SRI-India Home Page Some details about Andhra Pradesh (now bifurcated)
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
One on addiction
The likely cause of addiction has been discovered, and it is not what you think by Johann Hari. Lot of it sounds plausible and may be true but I do not believe it completely.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Genetics allows dead to speak from the grave
says Razib Khan in a survey article with lots of links. I do not understand lots of it and am keeping it mainly for future reference and links. Family systems of Emmanuel Todd are not mentioned in the discussion.He has a later article The Aryan invasion was not fantasy. I usually think in terms of migration. The author seems to be thinking in terms of cultural dominance. Even this is not clear to me except perhaps in many of the languages that are current in India. What evolved including religion, myths etc seems to be a combination with indigenous elements. I do not know which are more dominant but tend towards indigenous elements.
Upperstall on hemanta kumar
on his birthday Hemanta Mukherjee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhHtcYWDhfc He was MD for the above film.
And one of his duets;
And one of his duets;
Different strands in Europeans
DNA deciphers roots of modern Europeans by Carl Zimmer:
"The first were hunter-gatherers who arrived some 45,000 years ago in Europe. Then came farmers who arrived from the Near East about 8,000 years ago.
Finally, a group of nomadic sheepherders from western Russia called the Yamnaya arrived about 4,500 years ago. The authors of the new studies also suggest that the Yamnaya language may have given rise to many of the languages spoken in Europe today."
Also
"For decades, linguists have debated how Indo-European got to Europe. Some favor the idea that the original farmers brought Indo-European into Europe from Turkey. Others think the language came from the Russian steppes thousands of years later.
The new genetic results won’t settle the debate, said Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary biologist at Copenhagen University who led the Danish team. But he did say the results were consistent with the idea that the Yamnaya brought Indo-European from the steppes to Europe."
"The first were hunter-gatherers who arrived some 45,000 years ago in Europe. Then came farmers who arrived from the Near East about 8,000 years ago.
Finally, a group of nomadic sheepherders from western Russia called the Yamnaya arrived about 4,500 years ago. The authors of the new studies also suggest that the Yamnaya language may have given rise to many of the languages spoken in Europe today."
Also
"For decades, linguists have debated how Indo-European got to Europe. Some favor the idea that the original farmers brought Indo-European into Europe from Turkey. Others think the language came from the Russian steppes thousands of years later.
The new genetic results won’t settle the debate, said Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary biologist at Copenhagen University who led the Danish team. But he did say the results were consistent with the idea that the Yamnaya brought Indo-European from the steppes to Europe."
The man with the golden arm
This man's blood has saved the lives of two million babies (via Ed Yong):
"Rhesus disease happens when a pregnant woman has rhesus-negative blood (RhD negative) and the baby in her womb has rhesus-positive blood (RhD positive), inherited from its father. If the mother has been sensitized to rhesus-positive blood, usually during a previous pregnancy with an rhesus-positive baby, she may produce antibodies that destroy the baby's "foreign" blood cells.
"Rhesus disease happens when a pregnant woman has rhesus-negative blood (RhD negative) and the baby in her womb has rhesus-positive blood (RhD positive), inherited from its father. If the mother has been sensitized to rhesus-positive blood, usually during a previous pregnancy with an rhesus-positive baby, she may produce antibodies that destroy the baby's "foreign" blood cells.
Harrison was discovered to have an unusual antibody in his blood and in the 1960s he worked with doctors to use the antibodies to develop an injection called Anti-D. It prevents women with rhesus-negative blood from developing RhD antibodies during pregnancy."
Monday, June 15, 2015
Geopolitical fundamentals of the world island
From The Geopolitics of American Global Decline by Alfred Mccoy (via Steven Hsu at Information Processing)
"In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, imperial historian Paul Kennedy returned to Mackinder’s century-old treatise to explain this seemingly inexplicable misadventure. “Right now, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in the Eurasian rimlands,” Kennedy wrote in the Guardian, “it looks as if Washington is taking seriously Mackinder’s injunction to ensure control of ‘the geographical pivot of history.’” If we interpret these remarks expansively, the sudden proliferation of U.S. bases across Afghanistan and Iraq should be seen as yet another imperial bid for a pivotal position at the edge of the Eurasian heartland, akin to those old British colonial forts along India’s Northwest Frontier......
Washington’s moves, in other words, represent something old, even if on a previously unimaginable scale. But the rise of China as the world’s largest economy, inconceivable a century ago, represents something new and so threatens to overturn the maritime geopolitics that have shaped world power for the past 400 years. Instead of focusing purely on building a blue-water navy like the British or a global aerospace armada akin to America’s, China is reaching deep within the world island in an attempt to thoroughly reshape the geopolitical fundamentals of global power. It is using a subtle strategy that has so far eluded Washington’s power elites."
"In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, imperial historian Paul Kennedy returned to Mackinder’s century-old treatise to explain this seemingly inexplicable misadventure. “Right now, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in the Eurasian rimlands,” Kennedy wrote in the Guardian, “it looks as if Washington is taking seriously Mackinder’s injunction to ensure control of ‘the geographical pivot of history.’” If we interpret these remarks expansively, the sudden proliferation of U.S. bases across Afghanistan and Iraq should be seen as yet another imperial bid for a pivotal position at the edge of the Eurasian heartland, akin to those old British colonial forts along India’s Northwest Frontier......
Washington’s moves, in other words, represent something old, even if on a previously unimaginable scale. But the rise of China as the world’s largest economy, inconceivable a century ago, represents something new and so threatens to overturn the maritime geopolitics that have shaped world power for the past 400 years. Instead of focusing purely on building a blue-water navy like the British or a global aerospace armada akin to America’s, China is reaching deep within the world island in an attempt to thoroughly reshape the geopolitical fundamentals of global power. It is using a subtle strategy that has so far eluded Washington’s power elites."
The role of the friendless in oranizations
From The tyranny of the friendless :
" I’ve recently come to the realization that organizational decay is typically dominated by a single factor that is easy to understand, being so core to human sociology. While it’s associated with large companies, it can set in when they’re small. It’s a consequence of in-group exclusivity. Almost all organizations function as oligarchies, some with formal in-crowds (government officials or titled managers) and some without. If this in-crowd develops a conscious desire to exclude others, it will select and promote people who are likely to retain and even guard its boundaries. Only a certain type of person is likely to do this: friendlesspeople. Those who dislike, and are disliked by, the out-crowd are unlikely to let anyone else in. They’re non-sticky: they come with a promise of “You get just me”, and that makes them very attractive candidates for admission into the elite."
" I’ve recently come to the realization that organizational decay is typically dominated by a single factor that is easy to understand, being so core to human sociology. While it’s associated with large companies, it can set in when they’re small. It’s a consequence of in-group exclusivity. Almost all organizations function as oligarchies, some with formal in-crowds (government officials or titled managers) and some without. If this in-crowd develops a conscious desire to exclude others, it will select and promote people who are likely to retain and even guard its boundaries. Only a certain type of person is likely to do this: friendlesspeople. Those who dislike, and are disliked by, the out-crowd are unlikely to let anyone else in. They’re non-sticky: they come with a promise of “You get just me”, and that makes them very attractive candidates for admission into the elite."
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Potluri Somasekhararao RIP
A friend during my early days in Melbourne. We have spent of lot of time together for about five years dining, drinking, listening to Telugu songs particularly Ganji Nagabhushanam songs around midnight. I still remember vividly Nagagabhushanam versions of ' preyasi manohari' at his urging, ' patapaduma krishna',....He was only 58.
Links June 14, 2005
From Reality-based community"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Continuation. Obama is no coward
And the Indian President
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has called for longer prison sentences for bankers who break the law, in a speech attacking on ethics in the City.
The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries
The Wall Street takeover of non-profit boards
Millions of children hard at work in India
Everybody hates Pearson and Xseed Trends in education
Aspirational parents condemn children to a desperate. joyless life by George Monbiot
Continuation. Obama is no coward
And the Indian President
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has called for longer prison sentences for bankers who break the law, in a speech attacking on ethics in the City.
The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries
The Wall Street takeover of non-profit boards
Millions of children hard at work in India
Everybody hates Pearson and Xseed Trends in education
Aspirational parents condemn children to a desperate. joyless life by George Monbiot
Lesson from Stanford prison experiment
(via MindHacks) The real lesson of the Stanford prison experiment by Maria Konnikova:
"What emerges from these details isn’t a perfectly lucid photograph but an ambiguous watercolor. While it’s true that some guards and prisoners behaved in alarming ways, it’s also the case that their environment was designed to encourage—and, in some cases, to require—those behaviors. ...........
Taken together, these two studies don’t suggest that we all have an innate capacity for tyranny or victimhood. Instead, they suggest that our behavior largely conforms to our preconceived expectations. All else being equal, we act as we think we’re expected to act—especially if that expectation comes from above. Suggest, as the Stanford setup did, that we should behave in stereotypical tough-guard fashion, and we strive to fit that role. Tell us, as the BBC experimenters did, that we shouldn’t give up hope of social mobility, and we act accordingly."
"What emerges from these details isn’t a perfectly lucid photograph but an ambiguous watercolor. While it’s true that some guards and prisoners behaved in alarming ways, it’s also the case that their environment was designed to encourage—and, in some cases, to require—those behaviors. ...........
Taken together, these two studies don’t suggest that we all have an innate capacity for tyranny or victimhood. Instead, they suggest that our behavior largely conforms to our preconceived expectations. All else being equal, we act as we think we’re expected to act—especially if that expectation comes from above. Suggest, as the Stanford setup did, that we should behave in stereotypical tough-guard fashion, and we strive to fit that role. Tell us, as the BBC experimenters did, that we shouldn’t give up hope of social mobility, and we act accordingly."
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Sumit Guha interview
A discussion on German economics
in Economist's View. Friedrich List seems to be missing. More about him here
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Missing link between brain and immune system?
There are several reports like this . Lot of the coverage seems to come from the university publicity department. Following up I came upon this reddit thread. There has been ongoing research for some time related to the vagus nerve as the second comment in the thread indicated and this article posted earlier. Along the thread, I noticed this comment:
"[–]nigaraze 38 points
"[–]nigaraze 38 points
Monday, June 08, 2015
The Look of Silence
Joshua Oppenheimer: why I returned to Indonesia's killing fields:
"If Oppenheimer’s methods are provocative, so is his political message: that we in the west are an essential part of the horror, injustice and silence. Both the American and UK governments, he reminds us, sanctioned the mass killings of so-called communists in Indonesia in 1965 at the height of the cold war – “the UK was the biggest supplier of weapons”. When he drew attention to Britain’s role at the Baftas last year, the BBC, much to his dismay, removed the reference when it broadcast his speech.In The Look of Silence, he uncovers a long-lost late-60s NBC TV news broadcast from Indonesia in which the reporter praises the country’s beauty and celebrates the recent genocide as “the single biggest defeat handed to communists anywhere in the world”. It then cuts to footage of survivors held in a prison camp and forced to work “but this time as prisoners and at gunpoint”. The company they are working for as slave labour is Goodyear.
"If Oppenheimer’s methods are provocative, so is his political message: that we in the west are an essential part of the horror, injustice and silence. Both the American and UK governments, he reminds us, sanctioned the mass killings of so-called communists in Indonesia in 1965 at the height of the cold war – “the UK was the biggest supplier of weapons”. When he drew attention to Britain’s role at the Baftas last year, the BBC, much to his dismay, removed the reference when it broadcast his speech.In The Look of Silence, he uncovers a long-lost late-60s NBC TV news broadcast from Indonesia in which the reporter praises the country’s beauty and celebrates the recent genocide as “the single biggest defeat handed to communists anywhere in the world”. It then cuts to footage of survivors held in a prison camp and forced to work “but this time as prisoners and at gunpoint”. The company they are working for as slave labour is Goodyear.
“This was reported on US television in 1967,” says Oppenheimer. “Because of the lens of ideology, Americans did not perceive this as a replay of what happened commercially and industrially at Auschwitz. This is a profound stain on America’s claim to be a force for justice and democracy in the postwar world.”"
P.S. May be related: "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "Looking Away" by Harsh Mander
Two passages aboput Keynes from James Crotty's 1986 article
Marx, Keynes, and Minsky on the instability of the capitalist growth process and the nature of government economic policy
Keynes in 1933 “The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous-and it doesn’t deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it and are beginning to despise it”
"Keynes himself was quite class conscious and knew the class to which he owed allegiance. “I can be influenced by what seems to me to be justice and good sense,” he once argued, “but the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.” It was this fear of a radical working-class political movement that explains his interest in “semiautonomy” for the public authorities that were to direct investment and control capital flows in his new SSA. They were to operate under the guidance of an elite corps of upper-class intellectuals (such as himself) and were to be insulated to a significant degree from oversight by elected officials."
Keynes in 1933 “The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous-and it doesn’t deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it and are beginning to despise it”
"Keynes himself was quite class conscious and knew the class to which he owed allegiance. “I can be influenced by what seems to me to be justice and good sense,” he once argued, “but the class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.” It was this fear of a radical working-class political movement that explains his interest in “semiautonomy” for the public authorities that were to direct investment and control capital flows in his new SSA. They were to operate under the guidance of an elite corps of upper-class intellectuals (such as himself) and were to be insulated to a significant degree from oversight by elected officials."
Saturday, June 06, 2015
Anil Biswas and Meena Kapoor
via Arunkumar Deshmukh
Some of their songs together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--QlEWiDfVY&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amHWsE0LlqI&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcVY7nNFkYw
Thursday, June 04, 2015
This and that
1. One difference between Labour and Liberal governments in Victoria, Australia. My wife Jhansi sells some electronic stuff and some of the clients are schools. Whenever, there is a Labour government, school orders increase. This was our experience for about twenty years.
2. Boundary strategies. This is a story I heard from my friend Krishnaji long ago. His parents shared a mud wall with their neighbour. She would come around festival occasions to mend the wall with mud and cow dung and there very happy to let her do it. But after a few years, they found that the wall has moved to their side (apparently, she was thickening the wall on their side and scraping it on her side).
3. Australia is still a country for the underdog. Overwhelming response to story about homeless schoolgirl Alicia living under a bridge
4. Peasants and professors- Neo-liberalism and peasantry's distress from India. Some professors were in the pay commissions and I knew some of them.
5. In World's best run economy, house prices keep falling...
6. Wondering and watching: What we can learn from Fredrik Barth from Savage Minds
"Part of what he argued for at the RSA is today taken for granted. He was skeptical of «deep structures», be they social, cultural or mental, as found in Radcliffe-Brown, Geertz or Levi-Strauss. He was one of the most vocal – but not the first – to depart with the notion of culture as a bounded entity. It was, Barth argued, the processes of social life that should be understood, not its hardened form. What meaningful strategies do people follow? What set of concrete opportunities and limitations influence their behavior? And out of this, what aggregate phenomena emerge?
2. Boundary strategies. This is a story I heard from my friend Krishnaji long ago. His parents shared a mud wall with their neighbour. She would come around festival occasions to mend the wall with mud and cow dung and there very happy to let her do it. But after a few years, they found that the wall has moved to their side (apparently, she was thickening the wall on their side and scraping it on her side).
3. Australia is still a country for the underdog. Overwhelming response to story about homeless schoolgirl Alicia living under a bridge
4. Peasants and professors- Neo-liberalism and peasantry's distress from India. Some professors were in the pay commissions and I knew some of them.
5. In World's best run economy, house prices keep falling...
6. Wondering and watching: What we can learn from Fredrik Barth from Savage Minds
"Part of what he argued for at the RSA is today taken for granted. He was skeptical of «deep structures», be they social, cultural or mental, as found in Radcliffe-Brown, Geertz or Levi-Strauss. He was one of the most vocal – but not the first – to depart with the notion of culture as a bounded entity. It was, Barth argued, the processes of social life that should be understood, not its hardened form. What meaningful strategies do people follow? What set of concrete opportunities and limitations influence their behavior? And out of this, what aggregate phenomena emerge?
These ideas lay behind his introduction to Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1968), which was for years on the top 100 on the social science citation index. "
Interview with Fredrik Barth One hour video.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
On Mondragon
A manufacturer of equality (via Lambert Strether of Naked Capitalism):
"In the United States, top corporate execs sometimes make more in an hour than their workers can make in a year. At Mondragon, one of Spain’s largest companies, no execs can make more in an hour than their workers make in a day."
"In the United States, top corporate execs sometimes make more in an hour than their workers can make in a year. At Mondragon, one of Spain’s largest companies, no execs can make more in an hour than their workers make in a day."
Sumit Guha's "Beyond Caste"
In a crowded field, this book is being haile as a significant addition. I do not have access to the book and is too expensive to buy. Meanwhile here are two reviews of the book, the first by Tirthankar Roy: "It is, furthermore, a persuasive and a totally new way of thinking about a difficult subject, a truly significant achievement."
The second by Nathaniel Roberts says that it is the most important book on caste since Louis Dumont's book.
Some of Sumit Guha's articles can be downloaded from here and may give a flavour of the book.
The second by Nathaniel Roberts says that it is the most important book on caste since Louis Dumont's book.
Some of Sumit Guha's articles can be downloaded from here and may give a flavour of the book.
Tuesday, June 02, 2015
On Mumbai's street dwellers
Of no fixed address: Mumbai's street dwellers are nether beggars nor destitute (via Madhukar Shukla)
"Once night falls, the pavement is their home, intruded upon daily by the city that zips by. Mumbai’s street-dwellers are neither beggars nor destitute, but people who have taken a chance on the city, and are looking for a way out. "
"Once night falls, the pavement is their home, intruded upon daily by the city that zips by. Mumbai’s street-dwellers are neither beggars nor destitute, but people who have taken a chance on the city, and are looking for a way out. "
Cuban agricultural revolution
A recent article from Food Commision "Cuba's Food Production Revolution" starts with the 2006 documentary by Faith Morgan and says "An internet search for Vivero Organipónico Alamar brings up swathes of glowing articles. There is little doubt that it, and other farms like it, represent truly innovative and sustainable alternatives to the intensive, commercial, oil heavy agriculture that dominates much of the world. That said, Cuba still imports a massive 70% of its food. In 2008, Cuba spent $2.2 billion on food imports including $700 million on rice and beans and $250 million on powdered milk................
That said, Cuban food production continues to increase. Reuters recently reported that Cuban rice production increased by 44.6% from 2008 to 2009, from 207,500 to 300,000 tonnes. Since Raul Castro took over as president from his brother Fidel in 2008 the state has increased what it pays for crops; decentralised agricultural decision making and distribution; and leased 50% of vacant state lands to 100,000 individuals and private and state co-operative farms. Investment continues in agricultural alternatives to fossil fuelled farming. State run Cuban national newspaperGranma International reported in May that the production of bio-pesticides saved the Cuban economy $15 million annually.
Part of the state’s strategy to increase food production also includes the development of genetically modified (GM) crops. Cuban developed GM corn has been planted across an area that totals over 1,000 hectares across 14 provinces. The objective for the corn was to develop a variety that is resistant to the palomilla moth. According to Granma International, the corn has been developed under strict measures of biosecurity and subjected to rigorous eco-toxicologic studies.
I asked a young Cuban academic if he was concerned about the biodiversity implications of planting GM crops. He told me: “No. The main problem with GM crops in other parts of the world is their development and ownership by multi-national companies. In Cuba that won’t be a problem.”
Cuba’s embracing of GM seems less likely to sit as well with environmentalists as its organic production methods. It does not quite fit with the slightly romanticised image of Cuba presented by Morgan’s film. It can perhaps be seen as symptomatic of an intensely pragmatic and very Cuban approach to food production that will certainly be watched with interest by the rest of the world."
IMF report on fuel subsidies .
is out with several commentaries which contradict each other. Here is the link to their website with links to a video and their blogs Global Energy subsidies: An update. Their subsidies include (which is most of the 5.3 trillion dollars mentioned) the so called externalities like damage to environment and health now and in future and also more controversially comparison with other GST type taxes. The worst offenders are USA, China, Russia and India. Their solution is hike in fuel prices which will fall on consumers. Contrary to what some articles claim, they are aware of the affect on the poor and say
"While energy subsidy reform is clearly beneficial from the view of the entire society, there are potentially important distributional issues as the fiscal and environmental benefits and the welfare loss from consumption reduction may accrue to different segments of the population. For example, most of environmental benefits may go to urban populations. This creates winners and losers from energy subsidy reform, which can introduce major obstacles to achieving energy subsidy reform. In addition, energy subsidy reform should protect the poor and vulnerable, making sure their well-being is not adversely affected. The proper use of the fiscal gain would be crucial in addressing this issue as well as the overall distributional impact of reform benefits. " Page 31 ofhttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15105.pdf
I have only browsed through the report and have to go through it more carefully. On the whole, it seems comprehensive model to follow and improve on. Here are some commentaries from Vox, and Tim Worstall at Forbes. Nicholas Stern Says in an artcle in The Guardian "While the IMF’s figures are eyewateringly large, they are, if anything, conservative because they are based on low estimates of the costs of climate change from the US government, which tends to omit many of the largest risks. While the IMF offers a regional breakdown, there are no figures for individual countries."
From an earlier article by Puneet Kollipara in The Washington Post "Calculating a policy’s benefits, on the other hand, can be tougher. We’re talking about avoided deaths, avoided illnesses, as well as the aesthetic value of cleaner air. We can get a sense of how many fewer illnesses and deaths a policy might yield — at least for the pollutants we know a lot about. But how do you quantify the dollar value of those benefits so you can weigh them against costs? How do you put a dollar figure on a human life, or on the economic productivity gains and health-care savings from one less heart attack, or on the aesthetic value of cleaner air? It’s not a straightforward task at all, as many scholars have pointed out." and also discusses the political problems.
"While energy subsidy reform is clearly beneficial from the view of the entire society, there are potentially important distributional issues as the fiscal and environmental benefits and the welfare loss from consumption reduction may accrue to different segments of the population. For example, most of environmental benefits may go to urban populations. This creates winners and losers from energy subsidy reform, which can introduce major obstacles to achieving energy subsidy reform. In addition, energy subsidy reform should protect the poor and vulnerable, making sure their well-being is not adversely affected. The proper use of the fiscal gain would be crucial in addressing this issue as well as the overall distributional impact of reform benefits. " Page 31 ofhttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15105.pdf
I have only browsed through the report and have to go through it more carefully. On the whole, it seems comprehensive model to follow and improve on. Here are some commentaries from Vox, and Tim Worstall at Forbes. Nicholas Stern Says in an artcle in The Guardian "While the IMF’s figures are eyewateringly large, they are, if anything, conservative because they are based on low estimates of the costs of climate change from the US government, which tends to omit many of the largest risks. While the IMF offers a regional breakdown, there are no figures for individual countries."
From an earlier article by Puneet Kollipara in The Washington Post "Calculating a policy’s benefits, on the other hand, can be tougher. We’re talking about avoided deaths, avoided illnesses, as well as the aesthetic value of cleaner air. We can get a sense of how many fewer illnesses and deaths a policy might yield — at least for the pollutants we know a lot about. But how do you quantify the dollar value of those benefits so you can weigh them against costs? How do you put a dollar figure on a human life, or on the economic productivity gains and health-care savings from one less heart attack, or on the aesthetic value of cleaner air? It’s not a straightforward task at all, as many scholars have pointed out." and also discusses the political problems.
Monday, June 01, 2015
Two interesting articles on health
By 1973, I was suffering from stomach problems probably triggered by my mother's death in 1967. I was 32, evenings were getting longer and it seemed be time to marry and settle down. I asked the doctor I was visiting whether I was fit for marriage. He said that if I kept looking at my little finger and keep thinking that it would wither away, it would probably wither away and he said that there was nothing very wrong with me and that I could marry. I did in December 1973 and I was in Switzerland next year on a research fellowship and stayed on for ten months until the middle of 1975. That was six months longer than I expected and I ran out of the medicines I took for my stomach problems. I did not know what to do and somehow did not make the effort to see a doctor in a new country and stopped taking the medicine. But nothing happened and I did not have to take medicines for stomach problems again until ten years ago where again I took some medicine for reflux for a few months. I was reminded of those incidents while reading the following articles.
Hacking the nervous system by Gaia Vince "However the technology develops, our understanding of how the body manages disease has changed for ever. “It’s become increasingly clear that we can’t see organ systems in isolation, like we did in the past,” says Paul-Peter Tak. “We just looked at the immune system and therefore we have medicines that target the immune system.
“But it’s very clear that the human is one entity: mind and body are one. It sounds logical but it’s not how we looked at it before. We didn’t have the science to agree with what may seem intuitive. Now we have new data and new insights.”"
The truth about psychosomatic illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan. These are extracts from fer book "It’s All In Your Head"
Hacking the nervous system by Gaia Vince "However the technology develops, our understanding of how the body manages disease has changed for ever. “It’s become increasingly clear that we can’t see organ systems in isolation, like we did in the past,” says Paul-Peter Tak. “We just looked at the immune system and therefore we have medicines that target the immune system.
“But it’s very clear that the human is one entity: mind and body are one. It sounds logical but it’s not how we looked at it before. We didn’t have the science to agree with what may seem intuitive. Now we have new data and new insights.”"
The truth about psychosomatic illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan. These are extracts from fer book "It’s All In Your Head"
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Some economics ideas from India
This is probably the most familiar but it seems to have started with a Britisher:
The myth of self-sufficiency of the Indian village by M.N.Srinivas and A.N. Shaw (1960 EPW)
The next about Gandhi says his ideas kept evolving and he is closer to Marx except for the methods:
Five myths about Gandhian economics by Koipillai Joseph: ""As a rule, whenever there seem to be conflicting pronouncements of Gandhi on any subject, the chronologically latest one is the idea that should be attributed to him...... He was not only a firm believer in socialism, but his socialism is of a very radical kind. He sometimes referred to himself as a foremost communist. His disagreement with the Marxists and communists was not about the end to be sought about which he had no quarrel with them but about the means to be adopted for the attainment of the goals of communism. "
Ambedkar: the forgotten free market economist
Gadgil on Indian economics A review of the selected writings of D.R. Gadgil (1901-1971) "The economy was, for him, always in “a traverse from a traverse to a traverse.” His objective then was to indicate policy initiatives that could be effective in this process of continuing change. His scepticism about the value of theoretical models led to a focus on empirical micro pictures, which, in turn, led to an emphasis on local solutions, as reflected, for example, in his faith in the cooperative movement."
The myth of self-sufficiency of the Indian village by M.N.Srinivas and A.N. Shaw (1960 EPW)
The next about Gandhi says his ideas kept evolving and he is closer to Marx except for the methods:
Five myths about Gandhian economics by Koipillai Joseph: ""As a rule, whenever there seem to be conflicting pronouncements of Gandhi on any subject, the chronologically latest one is the idea that should be attributed to him...... He was not only a firm believer in socialism, but his socialism is of a very radical kind. He sometimes referred to himself as a foremost communist. His disagreement with the Marxists and communists was not about the end to be sought about which he had no quarrel with them but about the means to be adopted for the attainment of the goals of communism. "
Ambedkar: the forgotten free market economist
Gadgil on Indian economics A review of the selected writings of D.R. Gadgil (1901-1971) "The economy was, for him, always in “a traverse from a traverse to a traverse.” His objective then was to indicate policy initiatives that could be effective in this process of continuing change. His scepticism about the value of theoretical models led to a focus on empirical micro pictures, which, in turn, led to an emphasis on local solutions, as reflected, for example, in his faith in the cooperative movement."
Friday, May 29, 2015
Two from Michael Hudson
Fast Track for whom? (via Naked Capitalism) : "So the attempt--there's a belief among most Americans who read the paper that somehow if you sign this agreement it's just about freer trade, and all of our existing laws would remain on the books, both for us and for Malaysia and Japan and other countries. But that's not the case. They don't realize that the agreement is to essentially pass, nullify any law on the book that doesn't benefit corporations or benefits labor."
Ukraine's "Operation Vulture" and Labor Protests
Ukraine's "Operation Vulture" and Labor Protests
Ramarao Kanneganti (also Lambert Strether) link to an article on water problems and farm subsidies in the west of USA Holy Crop: How federal dollars are financing the water crisis in the west. Lambert Strether's reaction:
"Interesting read on “Killing the Colorado”:
"Interesting read on “Killing the Colorado”:
Growing cotton in the desert, long term, may be doomed.
Ya think? But it seems to me that the entire venture of setting up huge cities in the desert may have issues of its own. And to my taste, the theme of the Pro Publica article is a bit too close to “market distortions caused by evil government” for my taste, as if somehow Big Gummint forced people to live in the habitat they in fact systematically optimized for their own lifestyle and profit. Maybe water should be managed as a common pool resource, and not private property at all?"
Ramarao's reaction "The problem is that the current policies are holdover from the great depression era. Once we create an entitlement program, it is tough to take it away. Just like how the government did not pull the plug on Detroit car industry in the 70's that prolonged the misery (if it put in the money to do the transition, it would have been better). The current agricultural policies in the US often do not make sense."
These subsidies also figure in the Bali Bali package which India fought hard to dilute. Finally, it seems to a program that outlived its useful and in the current conditions seems to be detrimental to all.
P.S. A long report from the Congress of the US Congressional Budget Office notes the relation of aid to trade.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
China on the march
New Silk Road could change global economics forever from Oil Drum by Robert Berke.
COntinuation:
How the new China's Silk Road is shifting geopolitics by Robert Yerke, discussion in Naked Capitalism
Yves Smith about TPP which seems to more about containing China America's first black president throwing slaves under the bus on TPP
COntinuation:
How the new China's Silk Road is shifting geopolitics by Robert Yerke, discussion in Naked Capitalism
Yves Smith about TPP which seems to more about containing China America's first black president throwing slaves under the bus on TPP
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Two from Chris Blattman
From 15th May, IPA Weekly links:
"
"
- A new IPA/J-PAL six-country randomized controlled trial looking at the ultra-poor (people living on less than what $1.25 would buy in the US, about 1 in 7 people worldwide), was published in Science. The Graduation approach offers six things:
- A “productive asset” (way to make a living, livestock, or goods to start a store, or beehives to make honey)
- Training on how to use it
- Basic health support to keep them healthy enough to work
- “Consumption support” – some cash or food for daily living while they’re learning to use the asset
- Weekly visits from a coach for 2 years to help them overcome obstacles and raise aspirations
- A savings account to help them build a buffer for future expenses
The researchers found benefits across the board, and scale-ups are happening in Ethiopia, India, and Pakistan. Study here (ungated), and more on the Graduation approach from NPR and the New York Times Fixes."
And from 26th May The geek heretic : One of the ideas in the book is that technology takes us only as far as our capabilities. A nice quote from Bill Gates sums it up:
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an
efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
Monday, May 25, 2015
John Nash RIP
Obituary from The Guardian
From another obituary Economics in one lesson: Nash:
"he concept that makes an economist a true economist is instead Nash equilibrium. That is, it is the marginal contribution of an economist to any situation. The idea is simple: if you are trying to assess the impact of your actions, you need to consider the equilibrium. That is, you need to work out whether, if you did something, holding the actions of others fixed today, that others will likely keep their actions fixed tomorrow. If not, you need to alter your decision calculus markedly. For instance, it makes no sense to say that a new innovation (e.g., Bitcoin) will win in the market unless you can also assess that it will win in a market that understands the new innovation (e.g., one where many actors have adopted crypocurrencies or some other variant) as well as in a market still centred around traditional banking.
Perhaps the most useful thing about game theory is that it requires you to think carefully about decision problems. The discipline of this kind of analysis is valuable, even if the models have limited applicability to real situations."
From another obituary Economics in one lesson: Nash:
"he concept that makes an economist a true economist is instead Nash equilibrium. That is, it is the marginal contribution of an economist to any situation. The idea is simple: if you are trying to assess the impact of your actions, you need to consider the equilibrium. That is, you need to work out whether, if you did something, holding the actions of others fixed today, that others will likely keep their actions fixed tomorrow. If not, you need to alter your decision calculus markedly. For instance, it makes no sense to say that a new innovation (e.g., Bitcoin) will win in the market unless you can also assess that it will win in a market that understands the new innovation (e.g., one where many actors have adopted crypocurrencies or some other variant) as well as in a market still centred around traditional banking.
Indeed, even opportunity cost can be rarely computed without working out the full equilibrium of a path not taken. This is why, if I were to re-write Economics in One Lesson, it is Nash equilibrium that would be the lesson and not opportunity cost."
From a post Steven Hsu in 2011 What use is game theory?:
"I agree with Rubinstein that game theory has little predictive power in the real world, despite the pretty mathematics. Experiments at RAND (see, e.g., Mirowski's Machine Dreams) showed early game theorists, including Nash, that people don't conform to the idealizations in their models. But this wasn't emphasized (Mirowski would claim it was deliberately hushed up) until more and more experiments showed similar results. (Who woulda thought -- people are "irrational"! :-)
Perhaps the most useful thing about game theory is that it requires you to think carefully about decision problems. The discipline of this kind of analysis is valuable, even if the models have limited applicability to real situations."
Steven Hsu's obituary talks of one of Nash's profound contributions to mathematics.
One of the comments "I use game theory (potential games, specifically) to design distributed algorithms where multiple AIs interact with one another. It allows me to bound convergence time, guarantee stability, and predict operating points.
One of the comments "I use game theory (potential games, specifically) to design distributed algorithms where multiple AIs interact with one another. It allows me to bound convergence time, guarantee stability, and predict operating points.
That it is applied to machine intelligence instead of human intelligence is critical as I'm assured that the utility functions that I'm modeling are exactly the utility functions being used to guide the decisions."
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Links 24/5/2015
India should make more of a valuable asset abroad from The Economist but it is a double edged sword I think.
Japan and China play one-upmanship over the AIIB from Asia Times
Brics to establish new multi-currency financial order-experts to RT
Brics trample US in South America from RT
Borders are closing and banks in retreat. Is globalisation dead? from The Guardian
The West and IS Similar reports in several places.
Some of the links above are via The Automatic Earth
Saudi Arabia seeking to head the United Nations Human Rights Council from The Independent
How to motivate your kids from skipping school? (via Anirban Mukhopadhay): "It seems like a no-brainer: Offer kids a reward for showing up at school, and their attendance will shoot up. But a recent study of third-graders in a slum in India suggests that incentive schemes can do more harm than good."
Gulzar Natarajan reports on recent research Broken Windows Theory and Public Policy
France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities (via Rahul Siddharthan)
The news from Britain was a bit different last year.
Japan and China play one-upmanship over the AIIB from Asia Times
Brics to establish new multi-currency financial order-experts to RT
Brics trample US in South America from RT
Borders are closing and banks in retreat. Is globalisation dead? from The Guardian
The West and IS Similar reports in several places.
Some of the links above are via The Automatic Earth
Saudi Arabia seeking to head the United Nations Human Rights Council from The Independent
How to motivate your kids from skipping school? (via Anirban Mukhopadhay): "It seems like a no-brainer: Offer kids a reward for showing up at school, and their attendance will shoot up. But a recent study of third-graders in a slum in India suggests that incentive schemes can do more harm than good."
Gulzar Natarajan reports on recent research Broken Windows Theory and Public Policy
France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities (via Rahul Siddharthan)
The news from Britain was a bit different last year.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Some interesting reads
Anatomy of Error, about brain surgeon Henry Marsh from NewYorker
A plea for culinary modernism. Jacobin draws attention a 14 year old article
How spelling keeps kids from learning (about English)
George Yeo's book introduction to his speeches (Former Foreign Affairs minister of Singapore via Akshay Regulagedda)
This is what happens after you die via Lambert Strether of Naked Capitalism
NASA Guide to Air-Filtering Plants via Lambert Strether
Slum squeeze for Melbourne overseas students
Gender and the Harvard Math Department by Meena Bopanna, granddaughter of people I know from USA who are contribute to a lot of social work in India through Hope for Humanity.
A plea for culinary modernism. Jacobin draws attention a 14 year old article
How spelling keeps kids from learning (about English)
George Yeo's book introduction to his speeches (Former Foreign Affairs minister of Singapore via Akshay Regulagedda)
This is what happens after you die via Lambert Strether of Naked Capitalism
NASA Guide to Air-Filtering Plants via Lambert Strether
Slum squeeze for Melbourne overseas students
Gender and the Harvard Math Department by Meena Bopanna, granddaughter of people I know from USA who are contribute to a lot of social work in India through Hope for Humanity.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Elizabeth Warren on TPP
ELIZABETH WARREN: I've joined with Senator Heitkamp, Senator Manchin and a number of other senators to propose a simple change to the fast-track bill, a change that would prevent Congress from using this expedited process on any trade deal that includes so-called investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, and I come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
ISDS is an obscure process that allows big companies to go to corporate-friendly arbitration panels that sit outside any court system in order to challenge laws they don't like.
These panels can force taxpayers to write huge checks to those big corporations with no need to file a suit in court, no appeals and no judicial review. Now, most Americans don't think that the minimum wage or anti-smoking regulations are trade barriers, but a foreign corporation used ISDS to sue Egypt after Egypt raised its minimum wage.
Tobacco giant Philip Morris went after Australia and Uruguay to stop their rules to cut smoking rates.
Under TPP, corporations can use these channels to challenge rules right here in America.
It wasn't always this way. ISDS has been around for a while. From 1959 to 2002 there were fewer than a hundred claims in the whole world. But boy, has that changed. In 2012 alone there were 58 corporate cases. Corporate lawyers figured out how powerful a tool these panels can be for corporate clients.
Huge financial penalties that these cases can impose on taxpayers have already caused New Zealand to give up on some tough anti-smoking rules. It's already caused Germany to pull back from clean water protections. And it's caused Canada to stand down on environmental protections.
If that worries you, you're not alone.
Michael Wessel: I've read Obama's secret trade deal. Elizabeth Warren is right to be concerned:
"The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you.
ISDS is an obscure process that allows big companies to go to corporate-friendly arbitration panels that sit outside any court system in order to challenge laws they don't like.
These panels can force taxpayers to write huge checks to those big corporations with no need to file a suit in court, no appeals and no judicial review. Now, most Americans don't think that the minimum wage or anti-smoking regulations are trade barriers, but a foreign corporation used ISDS to sue Egypt after Egypt raised its minimum wage.
Tobacco giant Philip Morris went after Australia and Uruguay to stop their rules to cut smoking rates.
Under TPP, corporations can use these channels to challenge rules right here in America.
It wasn't always this way. ISDS has been around for a while. From 1959 to 2002 there were fewer than a hundred claims in the whole world. But boy, has that changed. In 2012 alone there were 58 corporate cases. Corporate lawyers figured out how powerful a tool these panels can be for corporate clients.
Huge financial penalties that these cases can impose on taxpayers have already caused New Zealand to give up on some tough anti-smoking rules. It's already caused Germany to pull back from clean water protections. And it's caused Canada to stand down on environmental protections.
If that worries you, you're not alone.
Michael Wessel: I've read Obama's secret trade deal. Elizabeth Warren is right to be concerned:
"The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you.
I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal. We should be very concerned about what's hidden in this trade deal—and particularly how the Obama administration is keeping information secret even from those of us who are supposed to provide advice.......................
The text of the TPP, like all trade deals, is a closely guarded secret. That fact makes a genuine public debate impossible and should make robust debate behind closed doors all the more essential. But the ability of TPP critics like me to point out the deal’s many failings is limited by the government’s surprising and unprecedented refusal to make revisions to the language in the TPP fully available to cleared advisors."Discussions of mathiness of economics
Peter Dorman in Econospeak (where there are many more posts recently on the topic):
"Paul Romer’s eruption against mathiness has been quite a spectacle. Here you have an iconic name in modern economic theory throwing a fit in public, naming names (some of them also iconic) and denouncing his adversaries as enemies of scientific and ethical norms. It’s a bit over the top, a bit overdue and a bit underconsidered.
I want to focus on the underconsidered part. I was alerted to this aspect of Romer’soriginal paper by his sideswipes at Joan Robinson and the UK faction of the Cambridge capital controversy. Now, it happens that I take a middle position on this dispute: I think they were both in some sense wrong. The British Cantabrigians, along with their Italian comrades, were arguing from a model whose equilibrium assumption (equal rates of profit in all processes) is meaningless, in a mathiness sense, in an intertemporal context. (If you think Lucas rational expectations is a stretch, Sraffa rational expectations is even crazier.) But the MITers were also defending an aggregation of physical capital and its equivalence to a sum of financial capital that was also shown to be mathy—see here and here. Romer’s attack on Robinson was signaling that a double standard was at work."
"Paul Romer’s eruption against mathiness has been quite a spectacle. Here you have an iconic name in modern economic theory throwing a fit in public, naming names (some of them also iconic) and denouncing his adversaries as enemies of scientific and ethical norms. It’s a bit over the top, a bit overdue and a bit underconsidered.
I want to focus on the underconsidered part. I was alerted to this aspect of Romer’soriginal paper by his sideswipes at Joan Robinson and the UK faction of the Cambridge capital controversy. Now, it happens that I take a middle position on this dispute: I think they were both in some sense wrong. The British Cantabrigians, along with their Italian comrades, were arguing from a model whose equilibrium assumption (equal rates of profit in all processes) is meaningless, in a mathiness sense, in an intertemporal context. (If you think Lucas rational expectations is a stretch, Sraffa rational expectations is even crazier.) But the MITers were also defending an aggregation of physical capital and its equivalence to a sum of financial capital that was also shown to be mathy—see here and here. Romer’s attack on Robinson was signaling that a double standard was at work."
The second link at the end is to an expensive book, but it is available for free download at http://jesusfelipe.com/cat1 A shorter version in a 2014 paper The Aggregate Production Function 'Not Even Wrong'. A quote
"The “aggregate production function” Solow diffidentlyintroduces (he is not really diffident: he is pretending to be for rhetorical effect) says the making of our daily bread is like a mathematical function’ (McCloskey,1998, p. 48). Put like this, it seems incredible that a function with only two arguments, K and L, together with a shift factor, can adequately represent the total output of an economy."
That is similar to my reaction as an outsider when I first came across Solow Model. See also The superiority of Economics by M.Fourcade and others as to how the profession came to be dominant in spite of dubious foundations of some of the main areas in it.
Seth Ackerman in his review of Piketty also praised the book and some of the difficulties in Piketty's book seem to be due to using these dubious methods in theory parts.
One more from Econospeak 'Napoleon Solow and the Phantom Mechanism'.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Some Indians who were 20 in 1967 and a follow up
(via Madhukar Shukla) The follow up Midnight's grown-ups in 2015.
Films Division from 1967:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTkvs1LNu5A&feature=youtu.be
Films Division from 1967:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTkvs1LNu5A&feature=youtu.be
Monday, May 18, 2015
Similar songs different music directors
That was 1955 Telugu movie and was either remade in Hindi as Jaisingh (1959). This time, it was sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Usha Mangeshkar and the MD is Ramesh Naidu.
Jogendra Nath Mandal
The Outlook article by S. Anand linked in the previous post leads to the first law minister of Pakistan Jogendranath Mandal, a follower of Ambedkar. According to Wikipedia "As leader of the Scheduled Castes, Jogendranath had made common cause with the Muslim League in their demand[citation needed] for Pakistan, hoping that the Scheduled Castes would be benefited from it and joined the first cabinet in Pakistan as the Minister of Law and Labour. He migrated to India a few years after partition after submitting his resignation to Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan."
Here is a copy of Mandal's resignation letter from October 1950 to the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan. It is long but gives a glimpse of those times. It seems that Mandal too was shafted like B. Ambedkar.
Here is a copy of Mandal's resignation letter from October 1950 to the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan. It is long but gives a glimpse of those times. It seems that Mandal too was shafted like B. Ambedkar.
Another Nehru-Ambedkar interaction
From S.Anand in scroll.in and in Outlookindia:
"Let us begin at the end, with one of the worst humiliations in Ambedkar’s life, less than three months before his death. On September 14, 1956, exactly a month before he embraced Buddhism with half-a-million followers in Nagpur, he wrote a heart-breaking letter to prime minister Nehru from his 26, Alipore Road, residence in Delhi. Enclosing two copies of the comprehensive Table of Contents of his mnemonic opus, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar suppressed pride and sought Nehru’s help in the publication of a book he had worked on for five years:
"Let us begin at the end, with one of the worst humiliations in Ambedkar’s life, less than three months before his death. On September 14, 1956, exactly a month before he embraced Buddhism with half-a-million followers in Nagpur, he wrote a heart-breaking letter to prime minister Nehru from his 26, Alipore Road, residence in Delhi. Enclosing two copies of the comprehensive Table of Contents of his mnemonic opus, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar suppressed pride and sought Nehru’s help in the publication of a book he had worked on for five years:
“The cost of printing is very heavy and will come to about Rs 20,000. This is beyond my capacity, and I am, therefore, canvassing help from all quarters. I wonder if the Government of India could purchase 500 copies for distribution among the various libraries and among the many scholars whom it is inviting during the course of this year for the celebration of Buddha’s 2,500 years’ anniversary.”Ambedkar had perhaps gotten used to exclusion by then. The greatest exponent of Buddhism after Asoka had ruthlessly been kept out of this Buddha Jayanti committee presided over by S. Radhakrishnan, then vice-president and a man who embarrassingly believed that Buddhism was an “offshoot of Hinduism”, and “only a restatement of the thought of the Upanishads from a new standpoint”. Worse, when Nehru replied to Ambedkar the next day, he said that the sum set aside for publications related to Buddha Jayanti had been exhausted, and that he should approach Radhakrishnan, chairman of the commemorative committee. Nehru also offered some business advice, gratuitously: “I might suggest that your books might be on sale in Delhi and elsewhere at the time of Buddha Jayanti celebrations when many people may come from abroad. It might find a good sale then.” Radhakrishnan is said to have informed Ambedkar on phone about his inability to help him."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)