Thought Garage

I had long believed that Capitalism and particularly the Private Sector is a key to a country’s growth and economic well being.  But looking at what Private Sector has done to US, I started having second thoughts on the whole idea. Read the following excerpt from TIME magazine that reveals Private sector failed to create any new jobs in US while still reaping profits and expanding its markets. Myth No. 3: The private sector will make it all better There is a fundamental disconnect between the fortunes of American companies, which are doing quite well, and American workers, most of whom are earning a lower hourly wage now than they did during the recession. The thing is, companies make plenty of money; they just don't spend it on workers here. Half of Americans say they couldn't come up with $2,000 in 30 days without selling some of their possessions. Meanwhile, companies are flush: American firms generated $1.68 trillion in profit in the last quarter of 2010 alone. But many...

Just watched Uncle Ben goes shopping on Active Player . The Federal Reserve is trying to stimulate the economy by buying billions of dollars worth of bonds from banks. Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch explains how that's supposed to work. Uncle Ben goes shopping from Marketplace on Vimeo . Source : Uncle Ben goes shopping from APM: Marketplace Whiteboard ( Feed ) via Active Player

I read great stories and reports about Plano that Plano is one of the best and arguably one of the most affluent cities. I wonder why City maintains these volleyball courts in Russelcreek park in such a horrible and unsafe conditions for so long. One of our friends complained back in August 2009 about the plight of these courts. It appears nothing has been done and conditions have only gone worse since then. Looking at these grounds, I am quite sure that no city official paid a visit to these grounds since that complaint made or made sure otherwise these grounds are maintained well and safer. Hope at least they can take a look at these pictures and do something. Please do send an email to Plano city officials with these pictures or pass the URL to them. Hope, we will have better and safer grounds soon. The East Court : Hope this pole stay strong for few more days…! ( Pole on the east side) The East Court : West side pole. You can also see the condition of the net. We...

Why did China, India and Brazil all emerge so much more rapidly from the global financial crisis than advanced economies did? In a presentation in Denver to the National Association for Business Economics, Nobel Prize-winning economist Michael Spence, now of New York University, offered several reasons: These economies learned bitter lessons in the 1997-98 crisis that afflicted them more than advanced economies. They were in “a good initial position” with relatively low leverage, and thus didn’t get hit with the severe “balance sheet recession” that hit the U.S. They hadn’t any complex securitized financial instruments. They had built up large foreign-exchange reserves. Their central banks responded, much as advanced countries’ central banks did, with speed and agility to the credit tightening. Their economic managers displayed “a high degree of competence.” Source: WSJ

The official Indian Currency, “Rupee” (INR) got its official currency Symbol now. You can use it now on web pages all over. Look how the symbol looks on a typical webpage  Picture Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_sign

One of my favorites and I believe is one of the best of contemporary leaders, Jaya Prakash Narayan was recently at Google and shared his thoughts. His ideology presented in a context that most NRIs and the world could easily understand, aptly named, “19th Century Politics and 21st Century Economics”.    You may follow the speech with interactive transcript feature on the youtube site .

Proponents of Green, watch this video. If you believe in 80:20 rule, go and hit the 80% part of it with just 20% of your decisions. And leave the rest of 20% of going green, that essentially need and demand 80% changes in life styles for future study. In a short, funny, data-packed talk at TED U, Catherine Mohr walks through all the geeky decisions she made when building a green new house -- looking at real energy numbers, not hype. What choices matter most? Not the ones you think. Catherine Mohr builds green http://www.ted.com/talks/catherine_mohr_builds_green.html

Lots of people are puzzling through the SEC's fraud allegations against Goldman Sachs, trying to work out how it allegedly committed fraud. The way Paddy Hirsch sees it, it's a bit like a bookie and gambler teaming up to fix a horse race. SEC goes after Goldman from Marketplace on Vimeo .

Thanks to ‘the way’ everything works in India and grandeur vision and strategies of us, the people and our leaders, this is that time of the year to reap some special benefits. Yes, I am talking about so called ‘scheduled’ power outages. Technically they are scheduled as we all know there must be outages, though the schedules change everyday and will be revealed only on the following day. On 1st of March, we had a 14 hour power cut , first day of this year to mark the record. We thought we were quite well prepared this time, with installing an inverter and batteries enough to supply essentials for about 6 hours in a stretch. But, we were wrong. Power cuts are happening in such a haphazard frequency that these systems could barely charge and bailing out with crying beeps within a couple of hours. We thought 14 hours will be our worst day and things would improve. But defying our naive optimism, we had a 17 hour power cut on 2nd of March. Now, we officially lost all hope that inverte...

I love the way Paddy Hirsch explains complex market place dynamics in the simplest way possible that even I can get a glimpse of how it works. In this week, he explains how banks are making money without practically lending to people or small businesses that desperately need it. How the big banks make the big bucks from Marketplace on Vimeo . This is almost like a scam. How can this be all legal and allowed? Why do Government allow these banks to buy Treasury Bonds with money given by Federal Reserve for lending activities. Wouldn’t buying treasury bonds considered as an investment?

About 50% of Indian population is not yet eligible to vote (paraphrased) : Nandan Nilekani, Imagining India

Google unveiled a labs feature called ‘Living Stories’ that organizes news related to a topic in a format that best fits the online reader and present all relevant information at one place. I love this new format. Online news should have been this way in the first place, but I am glad it is headed in this direction. Watch this YouTube video for a short demo of the new feature from Google Labs. Check out some of the hot topics of the day… Google Living Pages : Executive Compensation Page   Google Living Pages : The Politics of Global Warming

Few days back I read an article breaking the news that lots of Indians are going back to India, causing what is called as ‘reverse brain drain ’. Its not the first time I heard this, and certainly it won’t be the last time. Every time going gets tougher in US, I hear this story. This is not a surprise to hear the story in 2009, the worst of times we have seen in recent years.  Whatever reason many attribute to their intention to return to India, it won’t be any easier just to get back. So many things that are taken for granted in US are a rarity or a luxury in India like electricity and roads.  And another significant aspect pointed (in an NY Times Article ) by Raju Narisetty, “Some very simple practices that you often take for granted, such as being ethical in day to day situations, or believing in the rule of law in everyday behavior, are surprisingly absent in many situations”.  Some get upset. Some get used to it, for its not an alien thing to anybody. But some h...

Dow Jones Index crosses the symbolic 10000 figure. U.S. stocks rallied, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 10,000 for the first time in a year, on better-than-estimated earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Intel Corp. Bank of America Corp., American Express Co. and JPMorgan more than doubled since the Dow slid to a 12-year low on March 9 as global financial firms began recovering from $1.6 trillion in writedowns and credit losses. International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. jumped at least 54 percent since March 9 on signs the nation was recovering from the worst recession in seven decades. Source: Bloomberg And, about 7500 International Tax dodgers file for IRS Amnesty to avoid jail Some 7,500 international tax dodgers have applied for an amnesty program that promises no jail time and reduced penalties for tax cheats who come forward, the Internal Revenue Service announced Wednesday. … The program is part of a larger eff...

Toward India 2020: Challenges and Opportunities ( http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/705 ) Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Indian Planning Commission) discusses plans for India's continued economic growth. The true objective for India, he believes, is “inclusive growth,” an equitable and constructive distribution of economic gains via market forces, government and public means.

  "Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures   and Yours" Removing half a billion people from poverty and into the productive workforce will profoundly affect on the world economy. India and China are doing just that with insane growth rates and lots of what used to be American jobs: China is the factory floor and India the back-office, software shop. China is top-down party driven. India is a messy, vibrant democracy

  He zeroes in on one of the students and christens him Nelson. "I’ll bet Nelson has a cell phone," Romer remarks. He then asks the audience why Nelson would have a cutting edge technology like a cell phone but no access to electricity. His answer -- rules. Romer explains that in this country the electric company has to provide electricity at a subsidized price, and so cannot make profit. They have no incentive or ability to reach more customers . The president has tried to change pricing but protests broke out from businesses and the public.   Quite a unique perspective. India is another example. Most people have cell phones, but no electricity. For instance, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, on an average you only get electricity for about 10 hours a day. in this country the electric company has to provide electricity at a subsidized price, and so cannot make profit. They have no incentive or ability to reach more customers The above quot...

Its pretty unusual for many otherwise very successful Indians to write books, about anything. Be it sharing what they have mastered or what they have thought about, leave alone preaching something. I was thrilled to see Kishore Biyani unveiling ‘ It Happened in India ’ a couple of years ago.  And I recently came to know about Nandan Nilekani touring in USA promoting his own book, ‘Imagining India’. It is another of those aha moment to cherish.  I was surprised the book cover appears different for the version that will be sold in India vs. the one that will be sold in US. The website of the book, ImaginingIndia displays the cover page (left) with seemingly thoughtful Nilekani on the cover. Where as the one I saw on Amazon has cover page (right) displaying a busy train station. Did Nilekani think, it would be embarrassing for foreigners if he had put his own face on the cover? Just like Infosys thought it would be embarrassing to foreign nationals to sing our National ...

If Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in United States and 400,000 people die from it each year, why not ban it completely? It doesn’t make any sense.  How come US Government (and governments across the world) sell licenses to kill 400,000 of its own country men and women each year?   You know, the legislation I'm signing today represents change that's been decades in the making. Since at least the middle of the last century, we've known about the harmful and often deadly effects of tobacco products. More than 400,000 Americans now die of tobacco-related illnesses each year, making it the leading cause of preventable death in the United States . More than 8 million Americans suffer from at least one serious illness caused by smoking. And these health problems cost us all more than $100 billion a year. -- President Barack Obama (At the signing of Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, 22nd June 2009) ( Link ) Whose interest it i...

As promised yesterday, I am presenting the interview with Rajesh Setty on  ‘Upbeat’, his recent book that inspires and helps to cultivate the right attitude to thrive in tough times like this recession. One of the interesting aspects of this book is the fact that the  book was originally written during the dot-com-bust with lessons learnt in building a business during that time and hence I consider it as a ‘proven’ strategy for thriving in tough times, any time.  As I mentioned yesterday I was first introduced to Rajesh Setty and Life Beyond Code through a Manifesto, 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself   published on ChangeThis about 4 years back and I have been a regular reader of Life Beyond Code blog since then.  I am always inspired by the passion he brings into every thing he does. Be it a blog, tweets, e-books or his squidoo lenses.  Many of you know Rajesh as the man behind ‘(Life) Beyond Code’ , but Rajesh is also involved in a few companies in s...