Grow, baby, grow - all the guar you can

I don't know what to make of this story. An economics soap opera ? How the most unexpected things can happen  ? How sometimes prosperity can hit you from the strangest of directions ? Read on - judge for yourself. The story starts in a very boring manner. Everybody knows Americans guzzle...

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Primum non nocere

Sometimes, rarely, you read something that resonates  so much that you nod your head right through and maybe even develop a crick in the neck. Such was the piece I read today under the somewhat hyperbolic title " How to stop hospitals from killing us".  I opt to offer it to you without comment,  with only a strong recommendation. I just chose a less fanciful title that simply means...

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47% vs 97%

Mitt Romney is in a  soup over his 47% remark. In some remarks he made at a private meeting he said that 47% of Americans do not pay income tax (fact) and implied that these were scroungers (rubbish). But he was factually accurate in that 47% of Americans do indeed not pay income tax - although to be fair about that half of that lot do pay payroll taxes which is a form of income tax meant for...

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What did you have for lunch ?

Newspapers are falling over themselves in trying to figure out what happened to Manmohan Singh. What has suddenly prompted the slew of economic announcements. And what has made him so brave after all the dithering for so long. While there has been much speculation, I am afraid all the pundits have got it wrong For, you see, in order to understand the behaviour of all our leaders over the last two...

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China's next emperor(s)

Here's a completely political piece, which I wrote as a guest post on my good friend Sriram's blog. I normally don't stray into the political arena, but couldn't resist this one ! What say you ? If you like, leave a comment on his bl...

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The emperor's new clothes

Somebody has to say this. Like the kid from the proverbial Hans Christian Andersen's tale, who exclaims that the emperor is actually naked, I will go ahead and say it. Stock markets have become a weapon of mass destruction. The original purpose of stock markets was to become efficient allocators of capital. Capital was always scarce and economics needed a mechanism where capital would be pooled...

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Directorinas wanted

Meet Jean-Claude Moreau. Brussels' answer to Ramamritham.  It is well known that Homo Sapiens Ramamrithamitis is thriving beautifully in Brussels  under the umbrella of the European Commission. Monsieur Moreau has excelled himself in a number of fields and he is keeping with this tradition in trying to bring legislation that women should have a quota of 40% on the Boards of European companies. We...

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A tragedy all around

If it wasn't so sad, it would have been a classic case study where everybody was at fault. The Marikana miners strike in South Africa is a disaster where every party - the miners, the company, the unions, the police and the government deserve censure for the way they have conducted themselves. Here is what happened. One of the platinum mines belonging to the mining giant Lonmin is in the Marikana...

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