Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Ethanol and Mr Vinod Khosla

Markets Work

Economists have a mantra which says “Markets work” and mumble under their breath the disclaimer “subject to a bunch of conditions, of course.” By “markets work” they mean that when a whole lot of buyers and sellers get together and buy and sell stuff, magic happens through Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and everyone ends up better off than they were before the trades took place. Each market participant has to be concerned with only his objective (maximizing utility in the case of consumers, and maximizing profits in the case of producers) and the maximization of social welfare is assured.

When you go to buy, say, fuel for your home, you check out the alternatives and buy what suits your purpose cheapest. Basically, subject to the thickness of your wallet, you demand a quantity based on the price which you take as a given and which you cannot alter. You really don’t care how the fuel was produced or mined, how it was transported, how it was stored, and a million other things that went it to the process of getting that fuel to the store. All you care about is the price, and rightly so, because the price encapsulates within itself all the information you need to make the decision.
Continue reading “Ethanol and Mr Vinod Khosla”

OLPC — Rest in Peace — Part 3

Voltaire’s dictum that the perfect is the enemy of the good is fascinating because of the delicious ambiguity embedded in it. The ambiguity arises from what one identifies as the “perfect” and the “good.” If perfection is by definition unattainable, and the good is defined as an attainable “optimal” (again defined suitably), then it is by definition true that an attempt to obtain an unattainable perfection can be a hindrance to an attainable good. Then the only disagreement remaining pertains to what is considered the “perfect” and what the “good.”

Since the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) proposal is being considered here, we have to have alternate proposals which can be considered in contradistinction to it. I propose, for arguments sake, the “One Blackboard Per School” (OBPS), “One Teacher Per School” (OTPS), and “One Set of Basic Facilities Per School” (OSOBFPS) schemes out of many potential candidates. First, we will consider how they stack up against the OLPC proposition. The next thing we do is to figure out which of the alternates is the one that is “perfect” and which therefore poses the threat to the achievement of the “good.”
Continue reading “OLPC — Rest in Peace — Part 3”

OLPC — Rest in Peace — Part 2

Voltaire (1794-1778) had observed that the perfect is the enemy of the good. In response to my requiem on the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC), my friend Dr Aniruddha Banerjee from Boston, concluded his comments with that question in his email to me which I quote below. Continue reading “OLPC — Rest in Peace — Part 2”

Postcard from Sydney

Hi from Sydney, Australia!

Got here on August 1st after a long and uninteresting flight from Mumbai via Bangkok. Sydney was deliciously cold when I arrived that night. The first two days were sunny but today it is raining. I am glad that I did not go to the US which is suffering from a serious heat wave. After the summer in India, it would have been silly of me to go to the next hot spot.

So for the next few weeks, I will work from Sydney. The last time I was here, exactly three years ago, I had traveled from San Francisco. Spent a week here then. Now I will be here longer and call it home for a bit. Being essentially homeless, whereever I unpack my suitcase is home for me. As they say in Hindi, dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka, na ghat ka. 🙂 I am reminded of the words from a song by Neil Diamond which expresses the same sentiment:

LA’s fine, sunshine most of the time
And the feeling is laid back
Palm trees grow, rents are low
But you know what I keep thinking about?
Making my way back.
I’m New York city born and raised
Nowadays I’m lost between two shores
LA’s fine but it ain’t home
New York’s home but
It ain’t mine no more . . .
I am, I said . . .

I expect to get some serious thinking and quality work done here. I may throw in some site-seeing but for the most part, I will make some real progress on work. So until the next time, be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Monkey Business

Yes, we do share common ancestors with the other primates. Playing and having fun is part of our common heritage.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8811551493740102634

NOTE: That “monkey” actually is an ape: I am guessing a Lar Gibbon.

Censoring by Government of India

We all know that the government of India is secular because they proclaim it as so. Therefore it must be so. Secularism by assertion. So also we know that in India freedom of expression is a right — as long as what is expressed is in line with the ruling coalition’s preferences.

Ventatesh Rangarajan pointed me to a news item on IBNLive which says “Anti-Congress” Blogs blocked.

The block against various websites has been lifted but the ban is still in place.

It seems there is a definite slant to the websites that have been banned – a stance that is not anti-national, but anti-congress.

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) passed an order to ISPs on July 14 to block blog sites, as they were said to be spreading anti-national message. The list of the websites to be blocked was confidential.

“We know what is good for you, and we will tell you what you should think,” says the mai-baap government.

Deva! Deva!

OLPC — Rest in Peace

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is not going to happen in India.

The Human Resources Development (HRD) ministry of the government of India recently decided to just say no to the $100 laptop that Prof Negroponte of MIT Media Lab has been furiously peddling. He wanted the government to buy, oh, about 1,000,000 of those at the modest cost of $100,000,000 and give it to school children. Mind you, noble intentions motivate this: so that no child is left behind and the digital divide is bridged and all the kids will become computer savvy and what not. Continue reading “OLPC — Rest in Peace”

Wonders will never cease

The other day an old school friend of mine Ajay (not his real name) came to meet me when I was visiting Nagpur. Talk came around to how his son was doing. Ajay said that the kid was doing well, finally.

“Why,” I asked, “what was the matter?”

“He was not doing well at all in his studies. He was not able to focus on his school work. His confidence level was low and I was really worried about his grades. You know, his board exams are right around the corner.” Continue reading “Wonders will never cease”

Blogpost Contest

Crazyfinger writes to inform us all of a blogpost contest. The prize is a copy of Stephen Miller’s new book “Conversation: A History of a Declining Art”. Check it out.

[My apologies to Crazyfinger for the delay in carrying this announcement. Due to time constraints, I was unable to get to updating the blog.]