Interview A good toy is one that can be taken apart, says toy scientist Arvind Gupta
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Doug Henwood summarises aa article of Matt Levine
MattLevine's article. I did not read it completely;too long. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-19/everyone-loves-the-100-million-new-jersey-deli-except-david-einhorn-knottrmb
Doug Henwood's summary:
https://www.facebook.com/749518284/posts/10158602377663285/
Remember that little deli in NJ that is the public face of a stock valued at over $100 million? No doubt it's a front for something or other, but we don't know what yet. In any case, it came to the world's attention when hedgie David Einhorn wrote about it in a letter to clients, as an example of how the market might be just a little bubbly? Well, guess what—Einhorn's letter prompted people to buy the damn stock.
From Matt Levine's Money Stuff:
"But then Einhorn published his letter, and Hometown became the laughingstock of financial media last Friday. And here is what happened:
Volume exploded, from 800 shares on Thursday to 42,762 on Friday. By Friday evening, Hometown had traded a total of about 70,000 shares in all of 2021; more than 60% of that trading happened on Friday.
The stock was down by 3.1%. It closed at $12.99, for a market capitalization of $101.3 million.
Last Wednesday, when there was a single trade of 200 shares and Hometown closed at $13.90, you might have asked incredulously, “who’s paying $13.90 per share for this deli,” but the answer would have been “exactly one person, for reasons of their own.” But on Friday there were hundreds of trades, and almost half a million dollars’ worth of stock changed hands. And the stock barely budged. People were like “yes, $100 million deli, absolutely, I want to buy that.” Hometown went from a thinly traded pink-sheet deli that nobody had heard of, to a company that everyone had heard of exclusively because it was a poster child for market excess, and … people … bought … it? Like, a whole new class of investors was introduced to Hometown International specifically by a hedge-fund letter saying “small investors who get sucked into these situations are likely to be harmed eventually,” and they looked at it and decided they wanted to be harmed. “Yes, step on my neck, Hometown International.”[3] David Einhorn warned people not to invest in Hometown International, even though it had never occurred to them to invest in Hometown International, but once they were warned not to they absolutely did."
Monday, April 19, 2021
Namita Arora comments:
Anandaswarup, yes, it's now safe to say that the foundational ideas, practices and social class elements that later gave rise to the full-fledged varna system / Brahminism can be traced to the cultural substrate of the Aryans who migrated in from central Asia.
I hesitate to use the word ’stability’ to characterize India’s caste society, because that word has positive connotations. I personally prefer ‘continuity’. I think this oppressive system has continued for so long because unlike other systems where the oppressors and oppressed are more identifiable, caste is graded inequality. As Ambedkar wrote, ‘there is no such class as a completely unprivileged class except the one which is at the base of the social pyramid. The privileges of the rest are graded ... each class being privileged, every class is interested in maintaining the system.’ Of course, those near the top of this pyramid of privilege and resources gain the most from preserving the status quo but their job is made easier by the 'graded inequality' in the system that militates against people coming together in common cause. Indeed, it's too pervasive to imagine its demise anytime soon though aspects of it have certainly been defanged over recent decades.
His original post https://www.facebook.com/586055302/posts/10157750383645303/
Saturday, March 27, 2021
Remembering my father-2
Remembering my father-2
Today there was some discussion of a bit of weirdness in our family. May be it started with my father. He came from a family of lower middle class farmers; his father had six acres of land and had 3 sons and 2 daughters. Their village Avanigadda was the Taluk headquarters and a high school was started there. My grandfather promised send any son who finished school to college and my father was the only one who completed. He was sent to study in Masulipatnam about 50 miles away by bus. He started with Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry (MPC) group in his Intermediate. Then he found the lecturer in Logic was popular with students and started attending Logic classes instead of Mathematics classes without informing anybody. After several months the College Principal found out about this and took him to task. But strangely, there was also an LPC group those days ( he finished his B.Ed in 1941 and so this must be about 1936) and he was shifted to LPC group. I did similar things in college but that is another story.
The bus fare was about one half rupees then and one could also walk 30 miles to reach Masulipatnam. In the holidays he used to come home, work on the farm, and carry bags of lentils and other food stuff and go back by walking. Compared to that we had it much easier. Probably Sambasivarao Kolli knows more about my father than me.
An earlier story here https://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2007/06/remembering-my-father.html
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Doing mathematics
Like many other things, doing mathematics may be just a question of working hard and staying power. I complained to Peter “I still do not have good command of the stuff. Your answer shows that I was wrong I one case. I have to work some more.” He responds “It definitely takes a while to get into it. I worked on section 11 for many months, maybe more than a year. But the last time I worked on it was before I retired (3 years ago), and probably 4 or 5 years ago!” And having collaborators helps, some thing I discovered at the age of 53 or so. I will be 80 this June.
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Universal jurisdiction
From https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56160486
Eyad al-Gharib was a relatively low-level operative among thousands of others in the Syrian regime's highly developed network of coercion and repression.
The verdict is a legal landmark. The prosecution was intended as a test case, to build up a body of evidence about the actions of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that could be used in other trials, not just in Germany.
Al-Gharib's conviction starts to chip away at any sense of impunity felt by Syrians
still working for the regime who might be involved with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The German human rights lawyers behind the case have spent years using the principle of universal jurisdiction to reach out across borders to pursue other allegations. Their targets have included the former US President George W Bush for crimes including violations of the UN Convention against Torture.
Ground water depletion in India
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-indian-agriculture-groundwater-depletion-winter.html
Indian agriculture: Groundwater depletion could reduce winter cropped acreage significantly in years
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Continuiing military conflicts
https://asiatimes.com/2021/02/indias-forever-wars-and-forever-warriors/
Vested interests and entrenched official mindsets drive military conflicts in Afghanistan and on India-China border Says MK Bhadrakumar. The article also links toEli Clifton's article "Vested interests and entrenched official mindsets drive military conflicts in Afghanistan and on India-China border"
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Friday, February 19, 2021
David Labaree on credentialization
Credentialing I read only two of the articles here. Many more from a favourite author who appeared here several times before.
Friday, February 12, 2021
About the Russian and Chinese vaccines
China, Russia steal a vaccine diplomacy marchThere is hope for poorer countries.
See also The Folly of Hoarding Knowledge in the COVID-19 Age
Scientific American on farm protests in India
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/farm-protests-in-india-are-writing-the-green-revolutions-obituary/?fbclid=IwAR1JFOaBMAA-yWUvwKz3Mk8zcTTz8eYO-B3IBQ7RtUghvWWkBlkhYUAxcAw
Farm Protests in India Are Writing the Green Revolution’s Obituary
Mahua Moitra on the current situation in India
Full speech https://youtu.be/umRjAyqtvYs which seems to be an accurate assessment of the current situation.
Transcript of the speech https://theprint.in/politics/full-text-of-mahua-moitras-lok-sabha-speech-that-landed-her-in-plagiarism-row/258660/?fbclid=IwAR03l-RtQDfwy1vEFTEKNHlo1drsQhaKsZ3l1nLiqbVa0aEXjendqKfH4Lk
Thursday, January 28, 2021
A review of ‘Indians: A brief history of a civilisation’ by Namit Arora
This is a compelling book about the deep history of India and its effects on the present. How did the author achieve it? He was once an IT professional who worked in USA for several years. In his 30s, he took a two year leave and travelled the length and breadth of India like several illustrious people before him, followed by deeper reading and writing. Some of it appeared in his first book, “The Lottery of Birth: On Inherited Social inequalities”. If his essay ‘A place called home’ is any indication, his desire to understand India and Indians more deeply must have long been with him.
After a few more years of working and travelling the world, he quit his job, relocated to India and began exploring more thoroughly the questions that bothered him. To do so, he chose six major historical sites he had visited before, covering different regions and timespans. He studied the historical sources and modern scholarship available and travelled to them again, talking to various people along the way. He has also presented insights from the chronicles of famous historical travellers, the most compelling of whom (for me) is Francois Bernier. The result is a book that combines a narrative history of India with archaeological travel writing.
As the author says in the introduction, “I hoped to find the essence of each site’s [historical] inhabitants—their defining beliefs, customs and institutions; their struggles and living conditions—and their legacy in the cultural mosaic of India.” Namit Arora has done the hard yakka and given us a guide and model to study India’s past. I think Patrick French summarized it well in his tweet about this book: “Options: spend a decade thinking and reading deeply about the early history of India, and going to all the key places. Or read this 250 page book, INDIANS, by someone who has done the work. An extraordinary feat of imaginative framing, achieved through close observation.”
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Patrick French’s comment on Namit Arora’s new book
https://www.namitarora.com/Indians.html
Options: spend a decade thinking and reading deeply about the early history of India, and going to all the key places. Or read this 250 page book, INDIANS, by someone who has done the work. An extraordinary feat of imaginative framing, achieved through close observation.
Sunday, January 24, 2021
Pandemic in Australia
Generally, the effects seem minor here. All the bad news from the rest of the world seems a bit strange. We’re we lucky or is due to relative isolation and prompt actions except for some initial hiccups in Victoria? We are waiting for vaccinations but with the virus mutations, it is not clear how effective vaccinations will be without the already changed habits.
Wednesday, January 06, 2021
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