Monday, April 28, 2008

Globalization Part 2

Globalization was supposed to bring down national borders - the world would be flat. Everyone celebrated the fact that government had taken a back seat to markets. The markets had won. Now it seems, nationalism is on the rise given the effects of globalization

The rising influence of governments can be seen in massive state-funded investment pools, many backed by countries that were reeling financially a decade ago. Sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East are now propping up wobbly financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe, and may hunt next for real-estate bargains. The growth of state power may also serve to make dealing with global climate change -- the most borderless of all issues -- even more difficult.


Globalization?

While everyone has been talking about the good effects of globalization on the world economy, here is an article that comes at it from a different angle - the environmental cost of globalization needs to measured (the article specifically tackles the subject of food travelling all over the world). The cost to the environment of trucking wine from California to NY or shipping Kiwis from italy to NZ and the rest of the world need to be factored in - perhaps to the cost of the food.

Under longstanding trade agreements, fuel for international freight
carried by sea and air is not taxed. Now, many economists,
environmental advocates and politicians say it is time to make shippers
and shoppers pay for the pollution, through taxes or other measures.

The Ugly side of the media

The NYT has an article chronicling the rise and fall of a educator who dreamed of starting a school teaching Arabic to Americans. The media went after her - calling her a "9/11 denier" etc etc resulting finally in her resignation. Very sorry picture - the media's role is to report but to twist comments out of context?.......

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The singularity

Wired's April issue has got a piece on Ray Kurzweil and his "singularity" mission. I think this is far-fetched - I don't think we will get pass this singularity (death) in the next 15-20 years - especially that machines will evolve to be conscious in the immediate future.

Kurzweil does not believe in half measures. He takes 180 to 210 vitamin
and mineral supplements a day, so many that he doesn't have time to
organize them all himself. So he's hired a pill wrangler, who takes
them out of their bottles and sorts them into daily doses, which he
carries everywhere in plastic bags. Kurzweil also spends one day a week
at a medical clinic, receiving intravenous longevity treatments. The
reason for his focus on optimal health should be obvious: If the
singularity is going to render humans immortal by the middle of this
century, it would be a shame to die in the interim. To perish of a
heart attack just before the singularity occurred would not only be sad
for all the ordinary reasons, it would also be tragically bad luck,
like being the last soldier shot down on the Western Front moments
before the armistice was proclaimed.

Technology Trends

Mugabe

A good op-ed in the NY Times early on in April on Robert Mugabe - Heidi Holland tries to put a human face on Mugabe and tries in some way to explain (if it can be explained) how Mugabe feels victimized by the Western World:

So why talk about his heathen grandmother? I wanted to understand the Robert Mugabe who had been obscured amid the chaos and misrule. The one described by his classmates as shy, bookish, a loner deeply attached to his mother and resentful of his absent father. The one who was at first remarkably forgiving of white landowners when he came to power in 1980. (For instance, Mr. Mugabe allowed his predecessor, Ian Smith, who led the white minority government that ran Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known, to live on in Harare without harassment, even when Mr. Smith embarked on a campaign against him.)

But bitterness had clearly welled up within him. When I first met him at that dinner in 1975, he seemed to be a considerate man, asking after the health of my toddler son even as he fled into exile to a neighboring country shortly afterward. By the end of 2007, as we sat together again after 28 years of his rule, he exuded the air of a lost and angry man.

Why? Part of the answer came to me in our interview, as Mr. Mugabe expressed almost tearful regret at his inability to socialize with the queen of England. He feels that the West — and Britain in particular — has failed to recognize his “suffering and sacrifice.” As someone who by his own estimation is part British, this rejection has taken on the intensity of a family quarrel.

Much of the quarrel centers on the vexed issue of land redistribution. As part of the pact that created Zimbabwe’s independence, Britain promised financial aid to help the young country redistribute land from white farmers to blacks.

When this money was misused, the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher began to withhold it. Mrs. Thatcher’s successor, John Major, agreed to restore the money. But before he could do so, his successor, Tony Blair, reversed course, taking the aid off the table, where it remains today. It is this grievance against Britain for short-changing him on the land redistribution issue that Mr. Mugabe craves understanding

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Burma and India and China

My view was that India failed to leverage it's influence in Burma - hence allowing China to cozy up to the generals and getting access to Burma's raw materials. India seemed to moving away from this position with the recent military and economic co-operation; but today I read this op-ed in the WSJ by Tarun Khanna - he has persuasively argued that India should use the softer approach viz. supporting the democracy movement and wait it out till the Junta falls. Tarun also advocates using Bollywood as a way to get into the hearts and minds of the Burmese:
India's true strength lies in projecting soft power. Unstinting support
of democracy, for example, is far likelier to work in the longer run as
the junta runs out of steam. India should not squander an opportunity
to lay useful groundwork in this regard. Even other tools of soft power
will likely work better. Bollywood, for example, has a large following
in Burma, and the over hundred thousand Burmese refugees in India will
likely embrace India over China. Trying to play China's game against
China is folly, not to mention unprincipled. It will no more work than
if China tries to project only soft power against India's tactics.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Joys of Parenthood

A new book talks about the joys of parenthood - and then relates that to happiness (specifically in the US) and then comes to the conclusion that conservatives are happier than liberals. The Economist has a nice article about this - the really amusing part is:

Happily for the reader, his book, “Gross National Happiness”, is not
a memoir. It is a subtle and engaging distillation of oceans of data.
When researchers ask parents what they enjoy, it turns out that they
prefer almost anything to looking after their children. Eating,
shopping, exercising, cooking, praying and watching television were all
rated more pleasurable than watching the brats, even if they don't
bite. As Mr Brooks puts it: “There are many things in a parent's life
that bring great joy. For example, spending time away from [one's]
children.”



Despite this, American parents are much more likely to be happy than
non-parents. This is for two reasons, argues Mr Brooks, an economist at
Syracuse University. Even if children are irksome now, they lend
meaning to life in the long term. And the kind of people who are happy
are also more likely to have children. Which leads on to Mr Brooks's
most controversial finding: in America, conservatives are happier than
liberals.