Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey is Cooked

mkataturk Now that the Islamization of Turkey is rapidly advancing under the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there’s much grief, pain and suffering in store for that country. That’s what Islam does.

One man had tried to steer Turkey away from that fate: and had indeed succeeded to some extent. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881 – 1938), a Turkish army officer and revolutionist statesman who was the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. He wanted Turkey to be a secular state, and naturally so since he was irreligious. But now Turkey is regressing into an Islamic state and will probably become a failed state in the decades ahead. That’s a real pity.

Here are a couple of quotes attributed to Kemal Ataturk. Source: Wikiquotes.

Continue reading “Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey is Cooked”

Wikileaks is upsetting the whole (rotten) apple cart

wikileaksWikileaks.org has set a cat among the pigeons. Or you may say it has upset the (rotten) apple cart with what it calls its “Hillary Leaks Series.” Follow the @wikileaks twitter account to get interesting bits. However if you are a real political junkie, you can search through the entire collection of “19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the top of the US Democratic National Committee.”
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The Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew

LKYMr Lee Kuan Yew was a sage. Politicians are generally vile, myopic, self-serving, stupid, vacuous windbags. That Singapore had a Confucian sage for its first prime minister is amazing. Too bad Singapore is a small country. Imagine if LKY had been the first prime minister of India. India’s economy today would probably have been about 10 times that of China, instead of being 1/5th that it is today. Continue reading “The Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew”

What is Success?

Alt text
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The good life has to be a happy life. I am much in favor of Bertrand Russell’s view on the good life: “The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy – I mean that if you are happy you will be good.” The good life also has to be the successful life. But what is a successful life? The definition must vary from person to person. I like the simplicity of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s operational definition:  Continue reading “What is Success?”

Ask Me Anything — the Sparrow Edition

A sparrow drinking water
Summer drink

I like this picture I found on tumblr. There’s something satisfying about it. I think it has to do with what’s happening: the sparrow must feel contentment. (Hover over image.)

Anyhow, it’s time for this month’s AMA. What’s on your mind?

India’s Prosperity is Made in India

prosperity2 I am not a fan of the Modi government’s “Make in India” advertising drive. My view is certainly unpopular. I think that advertising cannot (and must not) replace real changes in policies that could make India attractive to domestic and foreign manufacturers. As it happens, the prevailing sentiment, even among many domestic manufacturers, is that India is really a very hard place to make things. Which partly explains why so much of what’s consumed in India is made in China. So trying to woo foreign manufacturers through advertising slogans is pointless.

I wrote this piece for the July edition of India Currents. Here it is, for the record. Continue reading “India’s Prosperity is Made in India”

Planning Works but not Always

Walter E Williams “Wealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one’s fellow man … that’s what competition is all about: “outpleasing” your competitors to win over the consumers.”
— Walter E Williams.

Part II.

I ended the previous bit of this essay with these questions: First, why is it that central planning appears to work in familial situations and in firms but not in economies? Second, does planning really work for firms and corporations? Finally, if it is indeed true that centralized planning does not work at the economy level, why do petty despots (like Nehru) go for it despite the ruin it causes?

I will address the first two questions here and the third question in the next part.

Let’s see why planning works in families. The parents are emotionally motivated to do what’s best for the family and are best placed to plan for the family simply because they care. They know the preferences of family members, know the means available, the tradeoffs involved, and so on. The information and computing power required to get to an approximate solution to meet the objectives are well within their cognitive capacity. Though not trivial, planning for a family is a manageable task.
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Happy 4th of July

alt="We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
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Speaking of Freedom of Speech

In my view, freedom of speech is a non-negotiable right that free people have. It is a natural right, not a right that is artificially conjured. Human dignity is lost when the right to express what you think is restricted. I regret the fact that Indians don’t have genuine freedom of speech. Here’s a piece I wrote for the June issue of India Currents. Excerpt:

Publishing anything that the government is likely to take serious offense to is akin to publishing an invitation to officialdom to please come and shut down the business on some pretext or the other; and also to audit the accounts; and to get an income tax raid done on your home immediately; and file a few cases against your business which the courts will take decades to settle.

For the record, I reproduce the full piece below.
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My assessment of Modi government

I have been a long-time supporter of Shri Narendra Modi. But I am seriously disappointed at his performance as prime minister. Certainly he has done better than his predecessor, Sonia Maino. But she’s an Italian who really did not care for India. Doing better than Sonia Maino is no achievement. I expected better than this from Modi. I think Modi’s greatest achievement so far has been political. He disarmed the Maino mafia. But I fear that there are Maino moles in the Modi management team.

Anyway, here’s a piece I wrote for the New Indian Express where I claim that India is still on the same old policy path. It was published on June 14th. I reproduce the piece here, for the record. Continue reading “My assessment of Modi government”