Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

The Swiss and their Trains

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.”

If you love trains (I most definitely do), then you’ll love this video from the Not Just Bikes channel. It’s truly delightful that places like Switzerland exist on the planet. It demonstrates that it is possible for people to organize a society that is truly civilized. It is an outstanding illustration that humans are capable of arranging their societies to be materially prosperous and peaceful.

I have had the good fortune of visiting Switzerland several times in the early ’90s when I spent a few years traveling around the world. Just getting to Geneva was exciting — on a TGV from Paris. It takes a little of 3 hours to cover the distance of 409 kms, and if you book in advance, you can get a ticket for as little as $10. But enough of that. Here’s the video. I bet you dollars to donuts that you will like it. Continue reading “The Swiss and their Trains”

Restitution of Stolen Property

Does a person have a right to property that was not justly acquired even if the consequences of holding that property promote the general welfare?

Robert Nozick didn’t think so. He wrote, “The justice of a given individual’s possession of and discretionary control over certain economic goods cannot be a function of that possession and control contributing to the general welfare or to any other overall social end-state or pattern. All such consequentialist assessments of holdings are ruled out of court. So, if there is any acceptable account of the justice of individual holdings, it must be a backward-looking account. The justification must depend upon how the holdings in question have arisen.” Continue reading “Restitution of Stolen Property”

Guru Purnima

Full moon rising over the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles. Aug 2021.

Guru Purnima is observed on the day of the full moon this month. The full moon today will be at 2:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time. Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists observe this day primarily to recognize the role of the guru in the process of enlightenment.

The Bhagavad Gita is a prime example of teaching. Arjuna is taught by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Here are a few verses from the Gita: Continue reading “Guru Purnima”

The First Step to Real Wealth

Once upon a time, a monk arrived at the outskirts of a village and settled down under a tree to rest for the night. Early the next morning he was woken up by a man. The man was from the village.

He said to the monk, “Give me the stone.” The man had been told by the village deity in a dream that he would find a monk outside the village who had a stone that would make him extremely wealthy.

“I want that stone,” said the man to the monk. The monk took out a stone from his little bundle of possessions. It was a diamond as big as a fist. “I found it in the forest yesterday. Here, take it. It’s yours,” said the monk. The man was overjoyed as he grabbed the diamond and ran back to his village. Continue reading “The First Step to Real Wealth”

Happy 4th of July

My favorite American holiday is 4th of July, also known as Independence Day. It dates back to 1776 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Aside from the fact that this date was symbolically the birth of the greatest nation on earth, and what it means for the philosophical and political ideas that provided its foundation, there’s the fun, food and drinks with friends and of course the public fireworks. Continue reading “Happy 4th of July”

A preference for boys over girls

No observer of India can avoid noting that India lives simultaneously in several centuries: the modern and the ancient jostle for space, the highly technically qualified mix with the illiterate, the filthy rich live cheek by jowl with the abjectly poor. It is all chaotic and thoroughly confusing. Like in many other countries, contradictions run wide and deep in India. Indians worship powerful goddesses but the status of women is generally deplorable and girl children are frequently neglected and even severely abused. Continue reading “A preference for boys over girls”

The World in 2036 – Nassim Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an awesomely successful investor, public intellectual and author of many best sellers. The wiki page on NNT says that–

“Taleb criticized the risk management methods used by the finance industry and warned about financial crises, subsequently profiting from the late-2000s financial crisis. He advocates what he calls a “black swan robust” society, meaning a society that can withstand difficult-to-predict events. He proposes what he has termed “antifragility” in systems; that is, an ability to benefit and grow from a certain class of random events, errors, and volatility as well as “convex tinkering” as a method of scientific discovery, by which he means that decentralized experimentation outperforms directed research.”

The Economist published a brief piece by him in 2010 titled, “The World in 2036: Nassim Taleb looks at what will break, and what won’t .” It has aged pretty well, and I suspect that he’s largely accurate. Here it is.
Continue reading “The World in 2036 – Nassim Taleb”

Twenty Books

A few weeks ago, my friend Rajesh pointed me to a list titled, “20 Books You Should Read in Your 20s.” I didn’t like the list; some of the books were too heavy for the average 20-something-year old. Certainly, as a specialized reader, a 20-year old could read many of them but not as a general reader.

It occurred to me that lists like that could not be very useful for the general public, anyway. We all have distinct preferences and interests. That implies, list of books have to be tailored to fit the person. I asked myself, what would the list have looked for a 20-something-year old me? Here is that list. Continue reading “Twenty Books”

A Lee Kuan Yew Anthology

Recently, Mr Zane Austen assembled “The Comprehensive Lee Kuan Yew Anthology” (PDF, 200MB.) I quickly scanned through the over 12,000 pages. For people like me who think that LKY was one of the greatest  benefactors of humanity in the 20th century CE, it is a good reference work. (Hat tip: @smjalageri via twitter.)

AMC – Africa

Oumou Sangaré

Considering that I’ve been listening to music for many decades, it’s not surprising that I have around 5,000 favorite songs. I’m not exaggerating: I do have 5,000 favorite songs.

Those songs give me pleasure and joy, solace and comfort. I know them intimately, each of them associated with treasured memories. Many of them I can still recall when I first heard them, and why they entered my collection of favorites.

Today I would like to present three foreign language songs. I consider Bengali (my mother tongue), Hindi and Marathi to be domestic languages, and consider English to be a “native” language since I think, read, write and speak it better than any other language. The rest are all foreign languages to me, including French which I understand a bit of. Continue reading “AMC – Africa”