All Along

All along

one is oblivious to the time

one is oblivious to the changes

it brings,

in course with the maneuverings of unconcern

one would like to think,

but all of a sudden the tears that flow

in shock of being in presents proximity

doesn't do justice

to the real in its eternity,

people do leave behind their marks

people do leave behind their memories

people do leave behind what they have said

and people do say more when they are no more,

yes, people do say more even when they are no more

albeit through others,

they do say what that matters

albeit through others,

they do say things that are not theirs

albeit through others,

they do tell you life is just not redundant

just as they lie lifeless

albeit through others,

a thing of concern that pricks you

as it should

and makes you wish for it to stay

with you all along if it could.
































Prasanna Kumar 

US government shutsdown

I was just waiting to see if the United states of America would go the Keynes way AGAIN !, The country may be heading towards a situation where in the old-age dependency ratio will have to translate into growth in the Tax burdens in the near future owing to the rate at which its population is ageing coupled with falling fertility but that doesn't substantiate anything for us to be sure if the move by the republicans to curtail peoples right to have a better healthcare is the better way to make things better, but all those debt, someone has got to pay that debt someday and many from the rest of the world wouldn't want to be those people in the future who might have to lose their pensions to the false promises made by the US of paying them back handsomely, Chinese have been subsidizing the cost of living of millions of Americans for some time now, and most other Asian countries including India have been subsidizing their cost of living by consuming their produce at a higher cost and providing them services at the cheapest cost possible. As for this move to shutdown the functioning of the government I feel that it just shows some kind of prudence on their part for not placating themselves to be worthy enough to gobble up more debt Again, but this also raises many uneasy questions as well because this is happening just after the 2008 melt down and people are not sure if the world is out of it yet, and what would happen to those core industries which are drivers of the world economy which for sometime have been surviving on the improbable notion that growth will happen some how even if it means at the cost of cheap money.

                    The markets around the world have been under the impression that some kind of last minute deal would be struck between democrats and republicans which would stall things being pushed to the extreme, most of the markets dint have enough time to factor in this new development, Shanghai's composite index, Japan's nikkie , hong kongs Hang seng closed now and dint have enough time to react, things would be grim tomorrow as these markets open, once this new development has been factored in by the Asian markets the movement of the indices upwards would definitely mean that dollar might weaken even more against the Asian currencies including rupee. As of now its imperative to note that an economy which always has its eyes on prudence will take sufficient measures to avoid such an inconvenient situation not the other way around like getting itself into such a situation and trying to peddle through it, With all due respect to some analysts who seem to be suggesting that this is some kind of daily occurrence which doesn't require our scrutiny, I have this to say it is this attitude that gave too much power to credit default swaps to wreck the entire US housing market which led to the subprime crisis and to all the subsequent events that followed the Lehman brothers collapse, placing ones trust on the ability of the US economy to adapt is one thing but that shouldn't be too blind enough to discount the conditions which has prompted such an event to occur, US economy is reeling under a huge pressure which is prompting it to enforce such measure's, if this debate between the republicans and democrats continue leave alone they deciding to raise the debt ceiling it will lead to huge uncertainties because raising the debt ceiling doesn't mean it gives enough room for the government to borrow more money to spend on things to keep the economy going but it only allows the US government to payback the money it has already borrowed, the markets know this and they will react accordingly.

Disconnect

                       I think this movie has come so close to defining the time we all live in, I may be wrong the movie might have done much more than getting closer to defining the time we all live in, it might have done just that - defining the time we live in. The movie explores our inabilities to be relevant to our times in the way we understand it or the way we try to understand it and scares even the little bit naiveté out of our already cynical individual selves. It starts with not so much of a comment but with glimpse's into one of the stark realities that has come to be associated with the word "Staying connected", a reality which is a world unto itself existing in response to the world that has changed the way it communicates with itself and the world that doesn't mind shedding its inhibitions in front of a 10 inch screen which implodes into a domicile of a different kind that's built up of bits and not pieces but gigabytes where nothing is spurned in answer to a 16 digit number on a plastic card. 

                      A teen can exist in that world wanting to be rewarded for playing along satiating with carnality the eyes staring at the 10 inch screen from the other side desire's, a teen who finds it impossible to give expression to his thoughts in the way expected of him in the world he exists finds it easier to show how vulnerable he is in front of that 10 inch screen, an unassuming women leading an insular existence along with her reclusive war veteran husband finds an outlet to her grief through that 10 inch screen only to confront a much starker reality of the other world, its the world that allows people now to use the words " I am online" in a context that defines everything around us even the medium that has dominated our living rooms for over 8 decades- television, what is television today if not redundant in a world that stay's connected constantly. The movie disparages what television has turned out to be through a character, a woman TV reporter, who sets out to expose one of the dark realities of the online world but gets caught up in her own guilt after coming face to face with the reality of her own existence besmirched by the vile as inveigled by the screen on which she loves to see her face projected every day for millions to see.

                      Through these characters the movie raises many pertinent question's as to how the things that makes us human our ability to trust, our inabilities which allows us to be vulnerable, our innocence that has very little use in the real world will be shaped into in the future to which we all are chained to through the links of time, The movie is a stunning depiction of the insecurities and confusions one has to confront in the time we all live in, which makes us more gullible than we ever were, more in need of rectitude than we ever needed, desperate to be close to each other than we ever wanted to be. I don't know if I should call this movie a great one but it surely is one of the best movie's of our time and definitely deserves a watch.

And the Rupee touches a new low - Again !

   As the rupee hit 66.06 the Sensex plunged 600 points to end at 590 by the end of the day, this my dear fellow countrymen is called carnage, this is total carnage, every other day whatever small gains the Sensex makes is swallowed by the huge plunges it takes, whatever the government and RBI together have been doing for the past two months or so to instill a certain sense into everything that affects the macroeconomic conditions has had no effect at all, why?, because this government is hell bent on pushing things to the extreme just to carve out a minute chance to secure a third term at a huge cost. What was the need to introduce Food security bill at this point of time when there is too much of negative sentiment and little faith in the fundamentals of our economy, and even after being aware that this is going to add an additional pressure of 40,000 crores on our already stretched up finance's the government chose to pin its hopes on its gut feeling rather than on reams of economic and statistical data which are crying out loud for prudent economic measures, it is this very exact fiscal imprudence resulting out of political compulsions free markets hate to entertain, the rupee has lost around 20 % of its value since the beginning of this year, the last time the rupee saw such a plunge in its value in a year was in 1991 and 1998 during the Asian economic crisis.

                               Its good to take risks to create wealth, to create assets but not to spend that's exactly this government has done, it has pinned it's hopes on generating more revenue in the future by parting with the stakes it has in the PSU's, but for that to happen the market condition's have to be favorable for the valuations of these PSU's to be inviting enough so as to be able to broker equity purchases of these PSU's in the primary and secondary markets, and that can happen only when India clocks the exact GDP figure the government has projected for this fiscal year and other indictor's of economic health are in green. The government has pinned its hopes on the future revenue it should be able to generate to be able to spend now if this is not fiscal imprudence nothing is, and adding to that the price of the crude oil the single commodity which has been pushing our CAD figures to dismal is lurking at risky levels in terms of the effect it could have on our already spiraling import bills, The Brent crude oil price is hovering at around 110 $ and with the political conditions in Syria getting worse and the US wanting to put its foot forward to instill some or more (in)sanity into that region things are heading towards worse, I just hope that in months from now I don't end up being that person who get's to say "see dint I say this was coming !"

A slip of 769.41 Sensex points is no coincidence

             Mr.Chidambaram even when you masquerader ad hoc measures as sufficient policy changes required to deliver the needed results market's know what really is happening, a slip of 769.41 Sensex points might be a little over exaggerated but it dint happen without a reason so is the rupee touching new low every other day, market is not your voting pool which can be wooed with a few promises, when the business sentiment seems like is not going to be good anytime soon how do you expect markets to trust in the future that you talk about, add to that you have blatantly denied the basic right the decree of free market economics promises to each businesses "an economy that would be governed by the laws of markets free will", How could you even think about curbing the interests of businesses to make investments abroad. The big bang FDI reform that your government so raved about has not had many takers, and a few who are willing don't see it as enough and are bargaining for more knowing well that we are messed up big time.

              Things have been falling apart for a very long time, the balance of payment issue has been getting bigger each quarter since mid 2011 and here you are bending backwards to undo things in a jiffy, things which have been in the making for a pretty long time cannot be undone overnight Mr. Finance Minister you should know better.  Mr. Finance Minister people with their hard earned money are going to buy gold no matter what, even when you ask them to not to do so, even when you increase the excise duty on gold imports markets will find ways to bring in gold to make sense to people who don't believe in the magic tricks promised by finance ministers even though they happen to be renowned economists. You should make people invest their savings into government issued debt bonds by making it more attractive, offer tax deduction on the capital gains on newly developed real estate properties using gold assets, offer tax deductions on properties purchased using gold, and here you are Issuing quasi-sovereign bonds what has come over you ?, Capitalizing on the abilities of the state run corporations with deep pockets to pile up under recoveries to pull in a few dollars into the market!, you could do better Mr. Finance Minister. The investment climate with in the country has been fledging for sometime now, capital expenditure has come down drastically in the last few quarters and the PMI figures have been dismal as well and here you are trying your best to garner trust from the outside, have you worked out the cost this debt will incur while it needs to be serviced when it is due, what if the economy hasn't turned around by then. Subsequent governments have made this country dependent on our services sector to show good GDP figures. India's 56 percent of its GDP share comes from its services sector of which nearly 17 percent alone is the cost incurred due  to the services provided by the government, and this is a strange and amazing feet in itself, this is something that should be the case with the post industrialized economy and here we are emulating a post industrialized economy even while we have nearly 23 percent of the population below the poverty line and as many people who are unemployable because of poor skill's.

                                   Why don't you stick to the basics Mr. Finance minister address the real issues, you should take measures to replace products that are being imported with the local substitutes, Mr. Finance Minister I would like to ask you a straight forward question why on earth are we importing coal while we have so much of untapped coal reserves, why hasn't your government been able to take enough steps to open up those reserves by taking the sentiments of the people who reside near those coal reserves into consideration and compensating them fairly, why is the entire process around allocating coal mines is so murky, address those issues Mr.Chidambaram. Why are we heavily dependent on other countries for our electronic goods needs?, we are over a billion plus country and its a shame that we have allowed other countries to cater to our durable goods needs. We need efficient data gathering mechanism to gauge the output of our perishable food items like vegetables and non perishable food items on weekly basis which takes into all kinds of probabilities into account and arrives at future projections of our food produce to minimize undue speculation which from time to time has been skewing the market prices resulting in inflation, government has to come up with proper mechanism to channel the skilled work force without work to find jobs in foreign land aiming to increase our remittances. Better take measures to kick start our sagging manufacturing sector, recently I happened to see the ground reality of one of your flagship program's MGNREGA guaranteeing rural employment to people in the villages for at least 100 days in a year, I was shown a work an outcome of NREGA  I was told, I was informed that the people in that village had made that lake but the thing is it dint have any water in it, it was a shabbily made big hole which wouldn't hold water even if it rained more than in cherrapunji, with such blatant disregard for Tax payers money and such gross mismanagement some people in your party are betting on Food security bill and are still carrying hopes of a thumping mandate for a third term, its never going to happen Mr. Finance Minister , if there is anything one can be certain of it is this Mr. Chidambaram your party is going to lose this election so badly that it wouldn't have the face to call it's laurels of the past to its rescue.

Only the way it alone knows how to know

A severed milieu

that I am not used to in lieu of

what I used to presume

about things

the way I only could presume

is exacting, intriguing

and yet

so inconsequential

why?

why would it have to be that anything and everything

should have a certain connotation and texture

as insinuated by the minds

of gone forever in due measure 

why?

a thing that can leap time and space

and pass through the vortex

where even the light would falter

is binded by the extremities of definitions

as illustrated by the minds of gone forever 

arguing that its for its own sake

in fact just incase

which sounds so stupid and meaningless

even then they say

just in case

why?

how verve the color's may be

they fade through eventually

even the add on textures

do lose their verdure

and yet the ways of minds of gone forever

have sustained and they still endure

why?

sensing a meaningless

parody in all this

I remembered the fortitude

of the words that I had read long time ago

which had it in them

the ardor my heart alone could know

only the way it alone knows how to know ...

My views on the movie Ship of Theseus

                    I watched the movie Ship of Theseus just now here in Chennai at PVR cinemas, First thing first I enjoyed the interactions of all the characters with their own perceptions of morality, whether it be a photographer not wanting to claim credit for what she thinks is not entirely her creation or the dilemma the Jain monk faces as to whether his principles do mean anything at all when he puts it to a test or it be the business man wanting to do a right thing at all cost, every interaction left me with a certain yearning for more, I don't know why? may be because the movie at some point started to become an extension of my recent quest to find an answer to a question which I dint realize existed in my mind until I saw the movie dogville recently, its quite a movie of a different kind left me wondering whether morality make's one weak or arrogant, not strong but arrogant. I read a few reviews before watching Ship of Theseus which were all unanimous in their praise for the story about the Jain monk, a part played brilliantly by Mr. Neeraj Kabi , but I dint feel the punch the reviews were talking about which I am sure is because I am used to such ideas or concepts or the truth's or whatever one wants to call them, that a human being is not a single organism but a collection of millions or billions of microorganisms, but yes I can imagine how someone would feel when he or she confronts such a view for the very first time, I am sure it would make his or her mind restless churning the dogma out that had set in.

                    I have been pondering on the nature of duality myself for sometime now and the reasons behind the very existence of everything around us mostly from a skeptic point of view rather than as someone wanting to find a greater meaning to life. I came across a certain view sometime back, have you ever wondered about our experiences of the present never being of the present but only of the past, the experiences we experience through our senses whether it be through seeing or hearing or feeling happens the way they happen because of the perfect Interlinking of our sensory organs with our brain by the electrical signals which pass through our nervous system, when one sees an object the photons reflected from the object falls on ones retina which then gets converted into an electrical signal which then is transmitted to the brain through the nervous system, which the brain processes and then one realizes that one is seeing something, but for anything to transfer from one place to another it takes time, so when you see an object the photons that hits your eyes has to get converted to an electrical signal which then needs to reach the brain so when you actually feel that you are seeing the object you are not exactly seeing the object belonging to that moment but of the previous moment ....Well coming back to the movie, Ship of Theseus is one of those movies which cannot be subjected to the ritual of movie reviewing, aiming to gauge the movies entertainment value seems so trivial even before any effort could be made, right from the start to the end the poignancy with which the movie flows leaves you wondering whether you would want to watch this movie all over again and the answer seems to be a poignant yes coming from deep inside .....

A Platonists musing

Deluge of shadows,

getting heaped into a

single moment of time,

making your head spin

the way space wouldn't wind,

time and space

is that of any matter

while all that is to be said

and all that is to be done

remain said and done

and it all

leaves you wondering

why the deluge of shadows

and for me to ponder

why should I lie on the meadows,

 

hmmm......

well something's as they say

are good

when left unsaid than said
and undone than done

even while it keeps

you wondering time and space

should that be of any matter
for things around
to let me be ....

Rupee breaches 61 mark ...

                         I knew this day would come eventually, I knew that Mr. Chidambaram would lead us to this stage when he said things are fine and the government will do everything to keep the animal spirit of our economy alive even while he knew that our borrowings have increased considerably and it was in no way in accordance to our spending, when you spend more dollars than you bring in what else can you expect, our import bill is now at around half a trillion dollars, this country is now staring at a huge trade deficit, mainly owing to its allegiance to "Dollar" so much so that it chose to snub real freedom seeker's like Snowden and Julian assange.

                           Our imports have been hurting us for a very long time and nobody seemed to care about it for a very long time until now, because now the dollar has been gaining strength against many major currencies, A weak dollar made things really different for Indian rupee in the past, the rupee was getting pushed up for apparent very limited reasons, now all those reasons have nothing to offer to make rupee competitive against the dollar, the NDFC market (Non - deliverable forward contract) has been pushing the rupee down even further, it would help if the RBI takes appropriate measures to make dollar delivery system streamlined so that the price of the dollar doesn't get spiked up too much beyond the markets requirement, and it would also help to keep a tab on the unwanted speculation that's happening in the currency market.

                            Things would be far worse if our remittances were to become a little shaky over which our government has no control, The Indian manufacturing is in shambles, a country which has 800 million mobile phone users has not been able to induce an environment for Indian mobile phone manufacturing to thrive and have a hold of at least 30% of the mobile phone market, how pathetic is that. Rupee has depreciated 20 % in a year, if this government is not going to take advantage of this depreciated rupee we all can be sure of one thing that we are being led by a bunch of nitwitted prosaic seemingly learned nut heads.
                              If I were the finance minister of this country now the first thing that I would be doing at this stage will be to have several measure's implemented along with the Department of industrial policy and promotion, and commerce ministry mooting for a shift in the way this country views its exports industry and manufacturing. India has always been reluctant to become an export economy. It has been such a difficult question for me to answer with so much of untapped skilled and unskilled cheap manpower why hasn't India managed to become an export economy, well I know the answers for most of the questions, one of them being there has been a lack of will to do anything about it, This government headed by the Congress party for sometime now has been bending over backwards to introduce the food security bill which beyond the comprehension of my nerdy little brain.
                              This government is trying to hard sell an idea that is sure to backfire like all its grand overtures in the past, fuel subsidies, farmer loan wavier, MNERGA, being blind to the inefficiencies of the PSU's. This government is making a terrible mistake of confusing charity with governance, charity is for people who cannot fend for themselves, not for a group of people who form an economy, who when given the chance to uplift themselves socially and economically will do so with the kind of precision that's close to the natural order of things. This government headed by congress will fall not because of its inefficient handling of things in the recent past but because of the grand overtures it made in the distant past even before the BJP or NDA came into existence. and yes of course corruption, how can one ignore this governments enormous achievement of putting our country's name high above in the coveted list of most corrupted countries in the world, is there a person in this government who can come out and say " I am as clean as your conscience wishes me to be"?, Confucius said superior men know what is right, inferior men know what will sell and i must add that the inferior men also know how to "Hard sell" it.

Enough is enough , Do we need another war !!!!

                 Things are moving at a pace that's very disturbing, the last thing the world needs now is a war and death of millions for nothing, North korea for all these years has been reiterating only one thing again and again that it wont give away its independence to choose how it wants to protect itself for anything, the world super powers who over the years have shown so much of diligence in handling situations in many parts of the world, by their very virtue to make things more worse have ruined the lives of millions of people whether it be in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq, and now they have set their eyes on North Korea with their untrammeled allegiance to their virtue which i am sure has guided them now to decide that north Korea isn't the kind of country that they can allow to exist as a country anymore.
                 
                      One like me would consider crime against humanity in whatever form by whoever whether its committed by a political establishment or by an establishment fighting against the political establishment as one and the same, Some People I am sure understand 9/11 as one of the Biggest attacks in the history of "mankind" but they really need to know what "biggest" is ....more than 300,000 people died after Hiroshima Nagasaki bomb blast more than 400,000 suffered from radiation injuries, Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed since America started going around bombing countries and killing people mercilessly in the name of protecting its people and making other peoples lives in other countries difficult, People are ok with what America does when it says its only to protect itself but they are "Not Ok" with North korea a communist nation asserting itself whenever it feels threatened and says it might show what it is capable of when it comes to protecting itself and its people, a few clamoring for war seem to be placing their arguments based on the notion that "what America is doing is for its people", Well they might be right in a way to make such an assumption because that's how things seem on the surface, one needs to take many things into consideration before even attempting to arrive at a conclusion which would allow the understanding of the entire truth possible.

 

                    There is only one truth and its "Economics", here is a country which consumes more than any country in this world, if history is any proof the power over the world trade and in essence over the world has always lied with the economies which can consume more and America is no ordinary consumer, its an economy ready to incur any amount of debt to keep its consumption ever increasing and how could one allow such an economy become unsafe, to state the fact America is a country which has more number of guns than people ! , and one just needs to look at the number of shoot outs that happen in schools and colleges every year in America to know what is really happening in that society, latest being the Newtown massacre in which little children 20 of them i suppose were gunned down by some 20 something kid, The gun manufactures lobby over there is so powerful and wealthy that the government has not been able to do anything to have a leash over the guns being manufactured or over the guns being supplied, so much for a country which says that it cares for its people, its all as simple as the statement that is to follow If India is a $ 10 trillion dollar economy today Indian lives would become more valuable than anybody can ever imagine, a 26/11 kind of attack would mean nothing but the end for Pakistan. So people should stop drum beating and should stop blindly crying for war which will only make this world worse than it is now.

 

                Every country has the right to make its own advancements in the field of technology, "Market's should be driven by the idea of ownership" - major economies for decades have been using this as a reason to curtail other countries from pursuing any technology which they already possess so as to keep the premium intact which they have been charging to let other countries use what they have been calling as "their technology", North Korea wanted to become capable of sending its own satellites into space and they even invited the world media to take a look at their efforts , even though it wasn't successful USA started to cry foul saying that North Korea has other intentions, North korea is the last bastion free of human greed, its the last country where non essentials have not become needs, Imagine a city which doesn't have thousands of cars stuck in traffic blaring their horns and spewing smoke, imagine a city where you don't have advertisement hoardings all over the place, imagine a city where you dont see people moving in bunch's like zombies always in a hurry, imagine a city where you don't have that homeless person sleeping on the street who is invisible to the hurrying foot steps that moves past him, that citys name is pyongyang. North Korea with its huge untapped natural resources has been a target of all the enterprising profiteering forces for the last 4 decades and they dint budge even a bit, now if things spiral out of control it will be the same story all over again.... make false propaganda..... bomb the country.......turn it into ruble.........start sending your profiteers into the country....make hell lot of money out of all things that belonged to North Korean people once.....

                          I don't know why some people have started to hate so much when someone points out the ill effects of the Idea which drives the markets now "ownership", and one gets stamped as a communist or leftist for just speaking the truth. Why does one have to be a communist or why does one have to be a leftist to talk the truth, when one talks about other than profit he becomes a leftist, when someone says that when you give the extra food that you have to the person who is starving is not charity but duty he becomes a leftist, when one says money as such which has no value which is now buying labour is the cruelest thing man has ever done to himself he becomes a leftist, when someone gives voice to those gullible people who were wooed with false promises from Indian villages and have been turned into modern day slaves in Dubai sweating their blood out in 55 degree Celsius (131 Fahrenheit) heat building high rises for sheiks and CEO's of multi billion dollar corporations at the most cheapest cost possible he becomes a leftist,. all said and done one can be sure of one thing about North Korea it isn't the country which would destroy the extra tomato's that it produces to keep the tomato prices from falling by creating a social culture to make wasting of food acceptable in the name of some lame festival...ever heard of "tomatina". I am also surprised at the way people sometimes can be so insensible about how they present themselves to the world not wanting to seem stupid by trying so hard just to accomplish the exact thing they set out not to accomplish. When it helps us we don't bother about what's happening in a civil war torn country or about the "multitude of liberation armies" fighting each other and killing their civilians with impunity unless those outfits keep meeting our demands for diamonds and Colton and other such minerals, we don't bother about whether a human beings head is cut off or he is stoned to death in a country run by a "Monarch and his family" unless that monarch keeps supplying us with the oil that we need, and we don't bother about a country that is run by a "communist regime" even if they commit the gravest of human rights violations unless they allow us to sell our goods in their market ,I choose to stop here for some might find it really daunting to come to terms with reality.........

　

                          North korea is a country which has been pushed to the extreme, The world super powers and world trade bodies have made an entire nation suffer for decades by imposing terrible economic sanctions just because they wont give their Independence away to decide how they would want to protect themselves and after four decades people start to clamor saying that people in North Korea are starving and the reason is the oppressing communist regime, if this is not broad day light hallucination i don't know what is. At this juncture if anything untoward happens in the name of "WAR" the world has no one to blame but USA and other countries. Nobody is saying powers of the world have to subject themselves to North Korea but at least they could be accommodative and respectful of a country which wants to be respected for being the kind of communist nation that it is, North Korea also needs to understand that economic well being is the only factor that will tilt the allegiance of south Koreans towards it if it wants to make its dream of unifying North Korea and south korea a reality. War and building nuclear facilities for other than civil use can only kill people but will never make them love each other, the world needs to understand this and so should North korea.

                             
          World is about extremely different people coexisting together, that's the real world we all live in, we are at a point where we can make ourselves more understandable to each other we cannot think like those in the past who thought " bombing them would solve everything"....we cannot afford to do that anymore. To end its only fair to point at the fact that it wasn't a communist nation which dropped an Atom Bomb named "little boy"  on another country creating a huge calamity ...and we all know about "Private ownership" and "Profits" do I have to say more.....
 

Cogito ergo sum .......

Jumping off the cliff......

                          Many believers in the idea of "money always makes more money" seem to have made up their minds to make convincing arguments to the unenlightened that the fiscal crisis has been averted, or as they seem to be enjoying to put it in a fanciful way as they always do, that they have stayed clear of the "fiscal cliff", have they really ?, in all fairness it looks like they have jumped right off it, and whats the first thing you do when you jump off a cliff "you close your eyes". The recent deal which has paved the way for the american government to tax the income of the super rich seems nothing like even scratching the surface, the total debt is lurking at around $ 17 trillion , this measure only aims at putting in some $ 600 billion into the coffers over a decade and what good is that ?, and more so the spending has been left nearly to its own accord and nothing much has been done to keep it under leash at the present rate over a decade the American government would have incurred an additional $ 8 trillion in debt. One doesn't have to be a qualified economist to assimilate a picture of the state in which american economy is  and what it is to raise the taxes to support the already ballooned up spending if not bad news. The median age of US population is hovering at around 37 and there has been a steady decline in the birth rate, to state the fact the american society is aging at quite a noticeable rate, this will only put more pressure on the government in the future to keep the public spending intact or may even be forced to raise it, if that were to happen in the future this deal would seem like "fools did their part".   

                         
               Some might argue that in a way that kind of notion about money might be right, the rich in america have to be allowed to have enough narrow as well as broad money so that the american way of wealth creation happens unhindered, for that i would say yes it might be right but not entirely, it just doesn't take money alone to create more money, money cannot in anyway help itself to make more money when in essence it cannot drive consumption anymore where it has been put to serve. If history of economics is any proof It could be stated that the power has always lied with economies which can consume more and it is very evident where its happening now, The Asian economy as a whole seems to be growing at a very steady pace while the European economy is trying its best to stay afloat, clearly the flow of finance seem's to be heading towards a tide that's bound eastwards. 

              But such an argument may not be convincing enough for a few who have already drawn a very different conclusion by  Equating the consumption pattern of the economies like India and china which were closed to the outside world in the 1970's and in the 1980's to how it consumes now after those countries opened their markets a few decades ago to substantiate their conclusion about money making more money, infact to surmise where the real power actually lies - in the west. Well to put it bluntly money doesn't make its way where it cannot multiply, The potential of an economy to consume is what makes the  capital, land and labor available in the first place. Having said that one has to remember the world today is more integrated than it was in the 1960's or 1970's, then each economy had its own unique consumption pattern and each had its own unique driving factor as far as their economies were concered, for some it was technology, for many economies it was agriculture. and where do we stand now, we are in a world which is being driven by one unique factor, the economic arrangement that makes Nairobi consume the way it does in a small scale is what makes many large economies consume the way they do in large scale, ultimately its all about the ability to consume and looks like America has  reached some kind of saturation point and it cannot keep promising the world that it has enough room to consume more, it's time to cut back.