Competition on the supply side is good if you are on the demand side, and competition on the demand side is good if you are on the supply side. Otherwise competition is evil. That is why governments of third world countries limit competition on the supply side — the better to extract rents from the economy.
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Category: About
Favorite Bits from the Archive: Stuff and Ideas
Some good stuff gets buried in all the trivia. Here are a couple of posts from December 2007 that I feel makes a bit of sense.
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Wide-bodied Globalization
Hi from Edison NJ. Got here from Mumbai on Wednesday morning at 4:40 AM, nearly an hour ahead of schedule. Too damn early. I suppose if the flight was arriving at 11 PM, then it would have arrived an hour late. Natural perversity of the universe. OK, I am done with the complaining bits. Now for the good bits.
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Travels
Just a quick personal note. I will be in Mumbai today and tomorrow I will leave for the US. I will be on the east coast for a few days and then on to SF bay area. Bye for now.
Favorite bits from the archive: Types of Government
India is very widely celebrated as having a democratic government. India’s government can also be accurately described another way. A kakistocracy is defined as government by the most corrupt and the least principled. As India’s case clearly demonstrates, the two are not mutually incompatible.
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New Commenting System
Today I installed a new commenting system — IntenseDebate. Therefore now you really don’t have to register to comment; you can just comment as “guest.” Also it allows you to get email updates of followup comments to the post or even the entire blog. But there are some things that need to be ironed out. For instance, I notice that some genuine comments are ending up in the spam queue even though before they would have gotten through. In any case, do give me feedback on this change. Also, if you comment and you see that the comment is not showing up, please drop me a note atanudey at gmail. Cheers!
Update: (1 PM IST)
There were problems with the intensedebate commenting. Some comments were not getting through. So for now we are back to square one and the commenting system will be as before. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Antipathy to Social Networks
I am not really anti-social and neither am I a misanthrope. I love humanity in the abstract but I admit that I find most not worth the bother, and consider a significant number pretty intolerable. Upon reflection, I concluded that the behavior that most bothers me is herding. Herding is alright for sheep and their ilk but when humans do it, it is pitiable.
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Iqbal Bano 1935-2009
Just got to know that Iqbal Bano passed away on 21st April in Lahore, Pakistan. She was born and brought up in Delhi.
Listening to her sing Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry is deeply moving. Among many well loved songs by her, my favorite is “dasht-e-tanhaai mein”: Continue reading “Iqbal Bano 1935-2009”
The Dollar Auction: Some Figures
I have maintained for a while that the reason that Pakistan gets propped up by the US and its allies is that India and Pakistan are engaged in a dollar auction game and therefore anytime Pakistan is about to go bankrupt (and therefore be unable to continue the game), the US and its allies rush to prop it up. How much money is involved in keeping Pakistan alive so that it can continue to wage jihad against India? Here are the figures from an article, “Fail, then reap rewards,” by Brahma Chellaney in the Deccan Chronicle. Continue reading “The Dollar Auction: Some Figures”
Pragati April 2009: Ideas for the honeymoon
This month’s Pragati is about “What the new government should do in its first 100 days.” I have a piece in there about the structural changes required in education. What else is new, you’d ask. Below the fold are the editorial comments for the issue. Please read and distribute.
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Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 