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 ....