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.

Truth alone will get you Jailed

                       Two girls were arrested for exercising their freedom of speech and a hospital was ransacked by a bunch of SS (Shiv sainik) goons, this only shows the amount of effort that is being put into making an idol out of a man who was nothing more than a simple politician with tricks, arresting those girls for voicing their opinion is such a ridiculous act which only demonizes the politicians involved in this whole episode of trying to shut peoples voices by force, at this juncture one would definitely would like to know what the authorities have done about the SS thugs who ransacked the hospital just to make sure that we are not in fact a banana republic. This country has to do away with such political rowdyism or should i say "thackerayism" which only undermines our democracy, and by the way the world out there is changing and its changing ever faster like never before, economic growth seems to have become the most important gauging factor of a governments performance in the eyes of the "YOUNG INDIANS", and in such a world there is no place for "Thackerayism".

                      One cannot deny that with freedom of speech comes great responsibility so does accountability in a democracy, if the factors of accountability were to be applied to the deeds of shiv sena's party men this party should have been banned from contesting in the elections long time ago, but sadly we Indians suffer from a very demeaning attitude, an attitude that has not allowed us to mature into a sophisticated society even after 60 odd years of independence, When being on this side of the line helps us we don't question the ways and actions of the people who drew and defined that line for us, and that's so sickening and that's why people like dawood ibrahim came into existence, and 26/11 is still so fresh in our minds and we hear news about scams every other day. 

                      So now whoever one is and whatever one might call oneself as one only is a hate monger in other words "a terrorist" who goes out there and beats people just because they are not from his state or country, When the government grants what the hindu citizens demand its called granting their rights, When the same government does things that grants the wishes of minorities it becomes "appeasement", well i don't deny that politicians use the powers vested in them as tool's to bring them more votes, one might have to question the ideologies of such politicians rather than being blunt in the way expressing ones dissent over a certain issue which seems like one has animosity towards minorities, Mr. Thackreys politics to be frank and fair was nothing but his version of the same tune that Dravida Kazhagam in Tamil nadu played when it raised slogans against the imposition of Hindi which worked so well in the late 60's and 70's, so lets just stop painting this man in colors that he doesn't deserve and lets just call a spade a spade, "He was a simple politician we Indians could have done better without", 'I wish him a good rest, may his soul rest in peace .... Let the idea of Hindu fundamentalism vain from here on or any religious fundamentalism for that matter, lets hope for a better future where religion, creed and statehood will be damned in front of our common national identity             
                                                                     - An Indian

The play is called "FDI"

                 As a person who has as a certain grasp on the macro economic conditions like any other economist who is worth his salt i will find the recent steps taken by the government as necessary ones if only i believe this to be a challenge thrown upon us by the heavens out of no where. In the west Mamata Banerjee has gone nuts and in the down south Mr. Karunanidhi is whining which people seem to have come to an understanding that is for no reason, putting aside the political stunts that have been carried out in the recent times in the name of defending "aam admis rights", who really is to be blamed for this dead end ?, what and who led to a situation like this one, in which our under performing Prime minister turned into an actor of par excellence over night who with a straight face made a mentioning of our countries 1991 economic situation and the actions taken by the government then to infuse credibility into the reasons behind the recent steps taken by the government to bring down the fiscal deficit. 
                      
                The government started out with blaming the spiraling fuel costs saying that it was eating up our reserves which on the other occasions had whole heartedly given away precious resources like spectrum and coal reserves for a pittance with no worries about spiraling government spending, the opposition on the other hand blamed it on the poor governance, raised tantrums about the scams and made the parliament dysfunctional and in the end everybody got into the game of finding out who the guilty one was and both the government and the opposition agreed to come to a conclusion that it was Mr. Kejriwal and his team who were fasting for a strong Lok Pal Bill and for action against the 15 tainted ministers. The government really dint know where to look because all around it was mirrors and the opposition safely played the card of being dumb enough to not know how to look into a mirror. And now both the government and the opposition in a way have paved the way to bring in stashed away trillions of illicit rupees through a legitimate means which would make all black into white leaving the ordinary mortals wondering if the color of truth had always been grey ? 

                             The government announced certain policy changes and called it reforms, reforms that actually makes people to shell out more from their pockets rather than putting more into their pockets, the newspapers claimed that these were bold steps, market pundits opined that this could lead to a turn around in the economic situation, and our countries chief economic Adviser Raghuram Rajan pressed that FDI is the safest way of financing our infrastructural needs which would also help us in minimizing the spiraling of our fiscal deficit, Now the media talk is all about the strengthening rupee and the stock markets splendid performance and all these are somehow being attributed to the new found Investors confidence in the Indian economy due to the governments efforts to make things happen, Well all said and done what do we have in our hands now, its been a while since the FDI gates have been made a lot wider but how many are there at the door steps, if only reality did carry some value it would have been made known to everybody that the markets around the world have performed reasonably well in the month of September mainly due to efforts taken by European central bank to mop up more government bonds and Federal reserves measures to ease the debt by raising taxes and more so because of the governments of Greece and Spain have tightened their purses by introducing more stringent policies which would keep a check on their future public spending by denying millions their right to a comfortable retired life.  

                                  As for our government it had its reasons in efficiency and increased life span of perishable goods to raise the FDI limits in the retail sector, which it swears would ultimately benefit the farmers and consumers, but do we need a Kmart or a carrefour or a Walmart to provide us a solution to a problem which is so within the limits of our own 1.85 trillion $ GDP nation. Isn't it the governments job to provide storage facilities and provide a perfect logistic solution, as well as better prices for its farmers produce which in the long run would pay off itself through better tax returns, isn't the government shying away from its responsibilities by outsourcing its job of governance to companies which are driven by profits, why are we even paying taxes to the government then. If finance, technological and distribution know how's are the only criteria based on which the government has gone ahead and increased the FDI limit in the retail industry then i guess our government happily chose to ignore our very own cash rich companies like Reliance and PSU's, Reliance alone is sitting on a huge cash pile of 70,000 crore rupees, our government could have come out with policies to tap the huge cash reserves of our corporate giants without looking outside to finance its infrastructural needs. And this government for a very long time has been playing a trick of comparing itself with Bangladesh and Pakistan when ever it ponders about increasing the fuel prices and tries to convince the Indian public that the fuel prices in this county are reasonable enough, but all the while in china which has a population more or less equal to our nation and consumes more fuel than any other country on this planet even with more than half of its fuel being imported from abroad a liter of petrol is still less than 64 rupees and here in India it is 72 rupees. A country which imports 80% of its fuel for consumption should have been more coercive in securing energy blocks around the world and should have had a more proactive energy policy (I have mentioned about this elsewhere in my blog).

                                     On the contrary one cannot say no in an outright way to the likes of carrefour entering our markets either, because Walmart or Kmart are just the results of the gluttonous consumer in each one of us who has got so used to having 20 or more different choices at his or her disposal, whether it be for a car he or she wants to buy or a pair of slippers that he or she doesn't need. Walmart is just a by-product and one cannot say no to a by-product because it is an inevitable reality of any process, and Walmart is the by-product of the reality that the whole world seems to have started to believe in "economic growth is all about more consumption and higher GDP", we cannot say no to Walmart while we try to take advantage of the foreign exchange rate by making our skilled workers become modern day white collared and blue collared "dollar coolies" who send billions of dollars in remittances each year to their families here in India. or can we say no to Kmart while we drain our reserves by consuming tons and tons of gold from the international market each year, things become very complicated when one starts to analyze the issues leaving the naivete behind, At the most what we can do now is be aware of the malice called "consumerism" and at the same time expect and force our Indian retail chains to be more efficient enough to challenge the likes of Walmart and carrefour, which might lead to the failure of Walmart and its likes in the indian market, just like how Japanese people made sure that none of the american car manufactures made it big in their country. I am one of those Platonists who still believes that i am surrounded by reasonable people and Tetra Packed tender coconut water sold by Walmart will make it big in fool's only country.

                                                










































Prasanna Kumar 

Poem

For the man who had to go miles before he could sleep........

In the dark and in the gloom
with clouds up above in the heavens,

marring the light

the full moon has to shine ,

i hear the wind drifting 

through the woods,

its a secret, yea a secret
is what i overhear,

which i am sure,

the wind wanted the gentle

leaves alone to hear,

its going to get colder

said the wind

for the winter is

around the corner,

for the winter is

around the corner,

"so,the winter is here" 

so i said, like a Lear,

I am a traveler,

with packed traps and springing strides

i travel,

like the seasons 

i travel,

winter or summer 

i don't bother 

but marvel, 

summer its hot

so what i care not,

I am a Traveler

i fear not the cold,

i fear not the winter

for i have no place to go

for i have no place to go,

the winter is around

the corner, though.

But its when

I heard the leaves rustle,

the winter is here,

the winter is here,

I wished the sweet pleasantness 

of the yesterdays

would stay with me all along,

night and day through the winter

till the spring came along,

but I am a traveler

so i travel

with packed traps and springing strides

and it better be where

i can spend the night,

it better be where

i can spend the night...

My Guitar Pics

Thats My guitar, Do you like these Picture, I love it...

GDP gets low, fuel prices go high !!!

 The fourth quarter GDP figure has taken a hit, at 5.3 % it is the lowest in 7 years including the period (2008-2010) in which the world economy seemed to have slumped into a lull which raised the concerns of the likelihood of it turning into an economic depression like the one in 1929 which brought down the business activity and financial services around the world to its knees, major central banks around the world went on a rate cut spree and the major world economies got themselves into the quantitative easing measure mode to arrest the slump, still the business activity around the world seemed far less from enthusiastic, corporations were shedding excesses to stay viable leaving no doubts that there has been a steady downside pressure on the consumption since 2007, credits were not forth coming, banks ceased to transact, the call money market was going berserk each day, but even then the Indian economy performed well not very much owing to the huge public spending the state got itself involved in, back then the Indian economy showed actual resilience owing to some very impressive performance of different sectors which kept the mood and the business activity upbeat even when the crude oil prices in the international oil market were reaching for the sky, though for some time the state took some of the hit in the form of not subjecting to the pressures to raise the oil prices in accordance to the international oil market prices, it dint last long until the government in June 2010 decided to decontrol the fuel prices and paired it to the fluctuations that crude oil prices go through in the international oil market.

                                     The GDP figures for the the first 3 quarters of 2010 was a whopping 9.2 % even after the government decided to decontrol the fuel prices, but since the second quarter of 2011 there has been a steady decline in the quarter GDP figures leading to the present level of 5.3%, the average price of a liter of petrol before the government decided to decontrol was Rs 47.93 but now it costs Rs 77.23 and the Gross Domestic output is on the verge of reaching the levels of all time low. Why don't the fuel prices reflect the actual fall in the consumption and the actual fall in the commercial business activity in the economy?, and why is the fuel prices reaching for the skies even when the price of the crude oil has eased a bit from the levels its was in 2009 ?. The Oil marketing companies have posted a nominal profit for the fiscal 2011-12, for the period 2012 January - march quarter alone, Indian Oil Corporation reported a profit of Rs 12,670 crore and Bharat Petroleum corporation limited a profit of Rs 3,962 crore, though the oil marketing companies are underplaying it by calling these profits as long over due with their receivables touching nearly Rs 1,50,000 crore it only makes wonder about the functioning of a free market economy in which the state is also a major player.

                                        Oil being an essential resource the oil marketing companies could very well ignore the pressures of the market to make "huge" profits to offset some hypothetical future turbulence that a hypothetical free market economy always throws up, the indian oil Corp and other state owned oil marketing companies have to define the essentiality behind their need to make "huge" profits, and Oil being a commodity so precious and so essential a resource should not be allowed to aide the indulgence a free market economy always provides for when it comes to making boundless profits, which might be beneficial for quite a few investors but one has to take a holistic approach and look at the bigger picture when a commodity so essential as oil is invovled in the functioning of the economy. Having said that these state run oil marketing companies should have turned into energy solutions centers long time ago providing answers to our countries ever increasing energy demands and needs by investing themselves and their resources in search of cheap and alternate sources of renewable energy. As of now our countries energy policy is so screwed up that the oil price factor seems likely to loose its sensitive nature on the kind of influence it wields on the broader political economy and whom do we have to blame for all this ?, I would blame it on all the rotten minds who have run and are now behind the scene people in the oil Ministry.