‘We should send arms and ammunition to Ukraine because that will create thousands of jobs in dozens of states.’ – So said some high US government officials very recently. A few minutes of calm reflection shows how pathetic that reasoning is, coming from high US government officials.
Continue reading WAR ECONOMYAll posts by Naresh
TREASURE HUNT
Over the last few weeks, a truth has dawned on this seeker.
Internet is flooded with opinions … answers … narratives … theories … viewpoints … self-promotions … whatever. Almost every person on our beloved planet is able to share something of that kind with almost every other person on the planet. This is in fact a mind-boggling gift of technology.
Thank you, Internet!
But there is clearly a HUGE down side to all this. What is an individual to make of this unprecedented, incredible information overload?
THE TRUTH LIES WITHIN, AS DOES THE TEST OF TRUTH.
In the absence of these two crucial elements, an individual is literally lost — drowned? — in the flood of information.
Therefore, instead of hawking yet another opinion … answer … narrative … theory … viewpoint … whatever … Why not try something else?
Why not prompt … provoke … nudge … prod … the search for answers in the recesses of the individual mind? That should be fun!
Questions will be posted — or, to be more precise, points to ponder. The hope is that these will generate answers. Not ‘perfect’ answers, of course, because there is no such thing. But honest and authentic attempts, offered to others in the spirit of sharing.
Join the treasure hunt!
Watch this space.
KARL MARX, THE PROPHET OF GOONS – Part 3
Truth requires no coercion. Any moderately intelligent person can make choices appropriate to him or her, based on what is available and feasible. Any healthy human society runs on the basis of average people making innumerable such ‘common sense’ choices. This, in practical terms, is what the average person understands by the word ‘freedom’.
Depriving a society of such freedom leads to misery. Despots – that is, glorified goons – deprive a society of the vitality that springs from this freedom.
KARL MARX, THE PROPHET OF GOONS – Part 2
There will always be economic inequalities in any society. Why? Quite simply because there are incredibly huge differences among people’s outlook on life, the importance they attach to wealth, their ambitions, their good and bad habits, the social pressures they experience … and so on and on.
Dreaming of an ideal society in which there are no economic inequalities is therefore being naive, foolish – or both! The dream does not match reality.
So then what does a person do? Does one simply sit with folded hands and shed tears that the world is not constructed according to one’s ideals?
Continue reading KARL MARX, THE PROPHET OF GOONS – Part 2
KARL MARX, THE PROPHET OF GOONS – Part 1
Popular myth is that Karl Marx, thinking deeply about life from within a library in London, came up with profound economic discoveries.
Dear Reader, does one discover deep truths of the real life from within the confines of a library? Today, would you trust a ‘profound thinker’ whose working day is spent surfing the web and theorising?
REALITY: One learns about real life and the economy by being out in the middle of economic action; by earning a living, talking with an open mind to workers, farmers, factory owners, shopkeepers – learning from them, understanding their lives, understanding what we all seek. The realities of economic life – extremely harsh though they may be – must be experienced before any workable solution is formulated and proffered to the world.
Continue reading KARL MARX, THE PROPHET OF GOONS – Part 1
ONE CHINA POLICY THAT WE CAN APPLAUD!
The so-called One China Policy, as currently defined by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and apparently accepted by global power-mongers, is a crass statement of superpower aspirations, racism and xenophobia. People around the world do not speak up against this policy because they fear upsetting “the dragon”, or losing lucrative business opportunities and investments from China. The questionable basis of the policy is never discussed.
Continue reading ONE CHINA POLICY THAT WE CAN APPLAUD!
Globalization: A Sneaky Overview
Consider the hypothetical case of an economy with annual GDP of 5 trillion US dollars, the broad economic dynamics of which are the subject matter of this exploration.
The hypothetical country whose economy we analyze here is named AB, because its internal economy is composed of two distinct components A and B. The total population of AB is 100 million, but only about 2% of it belongs to B; the rest of it belongs to A. For the ease of dealing with round numbers, we shall say that A and B have populations of 100 million and 2 million respectively.
Taxes or Debt?
Economists define ‘the wealth of a society’ as its total stock of useful assets – homes, cars, buildings, roads, factories, cattle, money, gold … et cetera. Let us call this definition D1.
A definition serves merely as a starting point for a logical exploration of related ideas. However – and necessarily – the direction which the exploration takes depends on the definition. In any discussion of ideas, a conscious effort is needed to understand how it is influenced by the definitions of its basic terms.
Response to the Bank Chairman
The Chairman of a large global bank recently gave a TV interview about the state of the world economy [1]. Not surprisingly, the Chairman gave what was intended to be a sound and learned justification for a world order characterized by barrier-less trade.
However, the justification came out as being utterly sophomoric in its quality. That is to say, it was not too different from how a privileged undergraduate might argue in a college debate. Only the mannerisms were different – the uncle spoke, not the nephew or the niece. Continue reading Response to the Bank Chairman
From Barter to Debt: A Brief History
[In which the brilliant deductive techniques of Sherlock Holmes are applied to the origins of debt, currency and the debt-linked economy.]
- BACKGROUND
Imagine the simple human economic life of about five thousand years ago, based on the production and exchange of the necessities of life. If one family has a surplus goat, say, and another family has surplus wheat, then both would benefit by making an exchange — so much wheat for a goat. Economically, the exchange would make excellent sense, because it would leave everyone better off. Continue reading From Barter to Debt: A Brief History
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