by Andrew Sullivan Why I Blog (via Chris Blattman). One aspect of blogging:
"A good blog is your own private Wikipedia."
A recent entry in Andrew Sullivan's Blog:
Why He's Winning.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
SciDev.net summary of three articles on looming food crisis
Answers to the food crisis:
"Joachim von Braun, director-general of IFPRI, discusses high priority policy responses including: expanding emergency responses and humanitarian aid; freezing biofuel production; eradicating export bans and investing in rural infrastructure and agricultural research. These changes must be incorporated on a global scale, von Braun says, possibly led by the UN and major groups of developing country players.
Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), discusses WFP activities, including their food-for-assets programme used to train local populations, school feeding for around 20 million children and disaster-preparedness activities including canal-building and river bed restoration. Sheeran calls for more agricultural research and higher investment across the value chain.
Namanga Ngongi, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, discusses the policy implications of high food prices for Africa. Policies are needed, he says, to create sustainable food production driven by advances in productivity rather than by expansion of cultivated area.
He calls for focused plant-breeding efforts on staple food crops that include training for plant breeders. He highlights the need for better fertiliser procurement practices and increased African fertiliser production, and calls for an improvement in both financial services and infrastructure."
Link to the articles.
"Joachim von Braun, director-general of IFPRI, discusses high priority policy responses including: expanding emergency responses and humanitarian aid; freezing biofuel production; eradicating export bans and investing in rural infrastructure and agricultural research. These changes must be incorporated on a global scale, von Braun says, possibly led by the UN and major groups of developing country players.
Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), discusses WFP activities, including their food-for-assets programme used to train local populations, school feeding for around 20 million children and disaster-preparedness activities including canal-building and river bed restoration. Sheeran calls for more agricultural research and higher investment across the value chain.
Namanga Ngongi, president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, discusses the policy implications of high food prices for Africa. Policies are needed, he says, to create sustainable food production driven by advances in productivity rather than by expansion of cultivated area.
He calls for focused plant-breeding efforts on staple food crops that include training for plant breeders. He highlights the need for better fertiliser procurement practices and increased African fertiliser production, and calls for an improvement in both financial services and infrastructure."
Link to the articles.
Some links to questions I had
except that I do not understand the answers well.
'Keep things in cash' says Roubini in Roubini on CNBC .
It is more Minsky than Marx says a Marxist in Marx: less relevant.
Brad Setser in The end of Bretton Woods 2?:
"...Bretton Woods 2, as it evolved, hinged both on the willingness of foreign central banks to take the currency risk associated with lending to the US at low rates in dollars despite the United States large current account deficit AND the willingness of private financial intermediaries to take the credit risk associated with lending at low rates to highly-indebted US households.
The second leg of the chain collapsed before the first. And it collapse looks set to deliver a nasty shock to everyone – including the countries that supply the US with vendor financing."
And Yves Smith develops that theme in Bretton Woods 2, R.I.P.
Dani Rodrik goes back to Tobin Some old wisdom from Jim Tobin:
"The proposal is an internationally uniform tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another, proportional to the size of the transaction." and asks "How about generalizing this idea to all securities transactions, domestic as well as international? If leverage--short-term debt--is a big part of the problem, isn't taxing it an important part of the solution?"
And finally New York Times has a special section Credit Crisis — The Essentials.
P.S. In the comments section of Chris Dillow's post "Marx:Less Relevant", Noah disagrees taking his cue from this quote of Marx:
"The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit."
'Keep things in cash' says Roubini in Roubini on CNBC .
It is more Minsky than Marx says a Marxist in Marx: less relevant.
Brad Setser in The end of Bretton Woods 2?:
"...Bretton Woods 2, as it evolved, hinged both on the willingness of foreign central banks to take the currency risk associated with lending to the US at low rates in dollars despite the United States large current account deficit AND the willingness of private financial intermediaries to take the credit risk associated with lending at low rates to highly-indebted US households.
The second leg of the chain collapsed before the first. And it collapse looks set to deliver a nasty shock to everyone – including the countries that supply the US with vendor financing."
And Yves Smith develops that theme in Bretton Woods 2, R.I.P.
Dani Rodrik goes back to Tobin Some old wisdom from Jim Tobin:
"The proposal is an internationally uniform tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another, proportional to the size of the transaction." and asks "How about generalizing this idea to all securities transactions, domestic as well as international? If leverage--short-term debt--is a big part of the problem, isn't taxing it an important part of the solution?"
And finally New York Times has a special section Credit Crisis — The Essentials.
P.S. In the comments section of Chris Dillow's post "Marx:Less Relevant", Noah disagrees taking his cue from this quote of Marx:
"The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit."
Recent letter from a cousin
"Recently we entertained Dr. Narisetti Innaiah, a writer and humanist from Andhra, at our house. We met him a few years ago in Washington D.C.
During our conversation he mentioned that he knew uncle VeeraRaghavayya (your father) well and inquired if any one has copies of his speeches and writings. If you have any, he would like copies of them."
It seems that I have some backgound. Unfortunately I do not have any of the copies.
P.S. Wikipedia entry on Narisetti Innaiah.
He blogs at
Narla V.R. in English, and
నా ప్రపంచం in Telugu.
During our conversation he mentioned that he knew uncle VeeraRaghavayya (your father) well and inquired if any one has copies of his speeches and writings. If you have any, he would like copies of them."
It seems that I have some backgound. Unfortunately I do not have any of the copies.
P.S. Wikipedia entry on Narisetti Innaiah.
He blogs at
Narla V.R. in English, and
నా ప్రపంచం in Telugu.
Monday, October 20, 2008
What if he is a muslim?
says Colin Powell:
"Mr. Powell mentioned Mr. Khan’s death to underscore why he was deeply troubled by Republican personal attacks on Mr. Obama, especially false intimations that he was Muslim.
Mr. Obama is a lifelong Christian, not a Muslim, he said. But, he added, “The really right answer is, what if he is?”
“Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country? No, that’s not America,” he said."
And from The Huffington Post:
"Powell also spoke passionately against the insinuations by some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim.
"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.""
"Mr. Powell mentioned Mr. Khan’s death to underscore why he was deeply troubled by Republican personal attacks on Mr. Obama, especially false intimations that he was Muslim.
Mr. Obama is a lifelong Christian, not a Muslim, he said. But, he added, “The really right answer is, what if he is?”
“Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country? No, that’s not America,” he said."
And from The Huffington Post:
"Powell also spoke passionately against the insinuations by some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim.
"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.""
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Home miscellany
I used to blow the dust away from the sides of my house thanks to a blower given by one of daughters as a birthday present. Today I found that I was out of potting mix and decided to collect as a substitute the dirt and leaves from one side of the house. It filled about seven medium size pots. I started wondering about the depletion of topsoil if this much cams from a small portion of an enclosed garden. There seem to be many warnings about the dangers of the depletion starting of with
with this one from Wikipedia.
Meanwhile my son bought a flat and moved out. He always seemed phlegmatic but my wife said that he was excited when he entered his own flat. He is the first one in our family without a degree so far. In class 7, he found that the mathes teacher was making mistakes and when he pointed them out, they were given lots of home work. Since I myself fought with my father to study what I wanted, I did not try to guide him. Very early he decided that degrees were not needed to make money and started making money on ebay and poker. He gives money when I ask for charities.I hope that he will find some thing more interesting than making money. One more child to go and grand children started arriving and there does not seem to be any respite from cleaning and cooking.
with this one from Wikipedia.
Meanwhile my son bought a flat and moved out. He always seemed phlegmatic but my wife said that he was excited when he entered his own flat. He is the first one in our family without a degree so far. In class 7, he found that the mathes teacher was making mistakes and when he pointed them out, they were given lots of home work. Since I myself fought with my father to study what I wanted, I did not try to guide him. Very early he decided that degrees were not needed to make money and started making money on ebay and poker. He gives money when I ask for charities.I hope that he will find some thing more interesting than making money. One more child to go and grand children started arriving and there does not seem to be any respite from cleaning and cooking.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Razib says
in comment 34 of Communal Violence in Orissa: Trying to Get a Balanced PictureNews:
"the proper response to evangelical obnoxiousness coupled with material inducements is to offer mainstream hindu outreach with material inducements."
Sounds sensible to me. He also says in comment 71 "btw, you do know that muslims in indonesia can convert to christianity and hinduism, right? hundreds of thousands of javanese muslims converted to hinduism afte 1965." A quick google check confirms that conversion to Hinduism have been taking place in Indonesia.
Razib Khan blogs at Gene Expression and Gene Expression Classic on Evolution and Genetics. I occasionally read the posts like his recent rebuttal of Steve Jones view that evolution has stopped in humans. If he has any views on fast evolution views of John Hawkes of which there is a recent exposition in the Seed Magazine article How we evolve,I missed them. He seems to be one of the most erudite bloggers to come out of the subcontinent.
"the proper response to evangelical obnoxiousness coupled with material inducements is to offer mainstream hindu outreach with material inducements."
Sounds sensible to me. He also says in comment 71 "btw, you do know that muslims in indonesia can convert to christianity and hinduism, right? hundreds of thousands of javanese muslims converted to hinduism afte 1965." A quick google check confirms that conversion to Hinduism have been taking place in Indonesia.
Razib Khan blogs at Gene Expression and Gene Expression Classic on Evolution and Genetics. I occasionally read the posts like his recent rebuttal of Steve Jones view that evolution has stopped in humans. If he has any views on fast evolution views of John Hawkes of which there is a recent exposition in the Seed Magazine article How we evolve,I missed them. He seems to be one of the most erudite bloggers to come out of the subcontinent.
Memo to self
Papers to read (non-technical parts):
1) George A. Akerlof and Paul M.Romer: Looting:The Economy of Bankruptcy for Profit, Brooking Papers on Economic Activity, 1993
2)T.F. Hellmann, K.C. Murdoch,and J.E.Stiglitz: Liberalization, Moral Hazard in Banking, and Prudential Regulation: Are Capital Requirements Enough?, The American Economic Review, 2000
3) M.Bordo and others: Is Crisis Problem Growing?. Economic Policy 2001
4)M. Gianeetti: Bank-Firm Relationships and Contagious Banking Crises, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 2003
1) George A. Akerlof and Paul M.Romer: Looting:The Economy of Bankruptcy for Profit, Brooking Papers on Economic Activity, 1993
2)T.F. Hellmann, K.C. Murdoch,and J.E.Stiglitz: Liberalization, Moral Hazard in Banking, and Prudential Regulation: Are Capital Requirements Enough?, The American Economic Review, 2000
3) M.Bordo and others: Is Crisis Problem Growing?. Economic Policy 2001
4)M. Gianeetti: Bank-Firm Relationships and Contagious Banking Crises, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 2003
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Charles Dickens of the call-centre generation
says The Economist about Aravind Adiga after just one book 'The White Tiger'.
Interview with the author as well as links to excerpts from the book here.
His website. Excerpts from an interview
with Stuart Jeffries of The Guardian:
"Well, this is the reality for a lot of Indian people and it's important that it gets written about, rather than just hearing about the 5% of people in my country who are doing well. In somewhere like Bihar there will be no doctors in the hospital. In northern India politics is so corrupt that it makes a mockery of democracy. This is a country where the poor fear tuberculosis, which kills 1,000 Indians a day, but people like me - middle-class people with access to health services that are probably better than England's - don't fear it at all. It's an unglamorous disease, like so much of the things that the poor of India endure.
"At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the west, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society. That's what writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens did in the 19th century and, as a result, England and France are better societies. That's what I'm trying to do - it's not an attack on the country, it's about the greater process of self-examination."
P.S. (Nov. 1) I finally read the book. It is readable but his interviews and articles are more interesting than the novel.
Interview with the author as well as links to excerpts from the book here.
His website. Excerpts from an interview
with Stuart Jeffries of The Guardian:
"Well, this is the reality for a lot of Indian people and it's important that it gets written about, rather than just hearing about the 5% of people in my country who are doing well. In somewhere like Bihar there will be no doctors in the hospital. In northern India politics is so corrupt that it makes a mockery of democracy. This is a country where the poor fear tuberculosis, which kills 1,000 Indians a day, but people like me - middle-class people with access to health services that are probably better than England's - don't fear it at all. It's an unglamorous disease, like so much of the things that the poor of India endure.
"At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the west, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society. That's what writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens did in the 19th century and, as a result, England and France are better societies. That's what I'm trying to do - it's not an attack on the country, it's about the greater process of self-examination."
P.S. (Nov. 1) I finally read the book. It is readable but his interviews and articles are more interesting than the novel.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
John Kay on Taleb distributions
In 2003 A strategy for hedge funds and dangerous drivers :
"The practice of bad driving has what I call a Taleb distribution, after one of the themes in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's brilliant Fooled by Randomness. A Taleb distribution has the property that many small profits are mixed with occasional large losses. Overtaking on the inside is an activity with a Taleb distribution....
Many apparently successful traders and business people are still on the upside of their Taleb distribution. They are accidents waiting to happen. It puzzled me for years that so many organisations believed they were making money out of proprietary trading in securities markets. These businesses were trading mostly with each other: since there is no perpetual motion, where did the money to fuel the system come from? From Taleb distributions.
Arbitrage in financial markets generates a continuing stream of small profits. Large losses are exceptional items. They are the product of misjudgments, rogue traders, unpredictable events and the failures of risk control. The same misjudgments, rogue drivers, unpredictable events and system failures that lead to crashes on the French motorways.
We find Taleb distributions not only on the road and in financial institutions. Hedge funds make them accessible to a general public. Business people learnt centuries ago that you can water the milk again and again and again. Until Taleb strikes back: people notice and take their custom elsewhere. Marks and Spencer, the UK retailer, pushed to the limit of what its customers could stand until it discovered that it had crossed that limit. Banks have treated their account holders the same way. Eventually, you pass on the inside once too often.
Evolution favours Taleb distributions. The gene pool of dreadful French drivers is depleted by road accidents - but only at the rate of 8,000 a year. Most young Frenchmen make it to their dates. Evolution within organisations has a similar bias. Someone who makes steady, small gains ranks as a safe pair of hands and is promoted until he meets his apotheosis."
and yesterday Banks got burned by their own ‘innocent fraud’:
"I have several times in this column described the Taleb distribution of regular small profits interspersed by large losses. Taleb distributions are the basis of the carry trade – which exploits interest rate differentials – and many types of statistical arbitrage. Taleb distributions are exploited by traders in hedge funds and at proprietary trading desks.......
Ponzi schemes, Taleb distributions and martingales, revenue recognition and mark-to-market accounting: these are the means by which successive generations of financial hotshots perpetrate what John Kenneth Galbraith described as innocent fraud. This is the process that systematically benefits one group at the expense of another but generally falls short of outright criminality.
But to benefit from the innocent fraud, you must be organiser rather than participant. In the New Economy, banks collected commissions on transactions but limited their own direct involvement. The participation of banks in the recent round of follies brought humiliation. Is the deception of others more or less venal when one has also deceived oneself? That question must be left for moral philosophers – and historians of our era – to answer."
P.S. From today's Bloomberg Taleb's `Black Swan' Investors Post Gains as Markets Take Dive ( via a comment in "Taleb vs Economists")
P.P.S. Yves Smith's reaction to "Innocent Fraud":
"I much prefer the terminology and analysis of George Akelof and Paul Romer. From the abstract of their paper, "Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit""
"The practice of bad driving has what I call a Taleb distribution, after one of the themes in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's brilliant Fooled by Randomness. A Taleb distribution has the property that many small profits are mixed with occasional large losses. Overtaking on the inside is an activity with a Taleb distribution....
Many apparently successful traders and business people are still on the upside of their Taleb distribution. They are accidents waiting to happen. It puzzled me for years that so many organisations believed they were making money out of proprietary trading in securities markets. These businesses were trading mostly with each other: since there is no perpetual motion, where did the money to fuel the system come from? From Taleb distributions.
Arbitrage in financial markets generates a continuing stream of small profits. Large losses are exceptional items. They are the product of misjudgments, rogue traders, unpredictable events and the failures of risk control. The same misjudgments, rogue drivers, unpredictable events and system failures that lead to crashes on the French motorways.
We find Taleb distributions not only on the road and in financial institutions. Hedge funds make them accessible to a general public. Business people learnt centuries ago that you can water the milk again and again and again. Until Taleb strikes back: people notice and take their custom elsewhere. Marks and Spencer, the UK retailer, pushed to the limit of what its customers could stand until it discovered that it had crossed that limit. Banks have treated their account holders the same way. Eventually, you pass on the inside once too often.
Evolution favours Taleb distributions. The gene pool of dreadful French drivers is depleted by road accidents - but only at the rate of 8,000 a year. Most young Frenchmen make it to their dates. Evolution within organisations has a similar bias. Someone who makes steady, small gains ranks as a safe pair of hands and is promoted until he meets his apotheosis."
and yesterday Banks got burned by their own ‘innocent fraud’:
"I have several times in this column described the Taleb distribution of regular small profits interspersed by large losses. Taleb distributions are the basis of the carry trade – which exploits interest rate differentials – and many types of statistical arbitrage. Taleb distributions are exploited by traders in hedge funds and at proprietary trading desks.......
Ponzi schemes, Taleb distributions and martingales, revenue recognition and mark-to-market accounting: these are the means by which successive generations of financial hotshots perpetrate what John Kenneth Galbraith described as innocent fraud. This is the process that systematically benefits one group at the expense of another but generally falls short of outright criminality.
But to benefit from the innocent fraud, you must be organiser rather than participant. In the New Economy, banks collected commissions on transactions but limited their own direct involvement. The participation of banks in the recent round of follies brought humiliation. Is the deception of others more or less venal when one has also deceived oneself? That question must be left for moral philosophers – and historians of our era – to answer."
P.S. From today's Bloomberg Taleb's `Black Swan' Investors Post Gains as Markets Take Dive ( via a comment in "Taleb vs Economists")
P.P.S. Yves Smith's reaction to "Innocent Fraud":
"I much prefer the terminology and analysis of George Akelof and Paul Romer. From the abstract of their paper, "Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit""
A Ph.D at the age of 91
The story of a scholar, at 91:
"The Italian immigrant has been awarded a PhD in Spanish literature — at the age of 91. His dissertation — written in Spanish — explored the work of the "esoteric theorist" Spanish writer Carmen Martin Gaite, and her experiments with the art of storytelling."
With longer working lives, I hope that there will be less emphasis on training from cradle to get in to the work force and more emphasis for a broader and longer education.
"The Italian immigrant has been awarded a PhD in Spanish literature — at the age of 91. His dissertation — written in Spanish — explored the work of the "esoteric theorist" Spanish writer Carmen Martin Gaite, and her experiments with the art of storytelling."
With longer working lives, I hope that there will be less emphasis on training from cradle to get in to the work force and more emphasis for a broader and longer education.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Strange
Using expertise:
"FORMER Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has joined Kevin Rudd's infrastructure chief, businessman Sir Rod Eddington, in advising a secretive British firm that sells intelligence on government policy intentions - including those in Australia - to big business."
And a data base to save souls. May be useful to intelligence organizations and NGOs. Clicking on 'start here' takes you to reached and unreached territories.
P.S. Eddington quits British intelligence firm over 'conflict'.
"FORMER Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has joined Kevin Rudd's infrastructure chief, businessman Sir Rod Eddington, in advising a secretive British firm that sells intelligence on government policy intentions - including those in Australia - to big business."
And a data base to save souls. May be useful to intelligence organizations and NGOs. Clicking on 'start here' takes you to reached and unreached territories.
P.S. Eddington quits British intelligence firm over 'conflict'.
Grain filling
Researchers pinpoint gene that 'improves rice yields':
""By selectively growing only those strains of rice with heavier grains, humans for thousands of years unknowingly have been increasing the frequency of rice populations that had modifications in the GIF1 gene," says co-author Ma Hong, a professor of biology at the US-based Pennsylvania State University.
The clear molecular mechanism can now be further used in cultivation. "Many rice varieties with high yield potential — including 'super-rice', usually with big panicles [large number of grains] — often suffer from bad grain filling. We believe that improvement of grain-filling, and hence grain weight, will greatly increase yield potential," He told SciDev.Net.
Separately, in the same issue of Nature Genetics, a team of Chinese scientists at the Beijing-based China Agricultural and Tsinghua universities report the molecular mechanism behind the ancient rice domestication practice of transforming limp growth of ancestral wild rice to erect growth, a critical event in rice domestication that improved plant architecture and increased grain yield.
They found that limp growth of wild rice is controlled by a gene called PROG1 (Prostrate Growth 1) and many modern rice cultivars disrupt PROG1 function and inactivate its expression, leading to erect growth, greater grain number and higher grain yield in cultivated rice."
""By selectively growing only those strains of rice with heavier grains, humans for thousands of years unknowingly have been increasing the frequency of rice populations that had modifications in the GIF1 gene," says co-author Ma Hong, a professor of biology at the US-based Pennsylvania State University.
The clear molecular mechanism can now be further used in cultivation. "Many rice varieties with high yield potential — including 'super-rice', usually with big panicles [large number of grains] — often suffer from bad grain filling. We believe that improvement of grain-filling, and hence grain weight, will greatly increase yield potential," He told SciDev.Net.
Separately, in the same issue of Nature Genetics, a team of Chinese scientists at the Beijing-based China Agricultural and Tsinghua universities report the molecular mechanism behind the ancient rice domestication practice of transforming limp growth of ancestral wild rice to erect growth, a critical event in rice domestication that improved plant architecture and increased grain yield.
They found that limp growth of wild rice is controlled by a gene called PROG1 (Prostrate Growth 1) and many modern rice cultivars disrupt PROG1 function and inactivate its expression, leading to erect growth, greater grain number and higher grain yield in cultivated rice."
Description of Krugman's work
and links from Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok in the posts Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize and What is New Trade Theory?.
And lot of venom from some of the loyal readers of MR. Probably in other countries most would be pleased with one of their countrymen winning a Nobel prize.
P.S. Brad DeLong has a post Crooked Timber Is Having a Contest! on such comments.
P.P.S. Krugman himself
on his work.
Jonathan Dingel of Trade Division is upset (I guess that strong democracies lead to polarization and distortions)and has three posts:
In defence of Krugman
More Krugman
Krugman, international trade, and facts
P.S. I was wrong about reaction in other countries. Aravind Adiga's Booker prize seems to be drawing similar reactions in India.
And lot of venom from some of the loyal readers of MR. Probably in other countries most would be pleased with one of their countrymen winning a Nobel prize.
P.S. Brad DeLong has a post Crooked Timber Is Having a Contest! on such comments.
P.P.S. Krugman himself
on his work.
Jonathan Dingel of Trade Division is upset (I guess that strong democracies lead to polarization and distortions)and has three posts:
In defence of Krugman
More Krugman
Krugman, international trade, and facts
P.S. I was wrong about reaction in other countries. Aravind Adiga's Booker prize seems to be drawing similar reactions in India.
Dalit shot for entering temple
Manoj Chaurasia in The Statesman (via Shiva Shankar):
PATNA, Oct. 11: A different face of fanatism comes to fore when Dalits in Bihar are being killed and brutally tortured for entering temples and offering prasad.
Despite various claims by the NDA government, Dalits continue to be on the receiving ends when we talk of human rights and liberties. The just-concluded navratra did nothing less than adding fuel to the fire. While others were engrossed in festivities, at least three incidents of violence took place where people belonging to Dalit community were kicked, punched and prohibited from entering temples. Those who dared to defy this “unwritten law” were shot. Incidentally, the downtrodden class that constitutes nearly 15 percent of Bihar’s total population of 90.2 millions, has always been used as a key vote-bank by almost every political parties during the elections.
The latest incident of atrocities was reported from Nalanda ~ the home district of Bihar chief minister Mr Nitish Kumar ~ where a Dalit youth was shot because he had entered a temple and offered prasad there. The incident took place last night in Giyar village of Nalanda, the district where Buddha and Mahavira had preached the message of “social harmony” and “breaking of caste barriers”.
Police said a fight broke out after a few people belonging to a Dalit community offered Prasad to the Durga idol without waiting for the upper-class people do it first.
The clash left many injured from both the communities. Eventually, some upper caste men opened fire on the dalits, killing one Kalu Paswan and injuring a few others. The local superintendent of police, Mr Vineet Vinayak, said police had arrested two of the four persons who were named in the FIR. He said that land dispute between the two community could also be the reason behind this murder.
Similarly, in Indrath Khurd village under Bikramganj block of Rohtas district, the dalits were prohibited from entering a Kali temple and worship there by the upper caste villagers during the puja. The so-called ban was imposed on 7 October. The level of the discrimination could be figured out from the fact that drum-beaters passed through the streets of the village to inform the dalit villagers of the ban imposed on their entry into the temple. However, they were permitted to pay obeisance to the Goddess from outside the temple boundary. The ban on the entry of dalits inside the temples is very common in Rohtas, according to reports.
The same day, about a dozen houses belonging to dalit villagers were set on fire by the upper caste people at Mushari-Navtolia village in Khagaria district.
P.S. Professor Shiva Shankar is a mathematician and works on a program "Scholarships for Children from Scavenging families” . A flavour of the scavenger problems:
The Big Necessity: Latrine Rights in India
PATNA, Oct. 11: A different face of fanatism comes to fore when Dalits in Bihar are being killed and brutally tortured for entering temples and offering prasad.
Despite various claims by the NDA government, Dalits continue to be on the receiving ends when we talk of human rights and liberties. The just-concluded navratra did nothing less than adding fuel to the fire. While others were engrossed in festivities, at least three incidents of violence took place where people belonging to Dalit community were kicked, punched and prohibited from entering temples. Those who dared to defy this “unwritten law” were shot. Incidentally, the downtrodden class that constitutes nearly 15 percent of Bihar’s total population of 90.2 millions, has always been used as a key vote-bank by almost every political parties during the elections.
The latest incident of atrocities was reported from Nalanda ~ the home district of Bihar chief minister Mr Nitish Kumar ~ where a Dalit youth was shot because he had entered a temple and offered prasad there. The incident took place last night in Giyar village of Nalanda, the district where Buddha and Mahavira had preached the message of “social harmony” and “breaking of caste barriers”.
Police said a fight broke out after a few people belonging to a Dalit community offered Prasad to the Durga idol without waiting for the upper-class people do it first.
The clash left many injured from both the communities. Eventually, some upper caste men opened fire on the dalits, killing one Kalu Paswan and injuring a few others. The local superintendent of police, Mr Vineet Vinayak, said police had arrested two of the four persons who were named in the FIR. He said that land dispute between the two community could also be the reason behind this murder.
Similarly, in Indrath Khurd village under Bikramganj block of Rohtas district, the dalits were prohibited from entering a Kali temple and worship there by the upper caste villagers during the puja. The so-called ban was imposed on 7 October. The level of the discrimination could be figured out from the fact that drum-beaters passed through the streets of the village to inform the dalit villagers of the ban imposed on their entry into the temple. However, they were permitted to pay obeisance to the Goddess from outside the temple boundary. The ban on the entry of dalits inside the temples is very common in Rohtas, according to reports.
The same day, about a dozen houses belonging to dalit villagers were set on fire by the upper caste people at Mushari-Navtolia village in Khagaria district.
P.S. Professor Shiva Shankar is a mathematician and works on a program "Scholarships for Children from Scavenging families” . A flavour of the scavenger problems:
The Big Necessity: Latrine Rights in India
Monday, October 13, 2008
We are not supposed to be talking about this
In discussions with Indians or people of Indian origin, I find that mention of caste is often frowned upon unless the group consists of people of one caste. I am not sure whether this is fruitful. Recently, there has been resentment from Hindus about conversions to other religions. It seems to me there were a lot of conversions to Hinduism within India and South East Asia in the old days, and conversions to both Islam and Hinduism in East Bengal until 18th century (Richard Eaton's book on Bengal frontier). For some reason or other, Hindus have not been trying to convert others on a large scale in recent times. In any case, the discussion of the role of caste in the conversions and the opinion of Dalits about Hinduism or conversions have not been prominent in the discussions that I have seen. Similar problems with respect to black white differences have been studied by some scientists. Recent experiments from Norton, Sommers and others have been reported in Sciencemagazine and discussed in 3quarksdaily. Similar research goes back to Color Blindness and Interracial Interaction by Michael I. Norton, Samuel R. Sommers, Evan P. Apfelbaum, Natassia Pura, and Dan Ariely, and earlier papers.
Samuel Sommers reports these results off and on in his blog at Psychology Today. Here is a recent post ''I don't think we're supposed to be talking about this...'' . Excerpt:
"So efforts at strategic colorblindness, attempts to claim that one literally doesn't see race, are suspect for a number of reasons. First, they're clearly disingenuous, as we know from brain imaging studies that race is one of the very first characteristics we notice when we see a face, sometimes in only 150 miliseconds. Second, they come at the expense of communication clarity and efficiency. And third, they don't even work as intended, as they often contribute to making a lousy impression on others as you stumble through an interaction too distracted to let your real personality show.
Of course, none of this means we should talk about race all the time or always use race in describing other people. As I'll discuss in another post soon, sometimes mentioning race in a description of someone provides a clue that you are indeed biased by race. But as our research illustrates, pretending that we don't notice race is not only silly, it's also counterproductive. We do notice race. Nobody, Dr. King included, ever asked us not to. He just dreamed that one day we wouldn't judge each other on the basis of it."
Samuel Sommers reports these results off and on in his blog at Psychology Today. Here is a recent post ''I don't think we're supposed to be talking about this...'' . Excerpt:
"So efforts at strategic colorblindness, attempts to claim that one literally doesn't see race, are suspect for a number of reasons. First, they're clearly disingenuous, as we know from brain imaging studies that race is one of the very first characteristics we notice when we see a face, sometimes in only 150 miliseconds. Second, they come at the expense of communication clarity and efficiency. And third, they don't even work as intended, as they often contribute to making a lousy impression on others as you stumble through an interaction too distracted to let your real personality show.
Of course, none of this means we should talk about race all the time or always use race in describing other people. As I'll discuss in another post soon, sometimes mentioning race in a description of someone provides a clue that you are indeed biased by race. But as our research illustrates, pretending that we don't notice race is not only silly, it's also counterproductive. We do notice race. Nobody, Dr. King included, ever asked us not to. He just dreamed that one day we wouldn't judge each other on the basis of it."
Are Americans different from the rest?
I guess that most nations have some national characteristics but as Roubini says when U.S. sneezes Rest of the World Gets the Cold and we have to pay attention to U.S. The following article Hockey moms and capital markets by Spengler seems to explain a bit. Excerpts:
"What does America have that Asia doesn't have? The answer is, Sarah Palin - not Sarah Palin the vice presidential candidate, but Sarah Palin the "hockey mom" turned small-town mayor and reforming Alaska governor. All the PhDs and MBAs in the world can't make a capital market work, but ordinary people like Sarah Palin can. Laws depend on the will of the people to enforce them. It is the initiative of ordinary people that makes America's political system the world's most reliable......
Provincial America depends on the initiative of ordinary people to get through the day. America has something like an Education Ministry, but it has little money to dispense. Americans pay for most of their school costs out of local taxes, and levy those taxes on themselves. In small towns, many public agencies, including fire protection and emergency medical assistance, depend almost entirely on volunteers. People who tax themselves, and give their own time and money for services on which communities depend, are not easily cowed by the federal government or by large corporations. .........
The fact that ordinary people safeguard their rights and have the means to challenge established interests does not exclude the possibility of fraud on a grand scale.
Asian investors were cheated by a conspiracy of the financial industry and the ratings agencies, which sold them ostensibly low-risk securities that turned out to be toxic. The just-approved US$700 billion support package for American banks sets America back to a regime of oligarchy, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks. Despite this fraud and its attendant humiliation, and despite the deterioration of governance in American markets, Asian investors are putting more rather than less money into America, judging from the decline of Asian currencies against the dollar in the course of the crisis.
........
It is true that Asian economies depend on American consumers and an American recession is bad for Asian currencies. But why don't Asians consume what they produce at home? The trouble is that rich Asians don't lend to poor Asians in their own countries. Capital markets don't work in the developing world because it is too easy to steal money. Subprime mortgages in the US have suffered from poor documentation. What kind of documentation does one encounter in countries where everyone from the clerk at the records office to the secretary who hands you a form requires a small bribe? America is litigious to a fault, but its courts are fair and hard to corrupt."
See also Rahul Sidhardhan's response in the comments section.
More about the cheating from Kyle Bass who made billions betting on housing downturn:
"He told me that the “real money” (US insurance companies, pension funds, etc) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of US Subprime debt in late 2003 and that they needed a mechanism that could enable them to “mark up” these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE!!!! He told me with a straight face that these CDOs were the only way to get rid of the riskiest tranches of Subprime debt."
"What does America have that Asia doesn't have? The answer is, Sarah Palin - not Sarah Palin the vice presidential candidate, but Sarah Palin the "hockey mom" turned small-town mayor and reforming Alaska governor. All the PhDs and MBAs in the world can't make a capital market work, but ordinary people like Sarah Palin can. Laws depend on the will of the people to enforce them. It is the initiative of ordinary people that makes America's political system the world's most reliable......
Provincial America depends on the initiative of ordinary people to get through the day. America has something like an Education Ministry, but it has little money to dispense. Americans pay for most of their school costs out of local taxes, and levy those taxes on themselves. In small towns, many public agencies, including fire protection and emergency medical assistance, depend almost entirely on volunteers. People who tax themselves, and give their own time and money for services on which communities depend, are not easily cowed by the federal government or by large corporations. .........
The fact that ordinary people safeguard their rights and have the means to challenge established interests does not exclude the possibility of fraud on a grand scale.
Asian investors were cheated by a conspiracy of the financial industry and the ratings agencies, which sold them ostensibly low-risk securities that turned out to be toxic. The just-approved US$700 billion support package for American banks sets America back to a regime of oligarchy, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks. Despite this fraud and its attendant humiliation, and despite the deterioration of governance in American markets, Asian investors are putting more rather than less money into America, judging from the decline of Asian currencies against the dollar in the course of the crisis.
........
It is true that Asian economies depend on American consumers and an American recession is bad for Asian currencies. But why don't Asians consume what they produce at home? The trouble is that rich Asians don't lend to poor Asians in their own countries. Capital markets don't work in the developing world because it is too easy to steal money. Subprime mortgages in the US have suffered from poor documentation. What kind of documentation does one encounter in countries where everyone from the clerk at the records office to the secretary who hands you a form requires a small bribe? America is litigious to a fault, but its courts are fair and hard to corrupt."
See also Rahul Sidhardhan's response in the comments section.
More about the cheating from Kyle Bass who made billions betting on housing downturn:
"He told me that the “real money” (US insurance companies, pension funds, etc) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of US Subprime debt in late 2003 and that they needed a mechanism that could enable them to “mark up” these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE!!!! He told me with a straight face that these CDOs were the only way to get rid of the riskiest tranches of Subprime debt."
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Shuttle driver who missed a Nobel prize
From The Huntsville Times:
"The Huntsville resident devoted his early career to studying the mysterious Aequoria Victoria jellyfish, correctly theorizing the green fluorescent protein that gives the jellyfish its glow could be used to highlight molecular functions that would otherwise be invisible to scientists. In 1988, the American Cancer Society gave Prasher a $220,000 grant to try to isolate and copy the gene responsible for the jellyfish's glow.
He eventually succeeded, but the grant money ran out.
When fellow scientist Martin Chalfie of Columbia University called in the early 1990s looking for a copy of the gene, Prasher gave it to him. He also gave a copy to Roger Tsien, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego.
"I could have hung onto the gene," Prasher said during his lunch break Thursday. "But when you're in that environment and losing public funds, you've got an obligation to share. I gave it away, and they took it and ran with it."
Did they ever. On Wednesday, Chalfie, Tsien and the man who discovered green fluorescent protein in the early 1960s, Osamu Shimomura, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping turn the substance into a vital biotechnology tool. They will split $1.4 million in prize money."
More information in ScienceNews.
"The Huntsville resident devoted his early career to studying the mysterious Aequoria Victoria jellyfish, correctly theorizing the green fluorescent protein that gives the jellyfish its glow could be used to highlight molecular functions that would otherwise be invisible to scientists. In 1988, the American Cancer Society gave Prasher a $220,000 grant to try to isolate and copy the gene responsible for the jellyfish's glow.
He eventually succeeded, but the grant money ran out.
When fellow scientist Martin Chalfie of Columbia University called in the early 1990s looking for a copy of the gene, Prasher gave it to him. He also gave a copy to Roger Tsien, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego.
"I could have hung onto the gene," Prasher said during his lunch break Thursday. "But when you're in that environment and losing public funds, you've got an obligation to share. I gave it away, and they took it and ran with it."
Did they ever. On Wednesday, Chalfie, Tsien and the man who discovered green fluorescent protein in the early 1960s, Osamu Shimomura, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping turn the substance into a vital biotechnology tool. They will split $1.4 million in prize money."
More information in ScienceNews.
A recent letter from Pen India
Bhaskar and Space Bar carry a letter from Pen India. Here it is:
Dear Colleagues,
We write to express our anguish and outrage at the continuing brutalities visited upon Christian communities and places of worship in Orissa and Karnataka, and elsewhere, as well as at the pusillanimous attitude of our political leaders towards the perpetrators of these atrocities.
While the police have stood by and watched churches being desecrated and acts of assault and rape carried out, the Central Government has reacted vigorously only after representatives of the European Union expressed their concern. The perceived damage to India's international image should not be a greater concern than the actual damage that such violence causes to the inclusive, multi-religious and multi-ethnic character of Indian society.
This violence is a failure of our political institutions and of civil society. It is a consequence of our failure to uphold the principles of the rule of law, mutual understanding, and civil dialogue. Eventually, such violence does not remain confined to a few clearly targeted victims. Rather, it spreads to engulf and destroy the entire society that spawns it, as is evident in neighbouring Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for instance.
The worst contributors to this scenario are politicians who dream of electoral victory at the cost of social catastrophe. The powerful ideal of 'unity in diversity', which has held this country together for six decades, has been seriously imperilled by the use of religious and ethnic prejudice as a political weapon. Intolerance of those different from ourselves, and the abandoning of reasoned discussion to deal with differences, spells the end of the India for which the freedom struggle was waged.
More and more of us must come out and say clearly that we do not share the dreams of these cynical opportunists. Their India is not the India we dream of. The India we dream of is a just society, not an aggressive power.
We call upon the Indian Government to ensure that hate speech is outlawed from the domain of public discourse. We also call upon the Indian Government to outlaw those political parties which, directly or through their cohorts, promote communal discord and encourage violence. The rule of law implies that every citizen's life is sacred. Let the law act decisively to punish those who perpetrate the appalling crimes of pogrom and murder.
Girish Karnad
Salman Rushdie
Amitav Ghosh
Vikram Seth
Ramachandra Guha
Kiran Nagarkar
Amit Chaudhuri
Mukul Kesavan
Suketu Mehta
Ranjit Hoskote
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Sampurna Chattarji
Nancy Adajania
Shobhana Bhattacharji
Romesh Bhattacharji
THE PEN ALL-INDIA CENTRE
The PEN All-India Centre
Theosophy Hall
40 New Marine Lines
Churchgate
Bombay 400 020
Dear Colleagues,
We write to express our anguish and outrage at the continuing brutalities visited upon Christian communities and places of worship in Orissa and Karnataka, and elsewhere, as well as at the pusillanimous attitude of our political leaders towards the perpetrators of these atrocities.
While the police have stood by and watched churches being desecrated and acts of assault and rape carried out, the Central Government has reacted vigorously only after representatives of the European Union expressed their concern. The perceived damage to India's international image should not be a greater concern than the actual damage that such violence causes to the inclusive, multi-religious and multi-ethnic character of Indian society.
This violence is a failure of our political institutions and of civil society. It is a consequence of our failure to uphold the principles of the rule of law, mutual understanding, and civil dialogue. Eventually, such violence does not remain confined to a few clearly targeted victims. Rather, it spreads to engulf and destroy the entire society that spawns it, as is evident in neighbouring Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for instance.
The worst contributors to this scenario are politicians who dream of electoral victory at the cost of social catastrophe. The powerful ideal of 'unity in diversity', which has held this country together for six decades, has been seriously imperilled by the use of religious and ethnic prejudice as a political weapon. Intolerance of those different from ourselves, and the abandoning of reasoned discussion to deal with differences, spells the end of the India for which the freedom struggle was waged.
More and more of us must come out and say clearly that we do not share the dreams of these cynical opportunists. Their India is not the India we dream of. The India we dream of is a just society, not an aggressive power.
We call upon the Indian Government to ensure that hate speech is outlawed from the domain of public discourse. We also call upon the Indian Government to outlaw those political parties which, directly or through their cohorts, promote communal discord and encourage violence. The rule of law implies that every citizen's life is sacred. Let the law act decisively to punish those who perpetrate the appalling crimes of pogrom and murder.
Girish Karnad
Salman Rushdie
Amitav Ghosh
Vikram Seth
Ramachandra Guha
Kiran Nagarkar
Amit Chaudhuri
Mukul Kesavan
Suketu Mehta
Ranjit Hoskote
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Sampurna Chattarji
Nancy Adajania
Shobhana Bhattacharji
Romesh Bhattacharji
THE PEN ALL-INDIA CENTRE
The PEN All-India Centre
Theosophy Hall
40 New Marine Lines
Churchgate
Bombay 400 020
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Old Telugu songs on youtube are disappearing
Some time ago I wrote about old Telugu songs on youtube:
that "have been recently uploaded on YouTube. Search under VSVutukuri, Mukkamala2020, MadhuraGeetalu, TeluguBoss, vjdnld etc"
All have disappeared. It seems that youtube has a three strikes rule and there were complaints about copy right violations. Those gentlemen have taken a lot of trouble to compile the collections. Sometimes seeing the sceneries, background adds to the attraction of the song. (I was using 'Edukondalavda venkataramana sadduseyaka neevu nidura povayya' from 'Pelli chesi chudu' as a lullaby for my grand daughter. She liked the video more than the song.). I hope that those videos can be resurrected in some site taking due care of the copy right rules.
Some like telugutunnel are still working though erratically. Palleturu has some nice songs, two on 'samkranti', Vemulapalli Srikrishna's 'Cheyeyyi jaikottu telugoda' and Srisri's 'polalananni halaladunni'.
that "have been recently uploaded on YouTube. Search under VSVutukuri, Mukkamala2020, MadhuraGeetalu, TeluguBoss, vjdnld etc"
All have disappeared. It seems that youtube has a three strikes rule and there were complaints about copy right violations. Those gentlemen have taken a lot of trouble to compile the collections. Sometimes seeing the sceneries, background adds to the attraction of the song. (I was using 'Edukondalavda venkataramana sadduseyaka neevu nidura povayya' from 'Pelli chesi chudu' as a lullaby for my grand daughter. She liked the video more than the song.). I hope that those videos can be resurrected in some site taking due care of the copy right rules.
Some like telugutunnel are still working though erratically. Palleturu has some nice songs, two on 'samkranti', Vemulapalli Srikrishna's 'Cheyeyyi jaikottu telugoda' and Srisri's 'polalananni halaladunni'.
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