mind overcoming its cankers

There are cankers to be overcome by
insight, self-control, judicious use, endurance,
avoidance, elimination and development.

If cankers are not overcome,
what should be done is left undone,
but what should not be done is done;
the self important and the heedless,
For them the cankers only increase

For those who earnestly practice
the meditation on the nature of the body,
they do not do what should be not done,
They steadfastly pursue what should be done,
Hence for those mindful and clearly comprehending ones,
the cankers do come to an end.

Having rid of cankers,
like birds in the air -untraceable leaving no marks,
birth,death and rebirth ceases,
so like the bird free be!

(Dhp.292-3 and Buddharakkhita:2004)

A good offence is the best defence

Peace is the alternative to war. Yet as long as the socio-economic returns of defending a nation’s interest and its territorial integrity exceed the dividends of peace , states will choose war over peace even if they become protracted by nature.

There are three common ways to fund an economy in war times; increasing taxes, decreasing investments , and by incurring public and external debt. Whilst external spending on war shrinks national income, internal government spending can create effects similar to that of military Keynesianism. Wars can provoke shared poverty with governments tending to tax and borrow from the richer (as a means of financing the war) while increasing the income to the poor through military payrolls and subsidies. Such types of income distribution will deepen existing levels of poverty and increase its incidence.

One alternative to this dilemma is wealth creation through military industrialization (the European experience). Reverse engineering and tactical technology transfers can make room for such industrialization. Yet the majority of less developed countries (apart from,India,China and Parkistan and a few former soviet block countries) have so far not found this kind of prosperity through war.

The second alternative, the most probable, is to have sound war strategies accompanied by good economic management. Planners must find way to increase production and growth with what ever resources they could spare for non-war related activities. Cutting wastage, creating efficiency and productivity plus implementing development state mechanisms that provide fundamental infrastructure and guidance for low cost production with higher yields can be seen as primary policies adoptable by an economy in war.

As a stronger economy bares the brunt of war it can also give that little extra edge needed in winning a difficult one . Which makes one good offence in the economic frontier the best defence of all times.

Bang! you are dead: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

John Perkin's ‘Confession of an economic hit man’ is a page runner that that make for quality reading during the holiday season!

In the 10 years between 1971 and 1981, Perkins worked for an international consulting firm where he earned impressive job titles and salaries. Yet in reality Perkin’s job was to implement policies that promoted the interests of the U.S. corporatocracy while confessing to alleviate poverty.

Perkin calls himself “an economic hit man”. “Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," he writes. People recruited in to this capacity facilitate lending to third world countries that are strategically important for U.S interest. A necessary conditionality of these loans is that U.S. engineering companies be given the construction contracts of these development projects. So the money once again makes it way back to the U.S economy. Yet “the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest.” The debts are so large that eventually the debtor country has to default. The more the debt ,better the result. The debt becomes a lever forcing that country to serve U.S. and corporate interests, whether with “United Nations votes, the installation of military bases or access to precious resources such as oil.”

Citing Ecuador for example, the country Perkins served in as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1968, Perkin writes “ We loaned it billions of dollars so it could hire our engineering and construction firms to build projects that would help its richest families. As a result, in ... three decades, the official poverty level grew from 50 to 70 percent, public debt increased from $240 million to $16 billion, and the share of national resources allocated to the poorest citizens declined from 20 percent to 6 percent”.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man landed on The New York Times Bestseller List, and in 19 other bestseller lists including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
What better way to start the Holiday reading!!!

Post Script (2013): I wonder if the "economic hit man" strategy is in the preview of  modern Chinese policies. The billions thrown into economies in South Asia (Sri Lanka etc) and in Africa are mainly for infrastructure development. Unless these infrastructure turn into productive  income generating avenues the shadows of underdevelopment and aid dependency will remain at large.

Best practices? Whtz that?

The developing credit crisis in the United States, linked to the bursting of the housing market bubble, is beginning to reveal the accounting manipulations employed by major US financial institutions to engage in speculative activities and hide risks. The mortgage market – which loans to borrowers with a poor credit history - has been reeling under large losses for months and some of these losses have been incurred by hedge funds. In July number of hedge funds closed down and now in to the 4th quarter many large banks are reporting massive losses running into billions of dollars. Among the affected is Citigroup—an American financial conglomerate that is the world’s largest company measured by asset value and Morgan &Stanley—a forerunner among American banking dynasties. Morgan & Stanley’s reported losses for 2007 is a first in its 73 year old history.

Guess who is baling America out? For Morgan and Stanley it is good old China!(Chinese sovereign funds) While Citi had to latch on to the Moslem world to find a breather with Saudi funding.

The whole crisis coerces one to wonder why there is a duplicity when it comes to “Best Practices and Good Governance” for preachers of these have hardly practiced any to reach and to maintain the “now developed” status. One other thing, gone are the good old days of Allen Greenspan!!!!

The Greenspan Drama

Remember the great Allen Greenspan?

In 1980's Greenspan's predecessor, Paul Volcker, made the bold -- but widely unpopular -- decision to send the American economy into a major recession in order to curb the rampant inflation of the time. Many in the likes of Milton freedman believed that recessions were missteps of the federal reserves, thus Volcker was a prime example for a Fed induced recession. Unlike Volcker, Greenspan didn’t have to take dramatic steps to manage the economy. Greenspan was also accredited for steadying things during the "Black Monday" market crisis in 1987, the late 90's currency crisis and the hedge fund collapse that resulted due to Russian loan defaults. Even after 9/11 the American economic recovery was widely attributed to Greenspans voice of reasoning and strength.

Greenspan unlike many was the luckiest of the lot. He reigned during the longest period of an American economic boom, a result of a rapid technological advancement and trade. Thus inflation remained low and unemployment was less, making Greenspans job a lot easier. He was famous for his "inflation targeting", in which the Fed makes public a projected inflation rate, effecting a greater transparency in likely Fed moves to raise or lower short-term interest rates, a practice which Bernanke later replaced by providing a "targeted minimum level of inflation".

Greenspan was a keen supporter of the Bush administration. Economist Paul Krugman, a frequent Greenspan critic, wrote in the New York Times that Greenspan was a "three-card maestro" with a "lack of sincerity" who, "by repeatedly shilling for whatever the Bush administration wants, has betrayed the trust placed in the Fed chairman'". Yet Allen Greenspan wrote in his 2007 book, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil". One wonders whether his close relationship with the famous American philosopher Ayn Rand (who advocated objectivism against positivism) might have influenced him to develop this objectivistic insight into American politics.

Shel Silverstein

I recently fell in love with Shel Silverstein's work. Shel is an American children’s writer. His poetry is what took me by surprise. In almost all his work he tries to put forth an "alternative view". His famous poems including Danny O'Dare, Its dark inside here, rain, young boy and the old man, are just to name a few examples where this "alternative" perspective gets a sizable amount of attention. He voices his opinions as to how thankless can the thanksgiving dinner be, and how blue and dark the turkey feels on the happy Christmas table. What struk me most was the fact that he writes these for little children. Yet adults too can learn a thing or two by reading Silverstine's poems.

Point of View by Shel Silverstein
“Thanksgiving dinner’s sad and thankless
Christmas dinner’s dark and blue
When you stop and try to see it
From the turkey’s point of view.
Sunday dinner isn’t sunny
Easter feasts are just bad luck
When you see it from the viewpoint
Of a chicken or a duck.
Oh how I once loved tuna salad
Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too
Til I stopped and looked at dinner
From the dinner’s point of view”

Burning Burma

Tiananmen square student crackdown-1989

Myanmar uprising-2007

A picture is better than a million words. The advancing tanks in Tiananmen and the military crackdown in Myanmar are no different from one another....Brutal, violent and inhumane. Who stands to profit from all these? Surely not the people or the political leaderships of China or Myanmar.......

The gospel of 'democracy' preachers are having a field day just by glancing at the latest pictures smuggled out of Myanmar.

Fundamentals of Pragmatism

1. People only think of the pleasures of acquiring and don’t consider the trouble it involves. Suppose you have a hundreds of everything: cars, servants, houses…… life will be in a total mess!!
2. We are born with nothing and will die with nothing .
3. People who suffer most always find a way out, try squeezing a handful of mud it oozes between your fingers.
4. Just learning the theory want tell what the reality is, but practicing theory will.
5. Wisdom is in oneself, just like a sweet ripe mango is in a young green one.

(Adopted form- A tree in the forest by Ajahn Chah)

A tale of a theory

A keen observer will perhaps see that the modern day’s mainstream economics is largely neoclassical in assumption and implementation. And for many of us the neoclassical version of economics is the only economics we seem to know despite the existence of many other schools of thoughts. The popularity of Neoclassicism lies in its originality and its coherence with human nature.

Neoclassicism begins and ends with the single word, "maximization" and is sturdily built on the concept of "marginal’s". As far as neoclassicism goes maximization of desired marginals and minimization of the undesired seem to be the order of the day. The maximizing behavior is nothing new to humans. Realism believe that by nature human beings are greedy and self centric . Thus, "maximizing the marginals " approach is perhaps the closest theory that can explain man's behavior if one is to side with realism. Yet can ones maximization create anothers maximization? If one is to maximize at the expense of another can there be any progress in a society as a whole?Or else if maximization is rational behaviour what must be maximized in bringing harmony and prosperity to society ? (profit??)