For those of you who are anoraks, this is is a Classic car with a Vintage Filter

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Salma Hayek came to Kirkland? Now I know why Zuckerberg lived in Kirkland

I`m always amazed by planes leaving trails like Hans Roslings statistics.

Adams House. Some of the International happened here.

When blue is bluer and green is greener.

Amsterdam Schipol Airport has its own share of white elephants.

Is looking for coffee on Milk street a lait accompli ?

Finally, an espresso in a chinaware rather than styrofoam cups warning about hot beverages.

If this is was on Wall Street, it would be a nice message.

The diner, complete with Gum Chewing American Waitress with nasal twang and cup of coffee in her hand. #brown or #tag.

Yes, in fact, Occupy Boston.

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July 14, 2012 · 11:07 pm
July 10, 2012 · 10:51 am

International.

Its 2.30  AM and I`m just back from the 4th of July Celebrations at the Charles River in Cambridge, yes the fake one in Massacheutus, America and not the real deal in that little island off Europe. (Just to let you know, I think that Massacheutus is the stupidest, most difficult to pronounce name in the world and the New Englanders purposely chose a name that lesser Americans couldn’t pronounce.) (Not to mention the abusive connotations the third syllable has for Indians)
Today was about a hell lot of different perspectives, and they were what you call international. I think that’s a word that has been over used till its nearly meaningless, but today sort of underscored the meaning.
My Italian neighbour who has incidentally studied anti terrorism in Israel and is doing a thesis on Terrorist Recruitment gave me his perspective on Islamic Fundamentalism. It was as revealing as it was scary. I was blown away (Pardon the explosive pun on terror).  I thought we were sort of bigoted in India. This, my dear, was a whole new level of the said bias.

The other perspective was from this delightful American chap whom I only wish I had read more of earlier. His essay describing how the German language is. The delightful title – The Awful German Language perhaps hints at his feelings about it.

I must beg indulgence for reproducing a particularly interesting nugget :

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech — not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary — six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam — that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which reinclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it — after which comes the VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb — merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out — the writer shovels in “haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument is finished.

The slightly troubled looking Frau who took great pains at Max Mueler Goethe Institue to drill into us the conjunctive and various other such terms may not be happy reading this. However, you will be pleased to know that this publication has not attained the notoriety required to for it to be read by German Teachers, let alone troubled ones.
“Let my ovaries fry” , is the slightly flippant statement that kind of was the lynchpin of the days harvest of people-thought. Said in a sort of final way by this girl I know who has had one child too many, one year too quick for her liking. She spoke about her ovaries accusingly. Like they stole slimily behind her and bludgeoned her with a bat. She was slightly baffled at the presence of two babies in her surroundings. It was bloody hilarious. Even more so, because she was mighty serious. One level up on the bra burning feminism, what?

A Chinese girl speaking in that slightly abrupt but beautifully musical Chinese way, told me that she dislikes Chinese American girls since they are complex people who pretend to be American and are not and do not even have the decency to pretend to be Chinese.
An interesting background to this was the fact that she began the conversation with what she said was her American Boyfriend`s advice to her “ To be involve in American society, you have to sapeak loudly and tly to be hot.” (sic)
However, she was very nice and little girl like. She even had a bag that looked like a dead animal. All in all, a very amiable and likeable person irrespective of what you think I mean by the above.
Amen to that.

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June 6, 2012 · 1:12 am

Is the Elephant taking the Tigers` place in the Sick Bay?

Is the Elephant a Tiger today?

Is history repeating itself ? (Like its supposed to?)

Is the Elephant really a tiger?

Here’s an excerpt from an Economist article in 2007 analyzing the Asian Economic Crisis ten years after it unfolded in 1997. It begins with describing why the crisis happened in the first place :

“The financial crisis can be described as having been a “perfect storm”: a confluence of various conditions that not only created financial and economic turbulence but also greatly magnified its impact. Among the key conditions were the presence of fixed or semi-fixed exchange rates (1) in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea; large current-account deficits (2) that created downward pressure on those countries’ currencies, encouraging speculative attacks; and high domestic interest rates(3) that had encouraged companies to borrow heavily offshore (at lower interest rates) in order to fund aggressive and poorly supervised investment(4). Weak oversight of domestic lending (5) and, in some cases, rising public debt(6) also contributed to the crisis and made its effects worse once the problems had begun.

If factors such as exchange-rate policies had helped to precipitate the financial crisis, above all it was excessive and poorly supervised foreign borrowing(7) that made it so disastrous.“

To those of you, who cant already make the connection, let me use the bold words from above in one sentence for each.

  1. India or the RBI has tried for long to ‘fix’ the rupee in a band.
  2. India`s current-account deficit is at its highest point in modern times since 1991 (You remember what happened in 1991, dont you ?)
  3. India`s domestic interest rates are sky high after 13 successive rate hikes and one Congress directed political rate cut.
  4. Indian corporates have aggressively invested in both domestic and international buyouts that have turned sour due to a million reasons.
  5. Domestic banks have lent at will to everyone from tottering wannabe airline tycoons, to grandiose palace hoteliers to dishonest real estate players.
  6. MNREGA and a dozen other populist schemes have fed off the rapidly depleting treasury that has turned the RBI into a loan dalal for the Government of India, steadily crowding out private borrowing.
  7. The RBI allowed companies to obtain great big amounts of FCCB funding without understanding the risks.

The parallels are eerie. And too real to fluff about. As such, members of the house, I can safely conclude that the Elephant, is infact in the Tigers` bed in the sick bay.

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