Religion matters not

a group of Muslims in eastern Uttar Pradesh told a colleague: “Sixteen major banks have failed in the United States; not a single Indian bank has folded up; all because we have had Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister.”

Profound implications in that quote in this report from The Hindu. India's prime minister is a Sikh--a small minority in India. A much larger minority, the Muslims, is happy with this Sikh as a prime minister, in a country dominated by Hindus.

Which is why I keep reminding my students and anybody who asks me that religious differences do not trigger violence in India. It does not mean that there are no prejudices--that is in plenty. But, quite a peaceful country though, given such immense differences.

Am glad that the BJP did not win. Yes, the Congress has a long history of playing communal politics. But, BJP is in a dangerous league of its own.
However, I don't think the prospect of Indira Gandhi's grandson being projected as Dr. Singh's successor is a healthy sign. Returning to an adoration of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is not something to be proud about. On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi seems to be one hell of a hard working guy--at least, it will not be handed to him on a golden platter as it was the case with Indira and later with Rajiv Gandhi.

Latin. Shmlatin :-)

I don't understand it either

Schwarzenegger. California. Budget. Crisis.

Is California's messy political economy the future of this country, too?

Torture. DADT. Gay. Obama. Wimp.

So, in an earlier post I wondered how the Daily Show would respond to Obama flip-flopping on the torture photos. Well, Jon Stewart did great. An awesome job. But, highly depressing to realize that this is politics here in the good ol' USA.

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More on torture. Transparency?

I thought it was ridiculous to suggest that the photos will stir up anti-American and anti-troop sentiments. Because, there is going on already for that, and as much as the torture photos might, it is also equally possible that a few others might be impressed with the way America handles incorrect, unethical, and illegal actions.
Greenwald articulates it much better than I can:

We're currently occupying two Muslim countries. We're killing civilians regularly (as usual) -- with airplanes and unmanned sky robots. We're imprisoning tens of thousands of Muslims with no trial, for years. Our government continues to insist that it has the power to abduct people -- virtually all Muslim -- ship them to Bagram, put them in cages, and keep them there indefinitely with no charges of any kind. We're denying our torture victims any ability to obtain justice for what was done to them by insisting that the way we tortured them is a "state secret" and that we need to "look to the future." We provide Israel with the arms and money used to do things like devastate Gaza. Independent of whether any or all of these policies are justifiable, the extent to which those actions "inflame anti-American sentiment" is impossible to overstate.

And now, the very same people who are doing all of that are claiming that they must suppress evidence of our government's abuse of detainees because to allow the evidence to be seen would "inflame anti-American sentiment." It's not hard to believe that releasing the photos would do so to some extent -- people generally consider it a bad thing to torture and brutally abuse helpless detainees -- but compared to everything else we're doing, the notion that releasing or concealing these photos would make an appreciable difference in terms of how we're perceived in the Muslim world is laughable on its face.

One "hot" man in Washington, DC

Writes Judith Warner:
"viewing Obama as a full, even familiar-seeming human being doesn’t degrade him."

Yes.

It is the same logic that made me appreciate Bill "Slick Willie" Clinton playing the sax on the Arsenio Hall show. I mean, they are like you and me--just mortals. We threw out the monarchy because we don't believe that our rulers are divine ....

Personal Credit Crisis: Our inner Gordon Gekkos

A few months ago, I authored an op-ed in Planetizen, titled The United States of Gordon Gekkos. I wrote there:

While banks and real estate agents are being accused (correctly, of course) of being the proverbial greedy and conniving foxes, consumers are being portrayed as innocent lambs. It is, after all, the role of business to tempt us with products that might not always be healthy. This is why a fundamental theme in our economic system is caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. I cannot help wonder why consumers became so greedy to increase their real estate consumption—the greed that led to the traps in the form of teaser mortgage rates without any money down.

It is not at all the case that I am finding the consumer alone to be at fault. Nope. But, we, too are to be blamed.

Edmund Andrews, an economics reporter, writes about his own personal credit crisis in the NY Times magazine, and in it he describes how, despite years of covering all kinds of economic crises, he too joined the insanity that home-buying/borrowing was. It is a depressing tale. It could have happened to any one of us. I don't know which part of his narrative to excerpt, because I think his story can easily become distorted with an excerpt out of the context. So, here is the link; read it.

Unemployment, geography, and maps

A follow-up to this post on why geography matters, particularly when it comes to issues like unemployment.

Chris Wilson at Slate has an awesome county-by-county mapping of unemployment, and over time since 2007. You will see how the slowly blue (jobs gained) changes to red (jobs lost). It is almost like the spread of infection, from Michigan. No, I am not saying that Michigan triggered job losses. Not at all. But, if one did not know what the data were, then that reader might think something started in Michigan and spread everywhere ..... Wilson writes:

A map of employment gains or losses by county tells the story of how those job losses first struck in the most vulnerable regions and then spread rapidly to the rest of the country. As early as August 2007, for example—several months before the recession officially began—jobs were already on the decline in southwest Florida; Orange County, Calif.; much of New Jersey; and Detroit, while other areas of the country remained on the uptick.

Sichuan earthquake. Music.

I heard that piece on NPR, and later found that James Fallows had blogged about that. Here it is:

Life aint Lysistrata?

Wikipedia's summary of Lysistrata:

Lysistrata convinces the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands as a means of forcing the men to negotiate a peace, a strategy however that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for its exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society and for its use of both double entendre and explicit obscenities.

Apparently one Kenyan is mighty upset with the women who took the Lysistrata route and withheld sexual relations; Jimi Izrael writes:

A Kenyan man decided to sue the organizers of the sex strike there, saying the deprivation has caused him undue stress. According to the ladies and CNN reports, the strike worked, kinda, as leaders did actually meet. I was a big critic of the sex strike -- and I remain one --- but you can't argue with results, right?

This guy, though, who's suing? That's a fail.

The strike is over, but homeboy is suing for damages. Really? Like what -- chafin'? Feenin'? What? If men called a lawyer every time a woman used sex to manipulate them, the courts would be clogged up for centuries. I think that Kenyan brother needs to get to know himself a little better --- if you catch my meaning --- and call it a wrap.

Arizona State U.: Commencement and Obama

Simply hilarious:

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Torture. Photos. Obama. Tweedldum-tweedledee :-(

So, President Obama's first major flip-flop: he says no to releasing the torture photos. To the few people who ever cared to know what I thought, well, I suppose I can tell them "I told you so!"

I am just tired of the tweedledum-tweedledees that come and go in politics. There are two sayings in India, using the context of Ramayana as a way to describe life and government. One is that it does not matter if Rama rules or Ravana rules. The other is that whoever rules Lanka will behave like a Ravana. (Click here for info on Ramayana, Rama, Ravana, Lanka)
Turns out that it does not matter whether it is a Bush or Cheney or Obama, the rationale for not discussing torture and the photos is not different.
Here is an excerpt from what Obama said:

It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.

Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse. And obviously the thing that is most important in my mind is making sure that we are abiding by the Army Manual and that we are swiftly investigating any instances in which individuals have not acted appropriately, and that they are appropriately sanctioned. That's my aim and I do not believe that the release of these photos at this time would further that goal.

Now, let me be clear: I am concerned about how the release of these photos would be -- would impact on the safety of our troops. I have made it very clear to all who are within the chain of command, however, of the United States Armed Forces that the abuse of detainees in our custody is prohibited and will not be tolerated.

"further inflame anti-American sentiments"; "put our troops in greater danger"; "chilling effect"; "impact on the safety of our troops"; "abuse ... will not be tolerated"
notice these phrases? aren't these the kinds of phrases that Bush/Cheney always used? That they couldn't/wouldn't discuss anything with us hoi polloi because of these very reasons? I completely support the notion that we ought not to put our troops in greater danger; which is why we should not even escalate our war efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And, yes, when a student looks worried because her boyfriend might get deployed to these wars, I see a personal connection to unnecessary conflict.

All this means that the big time campaign that Cheney was engaged in was a huge success for him. Look at his victories: photos will not be released; he has nothing but praise for the new general for Afghanistan; Pelosi and the Democrats are now rapidly trying to cover their behinds with spins on what they (didn't) know and when they (didn't) know ....
So, it is not a surprise at all that the neoconservative authors of the disasters of the last eight years are absolutely in support of Obama's decision.

I have a simple yardstick for the President: run your decisions by the likes of Kristol. If they like it, make sure to do the opposite! That simple, Mr. President.

Let us see what Jon Stewart has to say about this in the next couple of days. The following is what he had about Dick Cheney's all out media assault:

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Elections in India, and the summer of 2009

Elections a world away will resonate here

By Sriram Khé

For The Register-Guard

Posted to Web: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 06:11PM
Appeared in print: Wednesday, May 13, 2009, page A9

What is the difference between elections in India and elections here in America? In India, elections are conducted over one month, and the results are announced in a day. In America, elections are held on a single day but the result may not be known for months! Just ask Al Franken.

India’s elections were geographically staggered in five phases from April 16 to May 13, and the final results will be known on May 16. Out of the eligible 714 million voters, there is a good chance that about 60 percent — more than 400 million Indians — will have cast their votes by the final election day.

Most projections do not forecast a single party dominating, which will further the practice of coalition government. The current government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, of the Congress Party, is in power thanks to the coalition referred to as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). If it loses at the polls, the margin will be slim enough that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) might not be able to radically alter domestic or foreign policies.

These results would be very different from my experience as a kid, when the Congress Party almost always had a significant parliamentary majority. The opposition was so fragmented that the joke was that even a donkey could get elected on the Congress Party ticket. The era of coalition governments is a healthy sign, indeed. While there is no immediate causal relationship, the correlation is interesting: The more India’s economy opened up, the faster its economic growth rates have been, and single-party domination seems to have ended.

Even though I grew up in India, I have never voted in elections there; I had already moved to America by the time I was eligible to vote. As a kid I always looked forward to voting, given my interest in political issues from a very young age, and given how colorful and noisy election campaigning is in India.

I suppose my first vote in America made up for all that — it was the dramatic and history-making elections of 2000! In fact, politics in the United States have been pretty darned exciting since then, including Indian-style corruption with even a U.S. Senate seat for sale, and opportunistic party-switching for no reason other than to get re-elected. And I thought I would never get to see this here in America!

While no serious policy changes might result from India’s elections alone, taken together with the results of elections to follow in two neighboring countries, we might experience significant impacts on global geopolitical discussions and decision-making.

On June 12, Iran’s current president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, will be tested at the polls. Odds seem to favor his re-election, all the more so given that he seems to have gained the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A second term for Ahmedinejad will strengthen the country’s hard-line stance, particularly against the U.S. and Israel, and perhaps push the country closer to its first nuclear bomb.

Afghanistan will hold its presidential elections in August. The current president, Hamid Karzai, has been heading the country since the Taliban-led government was driven out of power by the U.S. and NATO military forces. Karzai has been increasingly criticized for not being effective in the fight against the Taliban, who have been rapidly gaining ground both in Afghanistan and in neighboring Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is dealing with a possibility that democracy might get suspended there by a military coup, thanks to the democratically elected government getting more and more unstable. Unfortunately, neither a weak government nor a military coup is new to Pakistan.

Thus, whether it is the UPA or the NDA that gets elected to power in India, there will not be as many repercussions as from the political developments over the next couple of months in Afghanistan, Iran and, of course, Pakistan. How events unfold in South and West Asia this summer will have immense implications even for those of us halfway around the world.

I wonder if Al Franken will have been sworn in as senator by the time summer ends!

Quote of the day

There is a complexity to human affairs before which science and analysis simply stands mute.

Pretty good, I think. It is the concluding line in David Brooks' column.

But, otherwise, I am not sure about such a column where it is not his original thoughts and critique, but it is a review of another work that he quotes. Well, "quotes" is an understatement because the entire column is based on that work in the Atlantic. It is like a book review: an article review!

So, the Middle East is going nuclear?

First, in order to counter Israel's nuclear bomb, the anti-Israel Arab world was keen on developing an "Islamic bomb". As India too got quite "explosive", Bhutto (Benazir's father) famously commented:"There's a Hindu bomb, a Jewish bomb and a Christian bomb," Bhutto once wrote. "There must be an Islamic bomb."

As Iraq got into that, Israel launched a brilliant attack that destroyed Iraq's key facilities. Much later, Pakistan detonated its nuclear devices to tell the world that it has arrived. A few months ago, something happened in Syria that nobody still talks about. But, speculation is that Israel wiped out some kind of a nuclear ambition that Syria had.

Yesterday (I think it was) as I was driving, I head on NPR that France was selling Saudi Arabia civilian nuclear power generating technology. Because, the Saudis want to prepare themselves for a world without petroleum--when they are sitting on the world's largest reserves that they can tap into for practically no cost at all.
I was not happy with all this talk about selling nuclear tech to the crazy guys in the Middle East. Because these are not democratic countries. We have no idea who the next ruler will be, and what kind of crazy things he will want to pursue.
And then I read this:

We are witnessing the beginning of a Middle East nuclear arms race. Iran's rivals do not want Tehran to gain the military, political, and diplomatic advantage that nuclear weapons convey. They are beginning the decades-long process of developing technologies to match Iran's capabilities. All of this is legal, by the way, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, nuclear weapon states are obliged to sell non-weapon states nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. It is one of the two grand bargains in the treaty. And it could spell our doom.

Not all Middle East powers may see civilian nuclear programs as a hedge against Iran. But recent history is instructive. The burgeoning interest in nuclear energy perfectly coincided with a set of events in the summer of 2006. At that time Western efforts to rein in Iran's enrichment program began to fail. The United States was becoming further mired in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and appeared unable to stop an Iran now freed of its main regional rivals. Iran's leaders expanded their military influence through aid to Hezbollah in the Israeli-Lebanese war. Referring to the changing atmosphere in 2006, Jordan's King Abdullah II observed, "The rules have changed on the nuclear subject throughout the whole region." My translation: "After this summer, everybody's going for nuclear programs." Given the context, the connection to Iran's growing strength and spinning centrifuges is clear.

Now, instead of persuading Jordan and others to refrain from setting off a proliferation cascade in the Middle East, the United States is joining the Chinese, French, and Russian salesmen eagerly peddling the tools to do it.

At its core, this is a deeply flawed method for preventing proliferation. It continues the Bush approach of dealing with problems state by state, dividing them into good guys and bad guys, rewarding friends with nuclear treats and trying to deny them to enemies.

It does not work.

Great! after we are done with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, next decade will be all about uncontrolled chain reactions in the Middle East. Thanks. Now I can sleep well! Dr. Strangelove, any pills for me? :-)

Port is the new pinot noir? Well, .....

I am a teetotaler, by choice. Yet, I suppose it is the information junkie in me that wants to read up on wines, so that I, too, can bullshit when the oenophiles engage in esoteric talk. Thus, I could not pass up the chance to read that "Last month, Portugal’s port wine producers unanimously declared 2007 to be a vintage port." Yes, I can now sit back and BS about what a wonderful year that 2007 was! Ok, I am being sarcastic.

So, what made 2007 such a special year for port? "it had been an unseasonably cool July and August, followed by intense heat in early September."

I think it was a year or so ago, a colleague and her husband returned from Portugal, and she raved about the port there. could she possibly have had port from the previous vintage year, 2003? Maybe I should pass along this article to her. At the same time, I think maybe she is exactly the kind of new customer that the port industry is targeting?

In a February article in Decanter magazine on declining port sales, Francisco de Sousa Ferreira, director of Portuguese wine giant Sogrape, admitted: “We need to reinvent ourselves.”

In theory, this likely means an attempt to convince Americans that port is not just for after-dinner anymore. ... I’ve certainly seen dozens of newspaper and magazine articles explaining “You really don’t need to be an elderly Brit to enjoy port” and that port should be hipper.

Yes, that image of a stiff Brit, or a stiff Brit-wannabe like Frasier, pouring port and talking highfalutin stuff is something that I have always associated with port. And, the reality is that my colleague is not anywhere like that image. If there are, indeed a lot more like my colleague, well, port has quite a few customers that neither the customer nor the industry is aware of!

Geithner explains the bank stress test results

So, it was really a surprise that by and large banks passed the test?
Robert Reich was concerned about the tests even before the results came out:

[Banks] needing extra capital will get it from the Treasury. But where will the money come from, now that the TARP fund is almost exhausted and Congress is dead set against providing more bank bailout money? The Treasury will simply swap debt for equity – turning what the banks owe the government into shares of stock in the banks. Presto. Ailing banks will get more capital, and Tim Geithner won’t have to go back to Congress to ask for it.

But by this sleight-of-hand, the public takes on more risk. Much of the money we originally gave Wall Street took the form of senior debt. We were preferred creditors, meaning that in the event of bankruptcy (or some form of it) we’d get repaid first. But as shareholders, we’d get nothing. As we’ve seen time and again during this economic crisis, shareholders lose big.

But, on with the test results, you say? Sure. Here is the treasury sec. explaining the test results:



thanks to GM for the tip

America becomes a colony of China and Dubai?

I have blogged enough about our debt for anyone to think that I am maybe even paranoid about the effects. And, just when I forget about it something happens for me to start worrying again. This time, it is a short opinion piece by the US Berkeley economist Brad DeLong, who writes that we might be in for trouble:

Call it reverse finance colonialism? Call it something. Foreign governments will be seeking high-return assets for their enormous portfolios without selling dollar-denominated wealth. Consequently, they will have to focus on U.S. corporate securities. With such large-scale investment comes ownership and with ownership comes control. No government will want to play the role of passive investor, with the attendant risk that its partners will tunnel the wealth out from under its grasp, leaving an empty corporate shell.

So what is likely to come to pass is not the socialism feared by the Right—at least not ownership of the means of production by the U.S. government. Instead, it will be ownership of U.S. companies by foreign governments—and on a scale we’ve never before seen.

Can anything stop this progression? Yes. A collapse of world economic growth—which would create a very dangerous and angry world. Or a sudden return to thrift on the part of American consumers—so that we can finance the industrialization of the rest of the world rather than having them finance our consumption. But neither is likely.

That will leave Americans confronting a new and unprecedented phase of globalization. Government agencies in Beijing, Dubai, and Brazilia will have a large financial interest in everything from the health-care policies of American factories to the compensation packages of corporate executives and the apportionment of seats on corporate boards. And their interest will matter: They will, after all, be the people who have the money—just as Americans were the people who had the money in the years after World War II

Thanks, Professor DeLong!