subject:"Re\: \[silk\] aqvavit"

And all the other little decadences of the mings didn't have a thing to do with 
this?

Just an influx of spanish silver into their economy?

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:50:59 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Feb 23, 2012 8:49 AM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:
 Its interesting you mention the ming dynasty in this context. Sometime
 back i finished reading Charles Mann's 1493 (
 http://www.amazon.com/1493-Uncovering-Columbus-Created-ebook/dp/B004G606EY
 ). there is a really interesting part of the book about the silver
 trade with the spanish colonies in the americas and its huge impact on
 the chinese economy. they would become so dependent on spanish silver
 that it became the de-facto currency in china ... and all this
 eventually led to the ming empires decline and fall.


Yes, a rather sad turn of events. New world silver was impacting the old
world like little else, the Mughals too had to deal with the sudden wealth
of the traders.

The Ming dynasty started with a policy of self sufficiency and lack of
trade or money in the villages. The very rich and the very poor effectively
didn't have or have the need for money. The Ming dynasty lasted nearly 300
years and with the move of the capital to Beijing many policies changed.

The navy grew to enormous proportions both as a fleet and also as
singularly large ships, a single Ming treasure ship was larger than all of
the ships of Christopher Columbus put end to end according to some
accounts. The famous eunuch admiral Zheng he invaded Sri Lanka and had the
local king (Akalesvara) clasped in chains and brought to Beijing for no
more a crime than an assumed insult to the Chinese emperor.

The delicious irony is how each of the inhuman conquistadors, Christopher
Columbus, Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortez all ended up either shipped back
to Spain in chains, or put to death or died begging for a living.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Srini RamaKrishnan

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 And all the other little decadences of the mings didn't have a thing to do
 with this?

Decadence rarely on its own brings an empire down, but it often
precedes a fall. A new currency, whether it is silver or tea, or opium
as China repeatedly discovered, can always be a cause for drastic
changes in fortune. Britain ended up becoming an opium trader, and
then invading China to enforce the trade because it didn't have the
silver that China wanted for the tea.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

But by that same logic the brits with all their opium, cotton etc from india 
would have crashed and burned long back, not after labor era socialism, the 
loss of their colonies etc 

The east india company did go bust after a while but that was more due to 
mismanagement and costly local wars than an influx of wealth

--Original Message--
From: Srini RamaKrishnan
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit
Sent: Feb 23, 2012 17:10

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 And all the other little decadences of the mings didn't have a thing to do
 with this?

Decadence rarely on its own brings an empire down, but it often
precedes a fall. A new currency, whether it is silver or tea, or opium
as China repeatedly discovered, can always be a cause for drastic
changes in fortune. Britain ended up becoming an opium trader, and
then invading China to enforce the trade because it didn't have the
silver that China wanted for the tea.



-- 
srs (blackberry)

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Srini RamaKrishnan

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 But by that same logic the brits with all their opium, cotton etc from india 
 would have crashed and burned long back, not after labor era socialism, the 
 loss of their colonies etc

They've gone into a slow decline, or haven't you noticed? The pound is
no longer the world currency, the financial markets no longer only
depend on London, the Oxbridge circuit isn't the only place to get a
world class education and on and on.

 The east india company did go bust after a while but that was more due to 
 mismanagement and costly local wars than an influx of wealth

The East India company like the Spanish conquistadors was chopped off
at the knees by the monarch because it got too big for its shoes.

Re: [silk] aqvavit


Srini RamaKrishnan [23/02/12 13:18 +0100]:

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:

But by that same logic the brits with all their opium, cotton etc from
india would have crashed and burned long back, not after labor era
socialism, the loss of their colonies etc


They've gone into a slow decline, or haven't you noticed? The pound is


Yes. Post labor era socialism, post the loss of their colonies in the 40s
and 50s.  And an economy that was drained by world war II.


The east india company did go bust after a while but that was more due
to mismanagement and costly local wars than an influx of wealth


The East India company like the Spanish conquistadors was chopped off
at the knees by the monarch because it got too big for its shoes.


hah no. rather way off I'm afraid.

remember, the british government and the crown were very large shareholders
in the EIC, seats on the board and such.

take a look at the share price of the EIC .. 


1753 - £195
1757 - £140 (Third Carnatic War begins, also 7 years war elsewhere)
1761 - £145
1763 - £175 (End of Seven Years War and 3rd carnatic war)
1765 - £150 (Clive resumes Governorship)
1767 - £280 (Clive quits Governorship  beginning of Mysore war)
1769 - £280
1772 - £225 (Hastings as Governor General)
1773 - £140
1774 - £140 (Famine in Bengal)
1777 - £170
1781 - £150
1782 - £127 (Hastings condemned in parliament)
1785 - £130 (Hastings leaves for England)
1789 - £170
1793 - £200
1797 - £165
1801 - £200
1805 - £190 (Napoleonic Wars upto 1813)
1809 - £190
1813 - £165
1817 - £200
1821 - £230

 so on and forth till 1857 when an enron like crash took place.

Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in the 1750s and 1760s. Then the bengal famine in
the 1770s.  A gradual recovery after that, mainly because of the industrial
revolution and more raw material exported out of India to fuel it .. the
1857 mutiny was what put a stop to the EIC, which was found incompetent to
actually govern the country, having treated it simply as a money spinner
and ignored all the political crises they faced. That caused the british
government to effectively nationalize the EIC and bring India under crown
rule.  Not as much too big for their boots as too incompetent and
greedy to be worth all the trouble and expenditure to the crown.

Remember, the company had its own army in India, and they were joined by
king's troops when the 1857 mutiny spiraled out of control.

Even after 1857, they retained the reasonably lucrative tea trade from
India till 1873, and the company was finally wound up in 1874.

Those figures are from Niall Ferguson's excellent book Empire, How britain
made the modern world, by the way ..

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Sirtaj Singh Kang



On 2/23/2012 6:38 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:


 so on and forth till 1857 when an enron like crash took place.



No mention of Dalhousie? It was his wars, reforms and attempts to 
Empirify (Empirificate? Empiricise?) India that sucked the Company dry, 
turned India into a cost center for the Crown, and almost directly led 
to the revolt in the first place. Of course, opinions on this are still 
somewhat divided, but...


Those figures are from Niall Ferguson's excellent book Empire, How 
britain

made the modern world, by the way ..


... we can always rely on Niall Ferguson to come down firmly on the side 
of the Empire. I don't think there's a more dependable apologist alive 
these days.


-Taj.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

Hah.  Notice I didn't take much more than share prices and dates from his book. 
 I had it handy and it was easier to get from there

--Original Message--
From: Sirtaj Singh Kang
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit
Sent: Feb 23, 2012 19:43

On 2/23/2012 6:38 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

  so on and forth till 1857 when an enron like crash took place.

No mention of Dalhousie? It was his wars, reforms and attempts to 
Empirify (Empirificate? Empiricise?) India that sucked the Company dry, 
turned India into a cost center for the Crown, and almost directly led 
to the revolt in the first place. Of course, opinions on this are still 
somewhat divided, but...

 Those figures are from Niall Ferguson's excellent book Empire, How 
 britain
 made the modern world, by the way ..

... we can always rely on Niall Ferguson to come down firmly on the side 
of the Empire. I don't think there's a more dependable apologist alive 
these days.

-Taj.

-- 
srs (blackberry)

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Thaths

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:47 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.netwrote:

 But by that same logic the brits with all their opium, cotton etc from
 india would have crashed and burned long back, not after labor era
 socialism, the loss of their colonies etc

 The east india company did go bust after a while but that was more due to
 mismanagement and costly local wars than an influx of wealth

 --Original Message--
 From: Srini RamaKrishnan
 Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net


Off topic. A question about netiquette. So Is it no longer gauche to
top-post?

Thaths
-- 
Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
Carl:  Nuthin'.
Homer: D'oh!
Carl:  Unless you're crooked.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Eugen Leitl

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 06:28:48AM -0800, Thaths wrote:

 Off topic. A question about netiquette. So Is it no longer gauche to
 top-post?

It is gauche, but nobody cares about decorum anymore. We're all neanderthals 
now. Ooga.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Thaths

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Eugen Leitl eu...@leitl.org wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 06:28:48AM -0800, Thaths wrote:
   Off topic. A question about netiquette. So Is it no longer gauche to
  top-post?
 It is gauche, but nobody cares about decorum anymore. We're all
 neanderthals now. Ooga.


On the other hand, I've had people go the way of the top-post because text
input on a smart phone keyboard is as convenient as typing with two left
hands.

Thaths
-- 
Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
Carl:  Nuthin'.
Homer: D'oh!
Carl:  Unless you're crooked.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread Eugen Leitl

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:20:25AM -0800, Thaths wrote:

 On the other hand, I've had people go the way of the top-post because text
 input on a smart phone keyboard is as convenient as typing with two left
 hands.

People voluntarily using braindamaged tools for their own convenience tops plain
old courtesy now?

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread John Sundman


On Feb 23, 2012, at 9:13 AM, Sirtaj Singh Kang wrote:

 ... we can always rely on Niall Ferguson to come down firmly on the side of 
 the Empire. I don't think there's a more dependable apologist alive these 
 days.

Amen and amen.

jrs

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-23 Thread John Sundman


On Feb 23, 2012, at 5:56 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

 The delicious irony is how each of the inhuman conquistadors, Christopher 
 Columbus, Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortez all ended up either shipped back 
 to Spain in chains, or put to death or died begging for a living.

Dear list:

I hope to have something poetic and profound to say about this delicious 
irony at some point in the recent future, if I don't forget what I want to say 
or run out of time.

Meanwhile, thank you all for this excellent discussion.

jrs

Re: [silk] aqvavit

Or because, on a blackberry, there's no way not to top post.  Personally I 
don't make a conscious effort not to top post unless I want to quote some 
specific part of someone's message.

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Thaths tha...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:20:25 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Eugen Leitl eu...@leitl.org wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 06:28:48AM -0800, Thaths wrote:
   Off topic. A question about netiquette. So Is it no longer gauche to
  top-post?
 It is gauche, but nobody cares about decorum anymore. We're all
 neanderthals now. Ooga.


On the other hand, I've had people go the way of the top-post because text
input on a smart phone keyboard is as convenient as typing with two left
hands.

Thaths
-- 
Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
Carl:  Nuthin'.
Homer: D'oh!
Carl:  Unless you're crooked.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders

Re: [silk] aqvavit

Cheeni found that ironic :). And for every such empire builder type who died 
poor, there's no shortage of his peers who started out poor but died filthy 
rich.  I wish we could say this was about natural justice coming home to roost 
after all that oppression ..

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: John Sundman j...@wetmachine.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:29:26 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit


On Feb 23, 2012, at 5:56 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

 The delicious irony is how each of the inhuman conquistadors, Christopher 
 Columbus, Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortez all ended up either shipped back 
 to Spain in chains, or put to death or died begging for a living.

Dear list:

I hope to have something poetic and profound to say about this delicious 
irony at some point in the recent future, if I don't forget what I want to say 
or run out of time.

Meanwhile, thank you all for this excellent discussion.

jrs

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-22 Thread Nandkumar Saravade


 Absolutely, the nature of any suicide is tragic and perhaps has enough
 preventable causes. From the NCRB you are indeed right - I had only
 looked at data till 2009 when I'd looked earlier, and that shows a
 dipping or flat suicide rate:
 http://ncrb.nic.in/ADSI2010/table-2.1.pdf
 
 It's now 11.4 per lakh, when it used to be 10.8 or so in 2000. It was
 in the 9's in the 90s, but much of that was also about how data was
 collected - standards improved in the 00s.
 

The data collection process for reported suicides would be fairly stable and 
consistent. A suicide is a subset of all unnatural death (UD) cases. These are 
difficult to manipulate, unlike some other crime statistics, due to the 
requirement to dispose of a dead body after following the legal process. All UD 
cases routinely go for autopsy and suicide as a mode of death gets established 
at the end of the inquest.


Regards,
Nandkumar

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-22 Thread Deepak Shenoy

 The data collection process for reported suicides would be fairly stable
 and consistent. A suicide is a subset of all unnatural death (UD) cases.
 These are difficult to manipulate, unlike some other crime statistics, due
 to the requirement to dispose of a dead body after following the legal
 process. All UD cases routinely go for autopsy and suicide as a mode of
 death gets established at the end of the inquest.

I'd read a report (sadly, can't find it) that much of the suicide or
household accident cases went unreported earlier and suicides were
reported as illnesses to avoid autopsy which is slowly being fixed. I
remember in 2001 when someone I know tried to slit his wrist (largely
for show I think, he used a car key and managed only get seriously
scratched) - when we went to the hospital they told us not to admit
because the cops had become stringent and required registration for
every attempted suicide case etc.

But the quantum some psychiatrists think it really is 95 per lakh
rather than the reported 9 to 11 -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2913651/) which, if true,
means that my argument that data collection is better has yielded only
marginally better data :)

Either ways - I concede that the suicide rate has increased - we are
at 11.4 officially versus, 5.8 per lakh in 1981. More than doubled in
thirty years!

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Deepak Shenoy deepakshe...@gmail.com wrote:
 The data collection process for reported suicides would be fairly stable
 and consistent. A suicide is a subset of all unnatural death (UD) cases.
 These are difficult to manipulate, unlike some other crime statistics, due
 to the requirement to dispose of a dead body after following the legal
 process. All UD cases routinely go for autopsy and suicide as a mode of
 death gets established at the end of the inquest.

 I'd read a report (sadly, can't find it) that much of the suicide or
 household accident cases went unreported earlier and suicides were
 reported as illnesses to avoid autopsy which is slowly being fixed. I
 remember in 2001 when someone I know tried to slit his wrist (largely
 for show I think, he used a car key and managed only get seriously
 scratched) - when we went to the hospital they told us not to admit
 because the cops had become stringent and required registration for
 every attempted suicide case etc.

 But the quantum some psychiatrists think it really is 95 per lakh
 rather than the reported 9 to 11 -
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2913651/) which, if true,
 means that my argument that data collection is better has yielded only
 marginally better data :)

 Either ways - I concede that the suicide rate has increased - we are
 at 11.4 officially versus, 5.8 per lakh in 1981. More than doubled in
 thirty years!


if you notice most of the sourthern states have the highest suicide rates :

http://maithrikochi.org/india_suicide_statistics.htm#State_Rate

given that ecnonomic development, unemployment etc are worser in some
of the northern states, it could be argued there are cultural aspects
to suicide ? i remember watching many tamil movies in the 80s all
glorifying suicide ... the LTTE made suicide an elaborate ritual (i
rememer a detailed propaganda video documenting day by day the starve
to death hunger strike of thileepan .. who eventually died on camera )
.

there is a region of tanzania with a tribe called the wahehe ...they
have a similar approach to life and death, they have among the highest
suicide rates in tanzania even though they are not the poorest or most
backward.

Re: [silk] aqvavit


ashok _ [22/02/12 13:50 +0300]:

if you notice most of the sourthern states have the highest suicide rates :
http://maithrikochi.org/india_suicide_statistics.htm#State_Rate


mostly farmer suicides in ap / karnataka etc due to unscrupulous lending by
banks and microfinance institutions .. which has led to the recent backlash
against MFIs like SKS microfinance

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 6:09 AM, Deepak Shenoy deepakshe...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 a) NREGS is not helping and is leading to inflation: FALSE
 

 a) NREGS is at the outer end a spend of $2.7 billion annually
 (assuming everyone was paid $2 per day) - on India's annual GDP of
 $1.8 trillion is  0.15% and this causes inflation how?

 Firstly, inflation isn't dependent on GDP, so let's leave that aside.

GDP is useful to point out the scale of money in the economy, and the
tiny amount that NREGA/S is adding to the pool.


 NREGA is 40,000 cr. in 2010-11(see:
 http://164.100.12.7/Netnrega/mpr_ht/nregampr_dmu.aspx?flag=3page1=Smonth=Latestfin_year=2010-2011)
 which is 0.5% of GDP. It is 3-4% of government spend every year, and
 about 10% of our fiscal deficit.

Citing from the numbers per your link:

# It is only 74.57% of the planned government outlay - i.e. 25% of the
target audience doesn't know how to obtain the funds.
# Wages are only 68.36% of the used budget, or 5 Billion USD - i.e. 0.28% of GDP
# If the allegations of corruption are to be believed then only some
smaller sum than $5 Billion is being handed to the poor
# Mukesh Ambani with a known personal wealth of $22.6 Billion could
run the NREGA for 3-4 years on savings
- i.e. he has 2-3 times more money than 42 million Indian households
put together earn in a year.

Most of the West is presently discovering that social programs need
money that they don't have, but then again LATAM discovered this in
the 80s. India at least still has money for social programs - so it's
completely minor in the global context.

Even if one believes that merely adding $5 Billion to the rural
economy can cause a 13% jump in food inflation, which I don't then it
is a scathing criticism of the income inequalities in India - the
money is going directly towards food - these are people who are
otherwise starving.

These 42 million households are not at all like the gentlemen of
Aurangabad (and it was gentlemen, not a single woman was present), who
ordered 148 Mercedes Benz automobiles together at a reduced 7%
(instead of the usual 14% for tractors) interest rate courtesy SBI.

Not to be outdone, some other gentlemen, also of Aurangabad, and again
only gentlemen, decided the German economy needed a further boost and
booked 101 BMWs on the same day.

http://www.wheels.ca/reviews/article/791929
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/101-bmws-booked-in-one-day-in-aurangabad/135579-3.html


Article 47 in The Constitution Of India 1949

47. Duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard
of living and to improve public health The State shall regard the
raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its
people and the improvement of public health as among its primary
duties and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to bring about
prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of
intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health


I don't see any mention in the constitution of a duty to create more
Billionaires, or luxury car owners.



 The way it causes local inflation is that it raises wages without
 appropriate productivity benefits, so they pay more for the stuff
 available locally (like food or other goods) and that raises prices.
 What would be better is if wages rose and more food was available to
 work with the increased buying power, but the productivity benefits
 even in the long term are very low so this hasn't happened.  At a
 macro level, what NREGA does is deprives farms of labour during
 harvest season so produce and sowing is lesser - even the agri
 ministry has complained.

 http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=ArchiveSource=PageSkin=ETNEWBaseHref=ETBG/2011/07/19PageLabel=1EntityId=Ar00100ViewMode=HTML


I don't know when you joined the list, but I was making the case a
little earlier in this very thread that the world doesn't truly want
to eradicate poverty -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silk-list/message/37546

It's laughable that we have so many intellectuals, academics and
economists pontificating about the usefulness of the NREGA while the
idiots of Aurangabad get column inches of praise.

If there aren't enough laborers in the villages during harvest season
that is truly good, NREGA is pushing up the local wages, and helping
the poor to fight established brokers and middle men who keep wages
low and exploitative.

The weasel words of the article are amazing - the newspaper story is
sketching a controversial plan to subvert the law of the land, and it
doesn't merit an investigation?



 It's like Air India getting a taxpayer bailout and then undercutting
 prices so now everyone has to fight against a mammoth, inefficient
 taxpayer-backed entity. It saves one airline at the cost of the
 industry.

Air India has been looted,

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:31 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 The deferring of debt repayments - it happens anyway, even without
 loan waivers. Agri loan restructuring is given a wide berth by the
 RBI. What happens is that these people go and borrow from moneylenders
 who are not part of the formal system, and the lenders twist arms. The
 Microfinance world tried to plug that gap but it turned out to have
 issues (though I think that is the real solution, expanding access to
 cerdit).

 Farmers make money once or twice a year during harvests, and then need
 to spend the money wisely during the rest of the year  without
 spending it all on a wedding or feast. They are trapped between two
 lifestyles - one that wants to continue the traditions and ways of the
 past and one that wants to live in the selfish individuality of the
 future.

 There are deep sociological issues here that a country of the east
 like India embracing the economic ways of the west needs to consider.
 Carlos Fuentes wrote a lot about his home country Mexico in the
 context of living next to the large successful North American
 neighbor, India would do well to find its Fuentes.




I agree with your sentiments about things being bad. But it is also a
fact that a large majority of people want western ways and
consumerism.
I dont know if i want to even call it western since indian society
is actually very materialistic - who doesnt want a television or a
mobile phone ? heck - in tamil nadu home grown politicians (without
any western education )  have been giving aways televisions, grinders
, tablets etc (it could be entirely possible to argue that some people
have benefited by using these freebies and so giving it away was in
fact a good thing -- fundamentally, if people get something for free
even a hand-kerchief and you ask them if they benefited from it, they
will say yes ).

giving money away (as a debt waiver or as a free television)  is at
best a short term solution, and the same politicians who are giving it
out are hiding behind that to make up for failures in other  basic
provisions like providing potable water , transport and communication
infrastructure etc - because thats more difficult to achieve and show
as a return in the electoral cycle.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

So wanting to have a toilet in the house instead of crapping on the riverbank, 
a tv / fan instead of village dappankoothu performances and palm leaf hand 
fans, electric grinder rather than stone hand grinder is materialism?

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:55:36 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:31 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 The deferring of debt repayments - it happens anyway, even without
 loan waivers. Agri loan restructuring is given a wide berth by the
 RBI. What happens is that these people go and borrow from moneylenders
 who are not part of the formal system, and the lenders twist arms. The
 Microfinance world tried to plug that gap but it turned out to have
 issues (though I think that is the real solution, expanding access to
 cerdit).

 Farmers make money once or twice a year during harvests, and then need
 to spend the money wisely during the rest of the year  without
 spending it all on a wedding or feast. They are trapped between two
 lifestyles - one that wants to continue the traditions and ways of the
 past and one that wants to live in the selfish individuality of the
 future.

 There are deep sociological issues here that a country of the east
 like India embracing the economic ways of the west needs to consider.
 Carlos Fuentes wrote a lot about his home country Mexico in the
 context of living next to the large successful North American
 neighbor, India would do well to find its Fuentes.




I agree with your sentiments about things being bad. But it is also a
fact that a large majority of people want western ways and
consumerism.
I dont know if i want to even call it western since indian society
is actually very materialistic - who doesnt want a television or a
mobile phone ? heck - in tamil nadu home grown politicians (without
any western education )  have been giving aways televisions, grinders
, tablets etc (it could be entirely possible to argue that some people
have benefited by using these freebies and so giving it away was in
fact a good thing -- fundamentally, if people get something for free
even a hand-kerchief and you ask them if they benefited from it, they
will say yes ).

giving money away (as a debt waiver or as a free television)  is at
best a short term solution, and the same politicians who are giving it
out are hiding behind that to make up for failures in other  basic
provisions like providing potable water , transport and communication
infrastructure etc - because thats more difficult to achieve and show
as a return in the electoral cycle.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 5:07 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 So wanting to have a toilet in the house instead of crapping on the 
 riverbank, a tv / fan instead of village dappankoothu performances and palm 
 leaf hand fans, electric grinder rather than stone hand grinder is 
 materialism?


it certainly isnt, but thats what the definition seems to be leading to !

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:55 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:
 I dont know if i want to even call it western since indian society
 is actually very materialistic

Not materialism as much as a fondness for the past versus the future.

Rural India is somewhere between a weak feudality and a vigorous
democracy. Embracing the future means asking the past to leave - this
is how the west knows to play the cards of progress. India isn't quite
prepared for this - and the conflict becomes acute in communities that
are slow in catching the rays of sunshine of the new dawn of progress.

There are differences of history, culture, attitude and civilization
that make the culture of the self, created at the expense of a sense
of community hard to sustain.

I recommend:
Carlos Fuentes: Latin America: At war with the past
http://www.amazon.com/Latin-America-Past-Massey-Lectures/dp/0887846653

Re: [silk] aqvavit

Tradition and modernity have always coexisted, even in Latin America

I don't quite see why one has to entirely throw the other out

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:02:32 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:55 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:
 I dont know if i want to even call it western since indian society
 is actually very materialistic

Not materialism as much as a fondness for the past versus the future.

Rural India is somewhere between a weak feudality and a vigorous
democracy. Embracing the future means asking the past to leave - this
is how the west knows to play the cards of progress. India isn't quite
prepared for this - and the conflict becomes acute in communities that
are slow in catching the rays of sunshine of the new dawn of progress.

There are differences of history, culture, attitude and civilization
that make the culture of the self, created at the expense of a sense
of community hard to sustain.

I recommend:
Carlos Fuentes: Latin America: At war with the past
http://www.amazon.com/Latin-America-Past-Massey-Lectures/dp/0887846653

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:41 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 Tradition and modernity have always coexisted, even in Latin America

 I don't quite see why one has to entirely throw the other out

Read the book.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-22 Thread Deepak Shenoy

 GDP is useful to point out the scale of money in the economy, and the
 tiny amount that NREGA/S is adding to the pool.

It adds much more than that as the money rotates through the system.
That's not the point, the reason it's a big cost is that it's a big
part of govt spend, that's all.

 # Mukesh Ambani with a known personal wealth of $22.6 Billion could
 run the NREGA for 3-4 years on savings
 - i.e. he has 2-3 times more money than 42 million Indian households
 put together earn in a year.

I'm not sure how this matters, but more power to him, and more power
to make people earn more money and pay taxes. We need more
billionaires not less.

 Even if one believes that merely adding $5 Billion to the rural
 economy can cause a 13% jump in food inflation, which I don't then it
 is a scathing criticism of the income inequalities in India - the
 money is going directly towards food - these are people who are
 otherwise starving.

I think we'll find it's the other way - people continue to starve, teh
marginal guy gets some extra money which he ends up paying extra for
food so he hardly benefits. Either ways it's not the $8 billion (not
$5B) that causes food inflation, it's how it's done.

 These 42 million households are not at all like the gentlemen of
 Aurangabad (and it was gentlemen, not a single woman was present), who
 ordered 148 Mercedes Benz automobiles together at a reduced 7%
 (instead of the usual 14% for tractors) interest rate courtesy SBI.

Not to say this is a good thing of course, but I'm not sure why this
is considered less bad than NREGA? I'd argue against both. I haev no
problem with someone ordering 148 benz cars, but the lower rate of
interest is necessarily bad if there was corruption involved.

 I don't see any mention in the constitution of a duty to create more
 Billionaires, or luxury car owners.

There is no such duty - like there is no duty in the constitution to
provide air for you to breathe. But it happens.

 If there aren't enough laborers in the villages during harvest season
 that is truly good, NREGA is pushing up the local wages, and helping
 the poor to fight established brokers and middle men who keep wages
 low and exploitative.

In the context of inflation it's bad. It may be a better in the short
term, but we create a bad bad long term hazard. You increase wages
through proper competition, like Ford who paid his labourers more and
got his productivity. The short term impact of NREGA is higher local
wages, but teh important part is: higher local wages because the
competition is, largely, earning money for no work. The very rich do
that, now the very poor do it, and us middle class fellows get shafted
for it.

 How many of the Aurangabad brigade will pay back their subsidized
 loans do you think? These are politically connected crooks who will
 likely walk out of the loan the same way they got the half price loans
 in the first place.

 Our banking system needs to be fixed. The problem isn't NREGA.

NREGA needs quite as much to go as our banking system needs fixing.
Both have become necessary evils politically now. Though if you asked
me I would privatize all public sector banks and cut off government
lifelines first.

 I don't have a problem with improving NREGA to make it more
 accountable, manageable and all that. It is important to give it a
 chance to succeed.

The two things I will give NREGA full credit for is that it is a cash
transfer, and that the level of accountability and transparency in a
project this large is fabulous. We need more enforcement and
cross-checks, too. But I don't agree with the premise of paying people
to do next to nothing, or of employment as a direct goal (employment
needs to be the result of something, not the something)

 Some of the aspects I've mentioned have generalizations because that's
 what it is - the long term effect of NREGA can only be known in the
 long term, and no amount of data will satisfy an observer.

 Again, I point to Article 47 - India has a duty to do this.

Disagree that Article 47 says NREGA is the duty; of course NREGA is
constitutionally ok, but the duty lies in creating sustainable long
term solutions, and NREGA is not either. I would much rather see the
land reform, the power and road connectivity, the ability for those
that NREGA supposedly benefits to actually become entrepreneurs, and
create employment as a side effect of their growth rather than
anything else.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Deepak Shenoy deepakshe...@gmail.com wrote:

[...]

# Mukesh Ambani with a known personal wealth of $22.6 Billion could
run the NREGA for 3-4 years on savings
- i.e. he has 2-3 times more money than 42 million Indian households
put together earn in a year.

I'm not sure how this matters, but more power to him, and more power
to make people earn more money and pay taxes. We need more
billionaires not less.

Umm... ok, wow I guess?

Sorry, no offense meant, but your mindset is so radically different to mine.

Even if one believes that merely adding $5 Billion to the rural
economy can cause a 13% jump in food inflation, which I don't then it
is a scathing criticism of the income inequalities in India - the
money is going directly towards food - these are people who are
otherwise starving.

I think we'll find it's the other way - people continue to starve, teh
marginal guy gets some extra money which he ends up paying extra for
food so he hardly benefits. Either ways it's not the $8 billion (not
$5B) that causes food inflation, it's how it's done.

The world is going through a food crisis, heck, the Arab spring is
being attributed to it, and you blame the NREGA for the high prices?
Your single cause inflation theory isn't the truth - it is far more
complicated than that.

Food inflation has been caused by numerous reasons:
http://www.ft.com/foodprices has a bucket load of causes listed.

- Broken markets - speculation and commodity trading made wrong bets
{
Financial speculators responsible for rising global food prices, claims report
Influence of financial players on agricultural commodity markets
blamed for global food price inflation and hunger
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/sep/13/financial-speculators-spiralling-food-prices
}

{
Broken markets - How financial market regulation can help prevent
another global food crisis
http://www.wdm.org.uk/sites/default/files/Broken-markets.pdf
}

- idiotic agri-policies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_vs._fuel

{
UK food policy blamed for global hunger
Modern technology push seen as harmful
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/790ba3a8-f822-11e0-8e7e-00144feab49a.html#axzz1n8GwF3iu
http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/17367-government-food-policy-fuels-hunger
}

UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation are giving the global food
market ‘critical’ status
Indian sugar cos. are hoarding sugar
http://video.ft.com/v/679555154001/What-s-driving-food-prices-

I don't see any mention in the constitution of a duty to create more
Billionaires, or luxury car owners.

There is no such duty - like there is no duty in the constitution to
provide air for you to breathe. But it happens.

Billionaires should happen like air? That is... interesting. Again,
sorry, not going to attempt to bridge philosophical differences - too
deep, too wide.

If there aren't enough laborers in the villages during harvest season
that is truly good, NREGA is pushing up the local wages, and helping
the poor to fight established brokers and middle men who keep wages
low and exploitative.

In the context of inflation it's bad. It may be a better in the short
term, but we create a bad bad long term hazard. You increase wages
through proper competition, like Ford who paid his labourers more and
got his productivity. The short term impact of NREGA is higher local
wages, but teh important part is: higher local wages because the
competition is, largely, earning money for no work. The very rich do
that, now the very poor do it, and us middle class fellows get shafted
for it.

Douglas Coupland has a word for it: Blank-collar workers: Formerly
middle-class workers who will never be middle class again and who will
never come to terms with that.

[...]
NREGA needs quite as much to go as our banking system needs fixing.
Both have become necessary evils politically now. Though if you asked
me I would privatize all public sector banks and cut off government
lifelines first.

Oh look, America did that and see how responsibly the banks acted.

Indian private banks, like ICICI send goons home to break your knees
when you miss credit card payments - you want to aspire to that ideal?

Some of the aspects I've mentioned have generalizations because that's
what it is - the long term effect of NREGA can only be known in the
long term, and no amount of data will satisfy an observer.

Again, I point to Article 47 - India has a duty to do this.

Disagree that Article 47 says NREGA is the duty; of course NREGA is
constitutionally ok, but the duty lies in creating sustainable long
term solutions, and NREGA is not either. I would much rather see the
land reform, the power and road connectivity, the ability for those
that NREGA supposedly benefits to actually become entrepreneurs, and
create employment as a side effect of their growth rather than
anything else.

I don't have a problem with this - make it possible to take away the

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-22 Thread Dave Long


Tradition and modernity have always coexisted, even in Latin America


GK Chesterton had (nearly a century ago) an insight on the  
coexistence* of tradition and modernity:
I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is  
always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is  
wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while  
the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always  
attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.



-Dave

* if you believe this characterization to be a bit too facile, the  
same writer admitted (in another context) that: impartiality is a  
pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:49 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation are giving the global food
 market ‘critical’ status
 Indian sugar cos. are hoarding sugar
 http://video.ft.com/v/679555154001/What-s-driving-food-prices-


Sadly, the FAO and WFP are like rating agencies. Their funding cycle
works on the basis of declaring food emergencies. If there were no
food emergencies the WFP would close down. e.g. the somalian drought
crisis making the news now is a manufactured crisis, somewhat like the
'malaria epidemic' sometime back in the same country.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

 # Mukesh Ambani with a known personal wealth of $22.6 Billion could
 run the NREGA for 3-4 years on savings
 - i.e. he has 2-3 times more money than 42 million Indian households
 put together earn in a year.

 I'm not sure how this matters, but more power to him, and more power
 to make people earn more money and pay taxes. We need more
 billionaires not less.


I am reminded about a joke on charity . a rather (very) well to do
acquaintance told me :
2 friends are talking. one tells the other:
if i have a million bucks i ll give you half
the other friend tells him : give me 50 bucks.
answer: no i wont.
why ?
because I have only 50 bucks.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

No point plowing through it if these are the conclusions it jumps to

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:55:29 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:41 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 Tradition and modernity have always coexisted, even in Latin America

 I don't quite see why one has to entirely throw the other out

Read the book.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

Gentlemen of aurangabad - you think they're marginal farmers or something, or 
that aurangabad is some backwater hick town populated by marginal farmers? (I 
must admit, it is in marathwada so that impression is very easy to get .. and 
aurangabad district being semi arid like all of marathwada would have its fair 
share..)

Aurangabad is a major manufacturing hub for audi, siemens, videocon etc - with 
the usual cloud of ancillary, parts etc suppliers around as well.   Plenty of 
people with enough cash to pay for mercs .. 

And as for the 7 percent rather than (mostly) 11 percent rather than 14 percent 
a car loan costs, there's a huge difference between a loan for a single tractor 
(or a single suzuki swift), and 148 mercs at 4 million rupees  each.   You find 
me a single banker who is dumb enough to charge retail car loan interest for 
such a transaction ..

But in the ordinary course of things not a penny of that money would reach 
marginal income villages except by a trickle down effect (buying their produce, 
employing them in factories if they have skills for that, instead of digging 
canals at NREGA wages etc).

So if they didn't buy mercs they'd have, say, invested 40 lakhs in the share 
market or whatever.   Unless they all got bit by the corporate social 
responsibility bug to deny themselves all personal luxury and plow every penny 
of profit into improving the lot of the farmers ..

One thing the constitution hasn't ever restricted is the right for people to 
earn money legally using their skills and knowledge - manufacturing parts for 
audi, coding for google etc.   You can find it a safe assumption that if any of 
the people digging ditches for an nrega minimum wage could get a steady job 
doing most anything else they would do it.

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Deepak Shenoy deepakshe...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:14:37 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

 GDP is useful to point out the scale of money in the economy, and the
 tiny amount that NREGA/S is adding to the pool.

It adds much more than that as the money rotates through the system.
That's not the point, the reason it's a big cost is that it's a big
part of govt spend, that's all.

 # Mukesh Ambani with a known personal wealth of $22.6 Billion could
 run the NREGA for 3-4 years on savings
 - i.e. he has 2-3 times more money than 42 million Indian households
 put together earn in a year.

I'm not sure how this matters, but more power to him, and more power
to make people earn more money and pay taxes. We need more
billionaires not less.

 Even if one believes that merely adding $5 Billion to the rural
 economy can cause a 13% jump in food inflation, which I don't then it
 is a scathing criticism of the income inequalities in India - the
 money is going directly towards food - these are people who are
 otherwise starving.

I think we'll find it's the other way - people continue to starve, teh
marginal guy gets some extra money which he ends up paying extra for
food so he hardly benefits. Either ways it's not the $8 billion (not
$5B) that causes food inflation, it's how it's done.

 These 42 million households are not at all like the gentlemen of
 Aurangabad (and it was gentlemen, not a single woman was present), who
 ordered 148 Mercedes Benz automobiles together at a reduced 7%
 (instead of the usual 14% for tractors) interest rate courtesy SBI.

Not to say this is a good thing of course, but I'm not sure why this
is considered less bad than NREGA? I'd argue against both. I haev no
problem with someone ordering 148 benz cars, but the lower rate of
interest is necessarily bad if there was corruption involved.

 I don't see any mention in the constitution of a duty to create more
 Billionaires, or luxury car owners.

There is no such duty - like there is no duty in the constitution to
provide air for you to breathe. But it happens.

 If there aren't enough laborers in the villages during harvest season
 that is truly good, NREGA is pushing up the local wages, and helping
 the poor to fight established brokers and middle men who keep wages
 low and exploitative.

In the context of inflation it's bad. It may be a better in the short
term, but we create a bad bad long term hazard. You increase wages
through proper competition, like Ford who paid his labourers more and
got his productivity. The short term impact of NREGA is higher local
wages, but teh important part is: higher local wages because the
competition is, largely, earning money for no work. The very rich do
that, now the very poor do it, and us middle class fellows get shafted
for it.

 How many of the Aurangabad brigade will pay back their subsidized
 loans do you think? These are politically connected crooks who will
 likely walk out of the loan the same way they got the half price loans
 in the first place.

 Our

Re: [silk] aqvavit

Wonderful quote, thank you - much better to my taste than an argument between a 
professional economist (deepak) and a gifted amateur (cheeni) on poverty 
eradication

--Original Message--
From: Dave Long
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit
Sent: Feb 22, 2012 23:25

 Tradition and modernity have always coexisted, even in Latin America

GK Chesterton had (nearly a century ago) an insight on the  
coexistence* of tradition and modernity:
 I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is  
 always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is  
 wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while  
 the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always  
 attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.

-Dave

* if you believe this characterization to be a bit too facile, the  
same writer admitted (in another context) that: impartiality is a  
pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance

-- 
srs (blackberry)

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-22 Thread Deepak Shenoy

 The world is going through a food crisis, heck, the Arab spring is
 being attributed to it, and you blame the NREGA for the high prices?
 Your single cause inflation theory isn't the truth - it is far more
 complicated than that.

This isn't really going well as an argument, because this single
cause thing is new to me. There are many causes to inflation, such as
the rupee depreciating (makes our imports costlier), hoarding, bad
policy, oil prices and local impact. In theend it comes down to supply
and demand, and what NREGA does is to both reduce supply and increase
demand. The increased demand is good. The reduced supply is not. There
are steps necessary to work through the supply issues, and increasing
MSP by 10-15% is a ridiculous way to supplement NREGA. Much of our
food inflation is local.

 Billionaires should happen like air? That is... interesting. Again,
 sorry, not going to attempt to bridge philosophical differences - too
 deep, too wide.

For once, I agree :)

 NREGA needs quite as much to go as our banking system needs fixing.
 Both have become necessary evils politically now. Though if you asked
 me I would privatize all public sector banks and cut off government
 lifelines first.

 Oh look, America did that and see how responsibly the banks acted.

 Indian private banks, like ICICI send goons home to break your knees
 when you miss credit card payments - you want to aspire to that ideal?

America didn't do that. It did the opposite - it quasi-nationalized
banks. Government lifelines ensured the banks didn't die. The reasons
banks got into trouble was that they were deregulated - a concept very
different from de-owned. India's regulators have done a much better
job, even though they have been squeamish in certain areas. (For
example: the onerous needs in KYC are hugely responsible for why the
poor remain unbanked)

Not just is sending goons home illegal, RBI has curbed the practice
and courts have actually fined banks that have even tried without due
process. (ICICI was fined Rs. 55 lakh for one instance by a court
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2007-11-06/india/27953166_1_car-loan-recovery-agents-icici-bank
) In fact, the response to goons or even heavy moral pressure is
the kind of act AP created against Microfinance, which should teach
large organizations that they either work through the legal process
when recovering loans, or they'll get shafted. Moneylenders - who are
the source of finance minus the banks - still send home goons and
break your knees, for what are horrendous rates of interest - do you
want to aspire to THAT ideal instead?

I suppose I would rather trust a private banking system with a strong
regulator than a crappy full of moneylenders who operate outside of
the law, or a public banking system that only benefits the
landed/corrupt. We could go link after link about how banks have been
good or bad, but it's plain to me how a proper banking system helps
everyone especially the lowest layer (formal credit is what rural
India lacks severely; that's also why RBI is screaming financial
inclusion desperately)

Anyhow, huge philosophical differences remain, and my end-point is
that handouts don't help the poor in the long term, the solution lies
in property rights, infrastructure that might need machines (power,
road, water), freeing of the agri markets and so on. The oil subsidy,
fertilizer subsidy and NREGA just distort the picture and keep the
really poor still poor.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 7:03 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:

 In fact historically speaking money wasn't always the dominant
 currency - in the times of the Ming Emperor, it was respect. In
 ancient India, it was one's nobleness and profession.



Its interesting you mention the ming dynasty in this context. Sometime
back i finished reading Charles Mann's 1493 (
http://www.amazon.com/1493-Uncovering-Columbus-Created-ebook/dp/B004G606EY
). there is a really interesting part of the book about the silver
trade with the spanish colonies in the americas and its huge impact on
the chinese economy. they would become so dependent on spanish silver
that it became the de-facto currency in china ... and all this
eventually led to the ming empires decline and fall.

 --

 If things went according to the death notices, man would be
 absolutely perfect. There you find only first-class fathers,
 immaculate husbands, model children, unselfish, self-sacrificing
 mothers, grandparents mourned by all, businessmen in contrast with
 whom Francis of Assisi would seem an infinite egoist, generals
 dripping with kindness, humane prosecuting attorneys, almost holy
 munitions makers – in short, the earth seems to have been populated by
 a horde of wingless angels without one's having been aware of it.

 (Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) in The Black Obelisk, 1956)

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread ashok _

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 A labor guarantee what else.  More people can be put to work for longer, 
 however inefficiently.  Use machinery and less people do the job in less time

 Like the old chola kings digging canals to provide employment for their 
 subjects



in a way it may encourage mechanization elsewhere- if you are a
private company in the agro sector, you will have a shortage of
workers now due to some part of the labor force opting to join the
NREGA work-force, so the private company now has to opt for more
mechanization to compensate for the labor shortage.

yeah, it does sound stupid. the government wants to employ a large
number of people to do less efficient work. overall, it probably
doesnt increase overall employment in the rural sector, since fewer
people end up working for non government employers. the only benefit
perhaps then is the increase in the minimum wage ...but you dont need
to do this to increase minimum wage...

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Ingrid

On 21 February 2012 07:23, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:



 I found this really weird in NREGA ... the requirement that no
 mechanized equipment can be used. What was the motivation behind it ?



 Limiting NREGA work to back-breaking physical labour at less than minimum
 wage available for a maximum of 100 days a year to only one member of each
 household ensures that only the most desperately poor sign up for it.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Deepak Shenoy

 I found this really weird in NREGA ... the requirement that no
 mechanized equipment can be used. What was the motivation behind it ?



 Limiting NREGA work to back-breaking physical labour at less than minimum
 wage available for a maximum of 100 days a year to only one member of each
 household ensures that only the most desperately poor sign up for it.

That is perhaps the intention - though the stated point is to generate
as much rural employment as possible. Therefore all delays are okay.
So if you start building a canal you over-hire, and then each guy can
quite literally use a spoon to scoop out dirt if they want. Mostly
(anecdotal from farmer-types) you find people chatting away near what
seems to be a canal, because that's how the incentives are - the work
isn't really back breaking other than that you only need to do what
you want to do - the first few years I think people have worked hard,
until they're realized that they don't need to :)

One per household is a good point, though in real life, sadly, it has
come to mean that each man is his own household, and sometimes each
woman as well, and people get paid. To jugaad the system, some get
paid less than the ordained amount. The documents - job cards, muster
rolls, payslips enjoy themselves in terms of providing addresses or
identifying underlying households.

I don't know about the percentages, but I think the number of
desperately poor is probably far lesser than the number of people paid
out by NREGA...just saying.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Srini RamaKrishnan

On Feb 21, 2012 11:29 AM, Ingrid ingrid.srin...@gmail.com wrote:



 On 21 February 2012 07:23, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:



 I found this really weird in NREGA ... the requirement that no
 mechanized equipment can be used. What was the motivation behind it ?



 Limiting NREGA work to back-breaking physical labour at less than
minimum wage available for a maximum of 100 days a year to only one member
of each household ensures that only the most desperately poor sign up for
it.

And not all of it is bad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NREGS_(Kerala)

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian

It is actually a good idea to fit rural patterns of seasonal employment (during 
the sowing and harvest seasons, not at all during droughts etc) .. Prevents 
them from emigrating en masse to the cities to get even worse labor at far 
cheaper rates

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:01:13 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Feb 21, 2012 11:29 AM, Ingrid ingrid.srin...@gmail.com wrote:



 On 21 February 2012 07:23, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:



 I found this really weird in NREGA ... the requirement that no
 mechanized equipment can be used. What was the motivation behind it ?



 Limiting NREGA work to back-breaking physical labour at less than
minimum wage available for a maximum of 100 days a year to only one member
of each household ensures that only the most desperately poor sign up for
it.

And not all of it is bad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NREGS_(Kerala)

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Vinayak Hegde

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:31 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 Limiting NREGA work to back-breaking physical labour at less than minimum
 wage available for a maximum of 100 days a year to only one member of each
 household ensures that only the most desperately poor sign up for it.

 And not all of it is bad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NREGS_(Kerala)

Random anecdotal evidence.

I was in Meghalaya,India visiting the living bridges characterised by
a deep valleys and ridges falling off into the Bangladesh plains. The
villages of Cherrapunjee and Mawsynram are at the top of these hills
and hold the record for most rainfall ever on the planet. The village
of Nongriat which is at the bottom of a deep valley was very
inaccessible during the rains and was an ardour trek otherwise along
steep slopes. NREGA now enabled the locals to build steps down to the
deep valley - a demand they had for atleast 3 decades. My guide - a
village local - was very appreciative of the NREGA because it provided
employment and helped people build something they wanted for years but
could not get funded otherwise.

As an aside, the living bridges are a wonderful human-nature
collaboration. More info and pics here -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vinayakh/sets/72157628879944791/ .
Something that should be on every traveller's bucket list.

-- Vinayak

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Charles Haynes

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 7:31 PM, Vinayak Hegde vinay...@gmail.com wrote:

 I was in Meghalaya,India visiting the living bridges characterised by
 a deep valleys and ridges falling off into the Bangladesh plains. The
 villages of Cherrapunjee and Mawsynram are at the top of these hills
 and hold the record for most rainfall ever on the planet.

[Citation provided]

The phrase most rainfall ever on the planet needs a duration to be
meaningful. According to the World Meteorological Organisation,
Guinness, and Wikipedia the records (for a given duration) are:

24 hours: 1,825 mm (71.9 in); Foc-Foc, Réunion, 7–8 January 1966
48 hours: 2,467 mm (97.1 in); Aurère, Réunion, 8–10 January 1958
72 hours: 3,929 mm (154.7 in); Commerson, Réunion, 24–26 February 2007
96 hours: 4,869 mm (191.7 in); Commerson, Réunion, 24–27 February 2007
one year: 26,470 mm (1,042 in); Cherrapunji, India, 1860–1861

Those sources say that Mawsynram has the highest average annual rainfall.

-- Charles

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-21 Thread Deepak Shenoy

a) NREGS is not helping and is leading to inflation: FALSE

a) NREGS is at the outer end a spend of $2.7 billion annually
(assuming everyone was paid $2 per day) - on India's annual GDP of
$1.8 trillion is 0.15% and this causes inflation how?

Firstly, inflation isn't dependent on GDP, so let's leave that aside.
NREGA is 40,000 cr. in 2010-11(see:
http://164.100.12.7/Netnrega/mpr_ht/nregampr_dmu.aspx?flag=3page1=Smonth=Latestfin_year=2010-2011)
which is 0.5% of GDP. It is 3-4% of government spend every year, and
about 10% of our fiscal deficit.

The way it causes local inflation is that it raises wages without
appropriate productivity benefits, so they pay more for the stuff
available locally (like food or other goods) and that raises prices.
What would be better is if wages rose and more food was available to
work with the increased buying power, but the productivity benefits
even in the long term are very low so this hasn't happened. At a
macro level, what NREGA does is deprives farms of labour during
harvest season so produce and sowing is lesser - even the agri
ministry has complained.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=ArchiveSource=PageSkin=ETNEWBaseHref=ETBG/2011/07/19PageLabel=1EntityId=Ar00100ViewMode=HTML

It's like Air India getting a taxpayer bailout and then undercutting
prices so now everyone has to fight against a mammoth, inefficient
taxpayer-backed entity. It saves one airline at the cost of the
industry.

Either ways the data shows us this - food inflation (at the primary
articles level) has gone up 13% per year, annualized, since jan 2008.
(Data taken from http://eaindustry.nic.in and put into excel and
calculated) Last year's economic survey

another post on how the metrics work by Atanu Dey, in 2008:
http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/01/11/does-the-nregs-cause-inflation/

NOte: The RBI has, in the last six months or so, printed more than
50,000 cr. to buy government bonds, largely because no one else wanted
them, and that was because the goverment was issuing too many bonds,
to bridge a widening fiscal deficit, of which NREGA is 10%. We
effectively offset our populist measures earlier through selling of
stock in government companies and 3G auctions and better tax
compliance, but today those avenues are gone.

NREGA is not a failure, in fact it's one of the best things to happen
to India of late:
Once dismissed as a reckless fiscal sop, the scheme is now lauded as
a timely fiscal stimulus. - Economist, Nov 2009

AH yes, like farm loan waivers, oil subsidy, fertilizer subsidy, no
tax on agri income, misaligned incentives for housing etc. Or like the
RBI printing money like there's no tomorrow.

You will always find takers for short term stimulus, the US fed
stimuluses, the Indian cut on excise duty and service tax rate, etc.
Like loan waivers. The problem with the loan waivers at that scale
(75,000 cr?) then was that now, when we havehad a decent monsoon,
there are strategic defaults by those who can pay but don't want to
because darnit there will be a waiver.

http://www.livemint.com/2012/02/16161835/Views--The-farm-loan-waiver-c.html?h=A1

The Economist is as conservative an establishment source as you can
get, and even from the money supply point of view the economists then
agreed that NREGS is a good thing. Now it's another thing that
Economists of one season cannot agree with the economists of the next.

You can get economists to agree or disagree about anything :)

b) Farmer suicides are not important, Sainath hypes it up, other
suicides are more important: FALSE

If bankers and stock brokers were jumping out of their tall office
buildings in Mumbai, I wonder if you will still make the case that as
a fraction of annual national suicides they are statistically
insignificant and therefore don't need to be paid attention to.

I wonder if it'll make a difference if I say I will. I have, in
fact, been very critical of both banking and broking practices,
especially the massive frauds in the banking system. Statistically
insignificant are all these compared to, say, train accidents in
India.

I can quote sources aplenty to attest to the fact that it isn't merely
Sainath who talks about farm suicides:

Oh, I didn't mean just PSainath, there are of course enough others. It
is not very emotionally nice to say that 16,000 farmers have committed
suicide but also 15,000 employees of various sectors, 25,000
housewives, 40,000 other self-employed people, and 20,000 others
have as well. http://ncrb.nic.in/ADSI2010/table-2.6.pdf

Or that 134,000 people have died in road accidents, 24,000 in railway
accidents, 20,000 of causes not known.

While it's easy to get outraged about farmer suicides, it seems to me
that the suicide

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 6:32 AM, Deepak Shenoy deepakshe...@gmail.com wrote:
Technically everyone's manipulating currency. China's done it for
years, India has been doing it until Subbarao decided in 2010 that
they won't intervene, a strategy that lasted exactly one year: Last
December saw the biggest RBI intervention to strengthen the rupee
since the Lehman disaster. (and the second highest ever)

Oh sure, the US is just the biggest manipulator by far with more than
likely the longest history of doing so. Minor irony then that they
still pressurize China as if it were the only one doing it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/business/global/appreciation-in-chinas-currency-goes-largely-unnoted.html

The falling USD has put a lot of inflationary pressure on China, and
it's something China has to take mostly lying down for the moment.

Europe is doing things far worse than the US now, accepting even
toilet paper as collateral to bail out the peripheral economies. This
is not to defend the WB. WB in fact drove some of the attempts to
manipulate by suggesting, in the asian crisis of the late 90s, that
asian economies should please hoard dollars and euros as forex
reserves which will help them tide over moves later. What that did
was just make the eurozone and America borrow a truckload more at
cheap prices and eventually, we're here.

A strong Euro and a weak dollar will see America's economic dominance
into the next decade - or at least that's the driving belief behind
all this. The Fed's emergency line of credit to the ECB is show that
everything that can be done, will be done to make sure the Euro stays.
When it's all invented money anyway, it's just a matter of loosening
the right economic screws to restore confidence.

That said, to Manmohan's credit, his leadership has seen the
introduction of NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) and
the RTI (Right to Information) Act, both of which are hallmark steps
in advancing the social net and democracy.

RTI is useful, but NREGA? All we're doing is helping people do
nothing. You can't use a single piece of machinery in an NREGA
project, no? How is that useful in any way? Btw, I'm also for removing
tax concessions on housing, exports and fertilizer/oil subsidies. I
think NREGA, like those, are evils and in the context of thinking
beyond five years at a time, retrograde.

As a social net the concept is undoubtedly good. As far as
implementation goes, I have only heard mixed reports. There is
evidence that NREGA is reducing deaths due to poverty - in many parts
of India untouched by the economic miracle NREGA is the only source of
income which doesn't depend on the local landed and wealthy. It's a
source of calories if you will.

Still the cases of fraud and misappropriation of funds is scary

{
27 JAN, 2012, 02.08PM IST, NITIN SETHI,TNN
Poor labourers pledged Rs 100, get Re 1 for day's work under NREGS
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/poor-labourers-pledged-rs-100-get-re-1-for-days-work-under-nregs/articleshow/11645672.cms
}

Not everything is about better economic sense - economic policy has to
be tempered with humanity and kindness - the latter words are strange
concepts that aren't uttered very often in the corridors of power.

Real wages are falling in India like elsewhere in the world that has
swallowed the pill of economic progress. That the idli is being
replaced by the McAlooTikki if of little consolation.

Real wages aren't falling in India at all, no matter how you look? Our
per capita income is up, our wages in general are up and afaik, more
than inflation. Do you have a source I can look at?

At the macro economic level you maybe right - the economic dashboard
numbers are all trended upwards. There are new income opportunities
where there were none, GDP/PPP indicators are all higher now than they
were a couple of decades ago. However it just means that gains in
certain sectors are masking massive failures in others - the real
wages epidemic is somewhat unnoticed because it has just not fallen at
the same rate as the US/EU/JAPAC - so it is less visible.

{
25% of India Inc reports flat or drop in real wages
PTI Jan 17, 2011, 02.54am IST
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-01-17/news/28428026_1_wages-freeze-indian-companies
}

{
The truth behind rural wages in India
Real wages in the hinterland have stagnated despite zooming economy
Akshat Kaushal / New Delhi Oct 14, 2011, 01:46 IST
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/the-truth-behind-rural-wages-in-india/452453/
}

(BTW, I am not denying the genuine economic progress that has happened
in some places, there are definite improvements in specific industry
segments and social pockets, but so too there are other sections of
society that have been adversely affected by inflation and
urbanization.)

If you are a bank employee at a nationalized bank, or a government
employee or otherwise salary scale bound you will

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-20 Thread ashok _

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 1:13 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:50 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:

 Closer to home (for most in this list that is), Manmohan Singh and
 Montek Singh Ahluwalia both receive pensions from the World Bank.

 I have read this stated as a worrying thing before, but why is this
 problematic ?
 If they worked for companies prior to becoming politicians or
 technocrats they would receive pensionsits a declared and
 documented and legally entitled income. I dont see anything
 inappropriate in that. Isnt this the same thing ? I mean if they ran
 the country as a communist state the world bank would not stop giving
 them their pensions.


 It's disturbing for the same reason that it's of concern to many that
 Dick Cheney and Haliburton have links in the past. We are shaped by
 our past, and we are known by the company we keep.
If Messrs. Singh 
 Ahluwalia cut their teeth in the World Bank circles, they are no doubt
 persuaded to a greater or smaller degree by its policies, and think it
 good for the world.


yeah i think cheney was the CEO of halliburton...and i remember there
was a case by the nigerian govt against halliburton for the period of
his tenure of his CEO. MMS and montek were consultants and bureaucrats
at the world bank  i think you are comparing oil and water in
terms of designations and what it implies.

anyhow, the world bank is very far away from being a closeted ideology
driven unit... much like the UN you get appointed to these positions
based on a mix of country quotas, domain knowledge, personal leverage
etc... its far from being a club of freemasons, i dont think any sane
person working for such organizations gets influenced by the
organizational ideology (which itself is a cliche at best). i dont
think either of them needed a world bank to make them corrupt - you
can be corrupt even without that :-)  taking the Cheney example ..was
it Halliburton shaping Cheney ... or Cheney shaping Haliburton to his
ideology ?

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-20 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian

Certainly not institutionalized

And the world bank has some wonderful ict initiatives going on, some of the 
best financial thinkers on its staff etc.

Naïve and facile generalizations are just what characterize the ron paul-ish 
faux libertarianism, general hatred of big money, big government etc rhetoric 
..

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:35:44 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 1:13 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 9:50 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:

 Closer to home (for most in this list that is), Manmohan Singh and
 Montek Singh Ahluwalia both receive pensions from the World Bank.

 I have read this stated as a worrying thing before, but why is this
 problematic ?
 If they worked for companies prior to becoming politicians or
 technocrats they would receive pensionsits a declared and
 documented and legally entitled income. I dont see anything
 inappropriate in that. Isnt this the same thing ? I mean if they ran
 the country as a communist state the world bank would not stop giving
 them their pensions.


 It's disturbing for the same reason that it's of concern to many that
 Dick Cheney and Haliburton have links in the past. We are shaped by
 our past, and we are known by the company we keep.
If Messrs. Singh 
 Ahluwalia cut their teeth in the World Bank circles, they are no doubt
 persuaded to a greater or smaller degree by its policies, and think it
 good for the world.


yeah i think cheney was the CEO of halliburton...and i remember there
was a case by the nigerian govt against halliburton for the period of
his tenure of his CEO. MMS and montek were consultants and bureaucrats
at the world bank  i think you are comparing oil and water in
terms of designations and what it implies.

anyhow, the world bank is very far away from being a closeted ideology
driven unit... much like the UN you get appointed to these positions
based on a mix of country quotas, domain knowledge, personal leverage
etc... its far from being a club of freemasons, i dont think any sane
person working for such organizations gets influenced by the
organizational ideology (which itself is a cliche at best). i dont
think either of them needed a world bank to make them corrupt - you
can be corrupt even without that :-)  taking the Cheney example ..was
it Halliburton shaping Cheney ... or Cheney shaping Haliburton to his
ideology ?

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.netwrote:

 Naïve and facile generalizations are just what characterize the ron
 paul-ish faux libertarianism, general hatred of big money, big government
 etc rhetoric ..


Woah, again I ask, what libertarianism are you going on about?

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 3:35 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:

 yeah i think cheney was the CEO of halliburton...and i remember there
 was a case by the nigerian govt against halliburton for the period of
 his tenure of his CEO. MMS and montek were consultants and bureaucrats
 at the world bank  i think you are comparing oil and water in
 terms of designations and what it implies.


The revolving door syndrome is all is being discussed, I don't think it's
useful to deal with specific examples which are only by way of
illustration. Singh's LSE education possibly has as much effect on him for
that matter. The point being the Singh enterprise is the best we have at
the moment IMO in terms of political leadership and yet in my opinion, it
shows naive distrust of big business and acceptance of the world status quo.

Numerous times in the two terms, the Singh enterprise (UPA/NDA) has sought
to push policies that are WTO, IMF friendly that have been met with strong
rejection from the people. This requires discussion at the national level;
which as far as I know isn't happening.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

2012-02-20 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian

Financial reforms versus gravy train subsidy?   Mismanage and then sell bonds, 
raise rates on freight etc?   

Singh was a protege of harold laski back in the day if I remember correctly - 
and that would certainly have an impact on him, as would working in the imf / 
world bank scene and as a practicing economist rather than a short term (next 
election) focused politician be more aware of the micro and macro economic 
aspects of any decision

Kotow to the usa, neo capitalist, anti poor etc rhetoric doesn't help the 
situation and in fact drives more and more extreme proposals forward

-- 
srs (blackberry)

-Original Message-
From: Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com
Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:04:16 
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 3:35 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote:

 yeah i think cheney was the CEO of halliburton...and i remember there
 was a case by the nigerian govt against halliburton for the period of
 his tenure of his CEO. MMS and montek were consultants and bureaucrats
 at the world bank  i think you are comparing oil and water in
 terms of designations and what it implies.


The revolving door syndrome is all is being discussed, I don't think it's
useful to deal with specific examples which are only by way of
illustration. Singh's LSE education possibly has as much effect on him for
that matter. The point being the Singh enterprise is the best we have at
the moment IMO in terms of political leadership and yet in my opinion, it
shows naive distrust of big business and acceptance of the world status quo.

Numerous times in the two terms, the Singh enterprise (UPA/NDA) has sought
to push policies that are WTO, IMF friendly that have been met with strong
rejection from the people. This requires discussion at the national level;
which as far as I know isn't happening.

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:

 Financial reforms versus gravy train subsidy? Mismanage and then sell bonds, 
 raise rates on freight etc?


I assume you are asking for examples where the government has backed
big business policies and found itself in a fight with the people?

Glad to supply, there are many - but first, I want to point out that
economists like Jahangir Aziz, the Chief Economist of JP Morgan Chase,
with his column in the WSJ

{
FEBRUARY 3, 2012
India's Intractable Inflation
Recent good news obscures serious long-term problems.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203711104577198512286220678.html
}
(Full text pdf: http://d.pr/LPzD)

who proclaim that social welfare schemes like the NREGS are bad
because they are causing inflation by putting money in the hands of
the rural poor are false prophets.

These are economists who have forgotten the meaning of equitable
social progress and economics led development. Economics isn't only
about increasing the assets on the balance sheets, it is about
restoring the dignity of humanity and eradicating poverty. It is about
fulfilling the human promise.

BTW, it is also about respecting Article 47 of the Indian
constitution. [http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1551554/]

Indian law stipulates no forest land can be cleared without the
approval of people who stake claim to the land. This has been violated
numerous times (Vedanta, POSCO, Navi Mumbai Airport - the total list
goes into the hundreds of instances) by the Singh government with
expected consequences - either there are poor tribals who find
themselves joining the ranks of urban poor, or the ranks of Maoists or
the ranks of protestors or there is massive ecological disaster and
irreversible destruction of scarce natural habitats.

BT Brinjal was stopped on health and safety grounds, however not
before Bolgard 1, the Monstanto BT Cotton seed was allowed into India
with much fanfare in 2009 - it uses the same gene Cry1AC as BT Brinjal
and it has been rendered ineffective in the field - net result more
pesticides are needed than ever before and new varieties of pests have
been created.

{
DINESH C. SHARMA  NEW DELHI, MARCH 6, 2010
Bt cotton has failed admits Monsanto
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/Bt+cotton+has+failed+admits+Monsanto/1/86939.html
}


Walmart and Tesco were stopped from entering India thanks to massive
protests and political opposition. Why, is this good? After all
Walmart  Co bring in supply chain efficiencies that are much touted
by the false prophet economists.

Protectionism is necessary in a world where capital flight holds
democracies to ransom. Large scale efficiency as promised by Walmart 
Co is beneficial in the short term, only because it socializes the
cost.

The self-employed retailers form a large part of the Indian work force
- it helps keep the Indian family system together, as family run shops
decline and people abandon villages and suburbs to work in the city a
single household bifurcates into many nuclear households - where the
sum of costs is greater.

Mothers having to work, a new life amidst urban chaos all lead to
greater stress levels leading to lower health, mortality and social
unrest and eventually much greater financial burdens. These costs are
hidden because the reporting of these costs is hard and there is an in
built human weakness to think short term (I wonder how many of you are
following along even at this point in my email).

Out of work retailers who have never been trained to work in the wage
slave economy will suddenly find themselves facing starvation and
economic depression. These are otherwise skilled people who suddenly
face a life where their livelihood has been robbed from them.

Large scale unemployment has a direct correlation to increase in crime
rates, increase in poverty, a decline in moral values, societal
unhappiness, stress levels, divorce rates, falling infrastructure
standards and so on.

Walmart  Co will force farmers who are holding out against GMO crops
to comply with uniform sourcing guidelines. When farmers sign
contracts with companies like Walmart they assume all the risk of crop
failure. In a lean season farmers currently get by with sustenance
farming; when they face penalties for non-delivery they face a debt
trap. An illiterate farmer cannot hope to negotiate a fair deal with a
multinational giant corporation.

It could tragically even spell the death of the small farmer, because
it is not in WCo's interest to deal with numerous small farmers.
Large land holdings farmed with massive farm equipment and combine
harvesters is better for the bottom line. However, the costs of
thousands of unemployed farmers on society is enormous and vastly more
than any tax on profits that society can hope to earn.

WCo will force cities and states to compete against each other to
offer tax havens. One state which is facing the socialized debt caused
by unemployment and lifestyle loss

Re: [silk] aqvavit

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:
 BT Brinjal was stopped on health and safety grounds

In all of this I would be remiss if I did not call out the excellent
balancing act done by Jairam Ramesh [0,1,2], but he was kicked
upstairs because he was being too effective as the environmental
minister. Just before the Durban round, he was replaced by Janathi
Natarajan [3], another politician whose skills I respect. However it
is nevertheless a serious setback to lose a capable and efficient
minister to big business interests.

[0] 
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/79668/serious-environment-issues-navi-mumbai.html
[1] 
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Jairam-Ramesh-under-fire-for-clearing-Posco-project/Article1-658194.aspx
[2] 
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ramesh-faces-public-fury-over-bt-brinjal/573660/
[3] 
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_jairam-ramesh-or-jayanthi-natarajan-all-that-activists-want-is-action_1565194

Re: [silk] aqvavit