Month: May 2011

Winston Churchill’s pithy observation that “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter” is unfortunately too accurate to be dismissed lightly. We are often acutely reminded of that by the results of elections, in developed as well as in developing countries. It is a marvel that the myth of the enlightened voter persists against all evidence to the contrary.
Continue reading “Democracy, Elections and Voting — Part 3”

As you probably know, 21st of May is the rapture. Nothing to do with rap music or anything like that. Just that Jeebus will be gathering those who believe in him. Anywho, check out this thoughtful video on the upcoming rapture.

“The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who knows why will always be his boss.” Ralph Waldo Emerson was a clever man. Someone else wrote that if we know the why, we can always figure out the how. Perhaps it was I or perhaps it was someone smarter. Anyhow, this is an open thread. Say what you will. I am going to be back in a bit.

Many of you know that I believe that the backbone of India’s transportation system has to be rail-based. I love trains and continue to marvel at how amazing railroads are. This post is about how amazing are the machines that lay, repair and replace railroad tracks in advanced industrialized countries (and I suppose nowadays in China.)
Continue reading “Railway Track Replacement Machine in Action”

The importance of rules cannot be overestimated. Human societies differ not so much in the physical characteristics of people or their mental capabilities as they do in the rule-sets that define and distinguish them. If we have to understand why some societies prosper and others don’t, we could do worse than to examine their rules. Culture is another term for the collection of rules, and it more than any other factor determines how successful a society is.
Continue reading “Democracy, Elections and Voting — Part 2”

The pricing of a book is an interesting economics problem. For economic efficiency, the price should be equal to the marginal cost. But as often happens, marginal costs are sometimes far below average costs (due to fixed costs.) So P=MC leaves a deficit in the recovery of full costs. Therefore P>MC has to be it. For ebooks, the MC=~0. But if you shift some of the deficit by pricing ebooks > 0, you reduce the deficit. I have been thinking about book pricing because we have to attach a price to my book.
Continue reading “Pricing a Book”

Of course pretty much everyone knows that democracy, universal franchise, “first past the post” elections, etc, is the best way — if not the only way — to organize our political system. In a country overflowing with religions, that should be considered another religion. And as with other religions, since they have been brought up thinking in a particular way, people accept its articles of faith without question, and anyone doubting its tenets is met with hostility. At the risk of being branded a foreign agent and an enemy of “the people” I invite you to question the conventional wisdom and to seek change.
Continue reading “Democracy, Elections and Voting”