Category: Random Draws

The details are fuzzy as I had read this story long time ago but the lesson is clearly imprinted on my mind. Once upon a time, in land far away, some company — let’s call it ACME Corporation — put up a huge billboard advertising their ketchup. The billboard was an eyesore and the local people complained to the authorities to have the company take it down. Fact was that ACME was not breaking any city ordinances and so they refused to remove the billboard. One enterprising woman in the community had an idea on how to deal with ACME. She started a campaign telling others not to buy ACME ketchup and explained why. ACME’s ketchup sales plunged and it got the message. The billboard was history.

Consumer boycott is a very powerful weapon. It can be wielded with devastation force. Refusing to do trade with another sends a powerful message.

[Previous post: Malaysian Repression.]

When I first heard of the institutionalized discrimination of the Malaysian government against their citizens of Indian origin, my first impulse was to make a mental note that I will not fly Malaysian Airlines. If all Indians who sympathize with the discriminated group in Malaysia refuse to buy Malaysian — whether airline tickets, holidays, or furniture imported from Malaysia — it would send a clear signal of disapproval of the people of India. The Indian government has to do nothing. And besides, India has no standing when it comes to Malaysia’s internal affairs. The Indian government cannot and should not do anything, but Indians can and must do something.

The fact is that it is an integrated world — and no nation is an island. We are linked to each other through common humanity for millions of years but now we are also linked through trade and travel. We are all dependent on each other, and if someone tends to forget common humanity, we can use the trade link to remind them of our shared existence and destiny.

Republic of the Sudan is a pretty large country with a total area of 2.5 million square kms and 40 million people. The United States is about four times larger in land area and over seven times larger in terms of population. The US is also about 70 times richer per capita (official exchange rate) compared to Sudan. There are other stark differences between the US and Sudan, of course, some of which are causes and others the consequence of the immense income disparity. Here are some (Sudan, US):
Continue reading “On the Road towards Sudan”

Over in Malaysia, Malaysian Hindus (naturally therefore of Indian ancestry) are being repressed systematically. That is pity but no more than the systematic repression of anyone anywhere. I agree with The Acorn that Malaysian Hindus are Malaysians. It is their internal affair. It is their land, their laws, their government and their policies. Others should just butt out.

Nov 19th, 1863. Abraham Lincoln spoke for two minutes at Gettysburg. Here’s the Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

One hundred forty-four years ago. Was there any doubt then — given the leadership and the stock of institutional capital — that the US was destined to be a great nation? And is there any doubt now — given the leadership and the destruction of institutional capital they have undertaken — what will become of the US in another one hundred and forty-four years?

On a lighter note, here is the Gettyburg Powerpoint Presentation. The slide-show is also brief — only 6 slides.

PS: Also check out why and how Peter Norvik created that ppt.

Technology, in economics jargon, expands the production possibilities frontier (PPF). In simpler terms, you get more stuff by using technology by using resources more efficiently. Which in turn means that you have less waste produced as a by-product of the production of useful stuff.

A recent column by Gurcharan Das titled “Let Biotech Crops Bloom” notes how the introduction of transgenic cotton has doubled India’s cotton production in the last five years and is second largest cotton producing country (after China.) He laments the fact that Indian farmers don’t have access to transgenic rice, soya, corn, etc, because they have not been approved. He puts the blame on “misguided activists, timid bureaucrats, and apathetic politicians.”
Continue reading “Transgenic Cotton”