I'm trying to grasp the frustration everyone seems to have as well as the overwhelming urge to appoint blame and lay responsibility on a few individuals trotting around as figureheads... BTW, not absolving anyone from taking personal respon...sibility. Yet I am probably correct to assume that everyone of us who is demonstrating this "supposed" indignation is miles away from the ground reality in the planning, organizing, and execution of these games. Come on guys these are just games! Seems we are living in a pre-cold war world when the US & USSR tried to project their capabilities via the Olympics and we now know how hollow that projection of capabilities was / is. SCREW THE CWG, WHY THE HELL HASN'T ANYONE COMMENTED ON THE PLIGHT OF THE FOLKS DISPLACED BY THE ONGOING FLOODING IN NORTH INDIA!!! See how F#$%ed up our armchair brougeoisie mentality has become! If the events leading up to games had not been exposed by the media as a humongous SNAFU, I bet everyone here would have then reveled in basking in the glory of such great CWG games, and hailed the capabilities of India Shining! While we all know how superficial and limited those capabilities are... Development of infrastructure has always been the Achilles heel in India. Let's first accept this only then can we hope to move ahead, otherwise we will only move on...(!?!?!?)
Update: 12Hours later...
It was interesting to see Sr. Editor Headlines Today Sandeep Bamzai echo the exact same sentiment about India's weakness in infrastructural development as the major cause of the current CWG fiasco as well as the issues facing the general public due to flooding.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Looming CWG Fiasco in India
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Follow-up: More Facts About $35.00 Indian Tablet
A NDTV report with Indian Union Minister of HRD Mr.Kapil Sibal with a working prototype of the $35.00 Tablet computer.
Gadget Guru - NDTV LINK
See a video from a few other Indian Tech wizards from a company called AllGo Systems at Trade show in Florida, USA.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Evaluating the $35 Indian Computer
After reading a comment by Ajay Vaishnav, from the Times of India about the low cost tablet computer developed in India and just announced this week, I could not help myself in responding to it. For his take on it, please click on his name.
Sometimes we become victims in the desire to create a perfect world, where we fail to realize that while things may not always be perfect there is usually an opportunity to make an incremental or even marginal difference which over a period of time will gather enough momentum to create a self sustaining cycle.
How else due you think India has become the back office of the world without having the necessary infrastructure to support it, in terms of human and other resources? If it was only about a quality vs. cost the mega-corporations would have found another place by now...wouldn't they?
Yes, there are large tracts of poverty and under developed infrastructure in the country, but there are also extremely large tracts of developed and affluent areas in India that would shame any progressive western economy. That development did not happen overnight by being transplanted from somewhere else, it gradually evolved due to small efforts over time that coalesced to create the current vibrant economy. You can see the opposite of that happening in the US with the minor, but steady erosion of the education system, the numbing down of the work-force, and decay of built up infrastructure with no investments being made to maintain or create anything of new or lasting value. Just as every business has a life-cycle, every nation has its glory days till things start to wane and then the cycle of re-building and creating new systems and values begins anew!
I’d like to mention that companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, etc. did not suddenly make a big splash on the world stage in the latter part of the '90s when personal computers and the internet started becoming ubiquitous first in the US then the world over. Yes, the general awareness of these organizations was greatly amplified, along-with the newly discovered capabilities of the Indian workforce. Those visionaries kept toiling away quietly without any hope of impending fame and fortune. Just imagine a group of engineers from India trying to convince C-level executives of large corporations in Europe and US to let them do their back office work and handle phone calls for them in India in the mid-'80's, when there was hardly a reliable telephone network or any other similar infrastructural network in the in the country to handle local calls let alone international calls and a regular uninterrupted supply of electricity, even in the so called developed metros. There was no way they could have met the agreed upon SLAs based on the available facts!
If they had looked at the reality of the situation they should have come to the conclusion that the situation was bleak and the hurdles insurmountable, so they should have given up on it...? Tenacity and the will to forge ahead in spite of formidable odds are what create larger than life inspirations and role models; while naysayers keep repeating the same old tales of doom and gloom, without thinking even once that they have the opportunity to do so because of the efforts of those that they are belittling! Had someone not have planted the tiny seeds of the technological revolution in India years ago I wonder how Ajay Vaishnav would have found a way to voice his reservations that can be heard the world over? I doubt he would have taken a megaphone in hand and marched the world over holding a placard in the other to let everyone know his thoughts... or maybe he would have.... When you're talking about the human spirit anything is possible!
The pilgrims that arrived on the shores of America over 300 years ago not only survived and prospered, they reinforced to individuals across the world the concept of what we now term the "American Dream". Like Alexander, the Vikings, or even the Britisher's before them (let's not get into the politics of it) they were pioneers. That same indomitable will and passion for innovation and continuous urge to better oneself and move on ahead is present in each and every one of us the world over.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Business and Politics
Did you ever stop to consider that Business and Politics are almost identical! Except, that businesses have no multi-party system, which kind of makes business similar to the communist party where anyone can reach the top, but everyone has to toe the party line!- RaviD
The above has to the above ultimate irony for a capitalist business from an ideology point of view.
Some more nuggets -
Monopoly - Monarchy
Big Business - Oligarchy
Board of Directors - Senators / Congressmen / Member of Parliament
Chairman Emeritus - Queen of England / King of Spain / etc.
Institutional Shareholders - Power brokers
Individual Shareholders - Voters
Venture Capitalists - Lobbyists
Transnational Corporations - World Domination
Mergers and Acquisitions - European Union
Corporate De-merger - Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
Corporate Cartels - NATO
By the way did you notice there is no mention of democracy here. Democracy is about promoting equality which is a supposed need (disguised wants), business thrives when there is inequality, which promotes wants. So essentially in a thriving economy or business environment there is not need for a democracy...???!??!? Comments...?
Some more analogies -
Walmart - China
Conglomerates - Ex-Soviet Union
Google - India
GE - USA
Goldman Sachs - Switzerland
Microsoft - Japan
Exxon-Mobile - Saudi Arabia
SAP - Germany
Yahoo - England
Ask.com - France
Apple - Canada
Patent Trolls - Al Qaeda
Bear Stearns - Greece
Lehman Bros. - Iceland
Cisco - South Korea
NAFTA - United Nations
Friday, May 21, 2010
PIGS in the Euro-Zone
On Feb.25th of this year I had blogged about the coming global financial meltdown that would be precipitated due to turmoil caused by the financial profligacy of the European Union member states in the last decade. The Euro-Zone has even joined a visually enticing acronym for the countries most likely to default now - PIGS = Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. Friends if you have any doubts please go back an look up the stats on my blog that I refer to, Greece was the country with the least amount of issues. Just imagine what will happen if Portugal, Ireland, Spain implode or explode depending on what word you would like to describe the event as. All I can say is Europe will be knee deep in - PIS!!!
A fact that had been staring us in the face for anyone who cared to look, but not one major economist or financial guru was willing to admit to. So folks how does it feel to be lighter in the pocket? Invest in currency & commodities - Euro, metals, and energy? Gee whiz crude is down 15%, the Euro is down 15%, Gold is down from it's high, so friends what is going on.... ? Stay tuned...
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Politics... taking the plunge!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Are the economic experts reallly that stupid...?!?!?!
In the last quarter of 2009 there was great deal of optimism that the global economy was on the verge of turning around, but the US economy was doomed to complete annihilation, which was the reason gold was having such a great run up.
Now I'm not an economist or an expert on the subject, but I have studied it a little and do read a bit, more than anything I like to look at facts before making any kind of predictions.
Anyone who claims to be an economist even as a passing dilettante on the subject usually has reams and gobs of paper pass under their nose that would show factually where the fault lines are in the global economy. Yet, there is either a global conspiracy to suppress the evidence or the academics who teach the subject have no idea what they are talking about these days, or even in the past when were proven dead wrong(!); and still fail to admit that the academic theories they have grown up studying and teaching are fundamentally flawed in this new age of instant global inter-connectedness!
Let's get to the real issue - a great global meltdown is staring at us in the face yet nobody sees - EUROPE!!! All everyone can report about is the failures of the American economy, which are miniscule compared to what has already happened in Europe, is now happening, and will unfold in the coming months!!!
Greece is just the very "tiny" tip of the financial meltdown volcano that will erupt if people these so called economic experts do not take their heads out of places where the sun don't shine, and start initiating more sound economic polices rather than blow air as they did at the WEF recently!
Anyway, to satisfy my own curiosity and see how and why my hypothesis may just be right I created the following tables to analyze and draw my own conclusions. The information is as of 2008, so still current.
| Rank | Country | GDP in Billions | % Debt. Of GDP | External Debt. in Billions | Per Capita Debt | Per Capita GDP |
| 20 | United States | $14,260.00 | 94.35% | $13,454.00 | $43,793.00 | $47,440.00 |
| 19 | Hungary | $196.60 | 105.76% | $207.92 | $20,936.64 | $19,553.00 |
| 18 | Australia | $800.20 | 111.38% | $891.26 | $42,426.18 | $36,918.00 |
| 17 | Italy | $1,823.00 | 126.71% | $2,310.00 | $39,741.00 | $30,631.00 |
| 16 | Greece | $343.00 | 161.17% | $552.80 | $51,483.00 | $30,681.00 |
| 15 | Spain | $1,403.00 | 171.70% | $2,409.00 | $59,457.00 | $30,589.00 |
| 14 | Germany | $2,918.00 | 178.48% | $5,208.00 | $63,263.00 | $36,320.00 |
| 13 | Finland | $193.50 | 188.55% | $364.85 | $69,491.00 | $36,320.00 |
| 12 | Sweden | $344.30 | 194.34% | $669.10 | $73,854.00 | $37,334.00 |
| 11 | Norway | $275.40 | 199.02% | $548.10 | $117,604.00 | $53,738.00 |
| 10 | Hong Kong | $306.60 | 205.85% | $631.13 | $89,457.00 | $43,847.00 |
| 9 | Portugal | $236.50 | 214.38% | $507.00 | $47,348.00 | $22,232.00 |
| 8 | France | $2,128.00 | 235.95% | $5,021.00 | $78,387.00 | $34,205.00 |
| 7 | Austria | $329.50 | 252.63% | $832.42 | $101,387.00 | $39,887.00 |
| 6 | Denmark | $203.60 | 298.32% | $607.38 | $110,422.00 | $37,304.00 |
| 5 | Belgium | $389.00 | 320.31% | $1,246.00 | $119,681.00 | $36,416.00 |
| 4 | Netherlands | $672.00 | 364.88% | $2,452.00 | $146,703.00 | $40,558.00 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | $2,226.00 | 408.22% | $9,087.00 | $148,702.00 | $36,358.00 |
| 2 | Switzerland | $316.70 | 422.48% | $1,338.00 | $176,045.00 | $43,196.00 |
| 1 | Ireland | $188.40 | 1266.45% | $2,386.00 | $576,805.00 | $42,110.00 |
I have highlighted the US and six largest economies in Europe.
Just look at the per capita debt per person vs the per capita GDP and draw your own conclusions from the comparisons. By the way the population of US is approx. 311 million, while the population of European Union for those wanting to do more analysis is approx. 500 million.
Besides the teetering economies that we are already aware of Iceland and Greece, there are greater underlying problems in Europe specially in the realm of politics and it's proximity to Russia and the turbulence that arises from the Middle-East. Let's not factor out geo-politics when it comes to the occurrence, division, and allocation of natural resources, and ethnic tensions in the region.
If anyone of the readers was a betting person and was aware of the geo-political-economic world order which country would you place your bets on... to successfully emerge intact with the least amount of collateral damage from the current economic crisis?
So in the end it's ... hard to like what you are afraid of, which is why I believe politics is despised so much.