Ramadesikan Gandarvakottai's blog

Entries in "Musings of a Bystander"

Haiti, Earthquakes and What World Never Learns.

As the the extent of havoc caused by the earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan 12th, the question that arises is whether the tragedy could have been prevented. The unequivocal answer is yes, because in any earthquake, the actual earthquake doesn't kill people but the collapsing buildings and houses do..

As a survivor of the earthquake that struck Gujarat region in India, I can say that riding out a earthquake 7.9 on the Richter scale was not a problem, but living in poor quality high rises was. Many people who lived in such high rises didn't live to see the next day. Death was not restricted to high rises, it also occurred when badly constructed small dwellings flattened. These dwellings were built using poor quality construction materials and rocks/stones stacked one upon another. The poor built their shanties thinking that rocks make good housing material, but were then crushed by the rock walls collapsing.

The lessons I learnt after the Gujarat earthquake were 1) If there had been little bit of town planning, the number of people who died could have been reduced drastically 2)If building inspectors had inspected the buildings, collapses could have been avoided and 3)If poor had been taught to build simple earthquake resistant structures using clay or any other materials, many lives could have been saved.

After the earthquake the local goverment made some noise about construction quality and building safety. Eight years after the quake when I visited the region I was shocked to find that nothing has changed - all I could see was new high rises of dubious quality, built on narrower streets and close to each other. It clearly indicated that some societies never learn from even the worst of disasters.

In Haiti the situation is the same - an earthquake compounded by bad structures and poor quality housing in shanty towns. Political instability and poverty are only part of the explanation that can be given. The main reason is world is used to giving a lot in aid and charity without giving any worthwhile suggestion. Bush adminsitration gave heath aid under the condition that it will be used for abstinence only programs. I don't understand why no country will ever say aid will be provided only if the recepient agrees to make the country disaster resistant. Compared to the cost of post earthquake rescue, recovery and reconstruction, making a country earthquake resistant will be cost efffective. Infact the earthquake preparedness of countries that have not learned lessons from the past should be open to international inspection otherwise no international aid should be provided when disaster strikes.

Government Ownership and Capitalism

2009 saw the biggest take over of private corporations in US history, some called it socialism and others called it protecting US jobs. Let us be clear there is nothing wrong in Government ownership, e.g. best airlines in the world like Emirates and Singapore Airlines are govt. owned but the privately owned airline companies of US are not anywhere near the world's best. There are any number of companies worldwide which are best in the class. Govt. ownership is like any other ownership as long as business is run like a business. There are many companies in Singapore that are govt. owned and the country remains one of the best places to do business. However in many countries Govt. owned companies look like a cookie jar for the politicians to put their hand in .However in India the Govt owned companies are a big mess because of feudal mind set of the politicians who feel they can interfere in anything they want.

I thought US being a capitalist bastion the politicians will express restrain with new govt. owned companies but it has not happened, in fact the interference has been particularly higher in case of free market non socialist Republicans, This story in Wall Street Journal explains Montana's Republican governer wants to overide a decision of a bankruptcy court and force GM to reinstate a contract for precious metal mined in his state. Another attempt to undermine the bankruptcy court in the GM case, is the bill passed by the congress to reinstate the auto dealerships. The key sponsor of bill was none other than Steve Latourette (R-Ohio), whose heart will bleed for auto dealers so much he will trample over institutions like court, but the Rep. will not vote for health care affordability bill for people suffering without health coverage. This behavior is banana republic crony capitalism at extreme.

It is clearany Govt. owned corporation will not survive in US not because ownseship pattern is bad, not because of alleged socialism but because of crony capitalim practised in US.

Bhopal 25 Years Later.

The Fall of 1984 marked the end of my innocence, I was in American equivalent of sophomere year in high school in India. During that epoch making season for Indians, Mrs Indira Gandhi, a former prime minister was assassinated, by her own security guards and her son who succeded her defended the violence that was unleashed against the Indian Sikh community by his political party. To quote his exact words " When a giant tree falls the earth shakes".

The assissnation was followed by the Bhopal Gas tragedy, which occured when an insecticide plant owned by Union Carbide released a deadly chemical into the air, with one government radio station and one governemnt TV station Indians didn't have too much of choice for information. The news was first broken to the world by the legendary India correspondent of BBC Mark Tully . The chilling words can be heard here.

The most memorable piece of journalism which I remember even today is this picture (please ignore the captions) which first appeared in India Today magazine, one of the few independent news sources at that time. Following the tragedy Indian politicians jumped in made a lot of noise, politicians accused each other of in the pockets of evil corporations. My take aways from that fateful Fall were 1) never trust a polictian, 2) never trust a corporation and 3)to fight for justice.

Over the years I have realized politicians don't change, corporations have improved their behavior by focussing on corporate social reponsibility and world will never be a just place at best it can be least unjust.

The surviving victims of the tragedy continue with their dismal existence and with the knowledge reaper is always ready for them. The survivors got a measly compensation from Union Carbide, since it was ordered by the Indian courts, it can't be revisited.Within few years there won't be any survivors left, probabaly it is high time for all involved to bring a collective closure to this tragedy.

White House Evening of 11/3/09

It must not been an easy evening for the chief resident at the White House yesterday. Being the chief resident of the White House is never going to be easy especially when million people are going to pop up and say I told you so, and many rats will abandon the assumed sinking ship. Democ'rats'not a party of ideology, celebrated for being a big tent, hopefully yesterday's events will exposse them as fair weather friends.

At this time I quote Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3 verses 7 & 8, it is a rough translation into english.

"But he excels, O Arjuna whose mind is
master of his senses and who
free of attachment, engages himself in the
path of action"

"Action is better than inaction
Do thoe, therefore, thy given work; without
action, the very life in thy body could not be"

I believe these words from thousands of years should guide the chief resident of White House's action. If he crumbles he may survive he may have another term but he will leave no lasting impact.

Norman Borlaug

In many ways I'm a beneficiary of Norman Borlaug's work. A dedicated scientist whose work was a main ingredient in fighting food shortfall and hunger in India during my childhood. I remember long ration lines for rice and trucks carrying cooked rice across state lines because there was a ban on interstate movement of rice, during periods of food shortfall.

Together with his peer agricultural scientists, India was pulled back from starvation and avoided becoming an example of Malthusian prophecy. Unfortunately, in India the gains he made are not permanent. Social changes, human greed, and ever increasing demands on land for economic development are eroding the gains made. In places like Punjab state of India, preference for male child and subsequent division of family owned agricultral land has reduced farm size below the size required for economic farming. Farmers who made gains thru scientific advances depleted the farm by overuse. Agriculture land is coming under severe pressure to be used for non agriculture purpose to support the India's economic growth

This negative development is not confined to India, it is true for many countries where intensive agriculture is done.

Norman Borlaug passing away comes in the shadow of recent Food and Agricultural Organization report that world has to increase by 70% from today's levels by 2050

With challeneges of climate Change, diversion of food for bio fuels, erosion of good soil and continued explosion of population, it will be a tough task to meet the challenge ahead

McNamara, Cronkite

As a not so serious blogger who doesn't have a compulsion to push views out regularly, I realized how some topics freezes my thinking as the world passes by.

I have been trying to blog on former Secy. of Defense McNamara passing away, who was much reviled for going to Vietnam. Vietnam war was not a war of deceit, there was no WMD used or mushroom cloud threat thrown. What started as a US support operation for South Vietnam slipped into a war after a North Vietnamese attack on US destroyers in what is called Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Many years later it was revealed that the North Vietnamese attack was ordered by a local commander, whereas US thought it was decision of the North Vietnamese top leadership. This was revealed in a conversation by McNamara and North Vietnamese leadership of the time, much after the war, this conversation much more can be found in McNamara's book Argument Without End In Search Of Answers To The Vietnam Tragedy .

It is difficult to say the war was necessary or not, Vietnam came soon after Korea. US being a nation of ideas and ideals instead of nation based on ethnicity had to make hard decisions like Vietnam. When time came McNamara took decisions based on convictions, his decisions might not have won him friends, but he did an honest public service. McNamara was not a Donald Rumsfeld.

Cronkite who passed away soon after McNamara was an outstanding journalist rarely seen these days, he made a prescient call that US has lost the war much before it lost. We don't too many people of this kind these days, 24 hour news cycle make me sick.

I am ambivalent about the opinion that Vietnam was an unpopular war, for the following reasons.

1) Loss of antiwar candidate McGovern's loss due to his opposition to Vietnam war among many other things.

2)Change of heart in many Americans after looking at the way South Vietnamese were treated by the North Vietnamese after the end of War, in fact support for the war grew after the end of Vietnam war. A book I read recently details it.

Small Lessons of Life

This afternoon a group of five year olds were discussing what they will be doing, when they will be twenty. One wise one said they will, still have their names and still be friends. How simple some worlds are.

Janitorial Presidents

I a have strange feeling that Democratic presidents are elected to become janitors, to clean the mess created by the previous Republican administrations.

FDR despite what revisionists might say had a lot of work to do after President Hoover left. President Carter was programmed to fail after so much of mess he inherited, he coulsn't really succeed as an janitor president.

President Clinton despite not having same party congress most of his term, overcome the fiscal mess left behind by Presidents Reagen and H W Bush, was on track to leave a surplus.

Preisent W Bush blew the surplus went to war with borrowed money, and generally slept at the wheel when economy went down hill.

Now we have another janitor president who has assumed full responsibility for the mess left behind by the previous administration. There is huge group which sits in an elevated position far from the problem shouting whatever he does is wrong, probably they don't want to be near to a place where a janitor is working, what is surprising is that group that is making noise now is the same one which created the current mess.

I think republican strategy is create mess lose office, make fun of the janitor presidents and then come back to office.

Information Economy - Real Economy

I am in a state of confusion, I am trying to answer the question whether the information economy helps or hurts the real economy. With the advent of the information economy in the last 12 to 13 years (probably the duration of the public availability of Internet). Two big recessions and two slowdowns (1996&2005)have occured probably faster than anytime in history. I am trying to explain this in a series of hypothesis below:

Hypothesis I: Information Economy has led to gross misallocation of capital. Since a large amount of capital is concentrated in information economy, it has starved the real economy of capital for its renewal, leading to stagnation of real economy which forms a large part of economy.

Hypothesis II: Information Economy creates myths that can hurt real economy in the long run. In information economy it is easy to create myths like housing prices will go up infinitely or dot com stocks never fails, which will come back to haunt the real economy.

Hypothesis III: Information Economy creates a culture of nothing is of value. Look at people expecting news, music, movies and books for free, one can see people have lost the sense that these products have value. (one can argue new talent has sprouted in information economy, but the notion remains there is no need to pay for many products).

Hypothesis IV: Information Economy is supposed to "Creatively Destruct" but looking at long range employment and per capita income in the recent past it appears that Information Economy's ability to destruct is more than create.

I couldn't find evidence contrary to what I have said. Probably Information Economy needs some more time.

Cuyahoga River - 40 Years After-Lessons for Global Warming

This afternoon I had a boat ride along the Cuyahoga River here in Cleveland. For many it may sound like one of the thousand rivers that flow in America. Cuyahoga is an unique one in that it is the only river that actually burned, 40 years ago.

Actually, river didn't burn but the pollutants like shipping fuel oil burned. Soon after the incident Cleveland became known for the burning river, fodder for late night comedians and infact led to the decay of Cleveland as an industrial power. This incident led to the formation of EPA. the opposition to the EPA's regulation is detailed in its grotesque form here in the interview with first administrator of EPA under Nixon administration.

Despite the efforts of various administrations to undermine the EPA, Cuyahoga river is now thriving with aquatic life. Attitude towards EPA, Pollution and Control of pollution, is strikingly similar to conservatives approach to Global Warming, they are in denial phase just like they were with pollution. They didn't foresee burning rivers or any other eventuality, I hope they see the disaster they almost caused with pollution and keep away from from Global Warming.

Against All Odds

Yesterday was the student achievement recognition day at our Local GED program. This program provides a chance to those dropped out of high school to come back and get a diploma which is equal to High School's diploma. I was at the event because I extensively volunteer with the local GED program teaching math. This is the most prosaic part of it.

When students were asked to take the mike and say what made to come back to GED program. These were some of the reasons they shared.

A middle aged lady said "I lost my job, next time around I want to reduce one reason-- that is not having High School Diploma"

I didn't have a choice a Judge made getting GED a condition for my release, now I am going to college.

I was drifting in life, somehow got GED, and now I am joining the Navy.

I had to take care of my mother from a young age now I have GED, I have enrolled in College to get my Registered Nurse degree.

The themes across experiences of the students that they couldn't complete High School are 1)Family circumstances 2) Parental neglect and 3) Serious violations of law which kept in Juvenile Justice System. Most of the students have put their past behind them are looking towards a bright future, I am sure the path they crossed would have made them strong.

From being expected to fail, to a stage talking about college options, it is a success "Against All Odds"

Don't Repeat 1953 - Iran Elections

Let us face it, President Ahmedinejad won his second term yesterday, despite the claims of voter fraud. A simple arithmetic of votes, rural plus urban poor plus others, will show that Ahmedinejad is the ultimate winner.

US in all probability had a clandestine program to stop the Iran's nuclear program, which was revealed in an Seymour Hersh's article in 2008. This report was not refuted, so I, presume this time around western powers might have used money and strategic assets to have different outcome.

The western media went on a overdrive as the election approached, magnified any opposition activity and predicted Ahmedinejad's downfall. A guest on a NPR talk show said yesterday we will be having a new president in two weeks, so much for journalist objectivity. All western journalists violated the first rule of research don't search for a pattern that suits the desired result.

With current street demonstrations I hope nobody is trying to repeat coup of 1953. The coup brought in Shah. Shah was pathetic leader for a civilization that produced Cyrus the Great

The effects of the coup were summarized by none other than former Secy. of State Madeleine Albright

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs"

Shah's (mis) rule led to a strong resentment towards US and eventually to the 1979 revolution, which led to the current form of Government in Iran. It is easy to live in a fool's paradise thinking that because bulk of Iran population was not alive in 1979 they will automatically tend towards US. It is easy to believe iPods and internet will make the youth look toward US for intellectual vigor. This thought of small section of youth living in cities will disappear in front of huge Friday prayer crowds chanting death to America.

Whatever the policy is adopted by Obama administration, it should not assume that Iran is a pushover. Administration should think twice before spilling blood in streets of Iranian cites.

I was surprised by Secy. Clinton's statement that US is not recognizing the Iranian election result because of electoral fraud. This surprising because western media was everywhere and reporting what they saw rather what they wanted to see.

Ma'am Secy. Clinton if anybody sees an election in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County no country will recognize the election of an US president. With minority voting suppression, difficulties in registering and difficulties in getting absentee ballots, US elections doesn't set any standards.

Aging in America

Aging in America conjures the image of people enjoying their golden years in Florida or seniors aging with dignity in nursing homes. Contrary to this image there is a large number of people who fall through the cracks. These are the seniors who depend on Medicaid for nursing care. The care is not free, the total expenses incurred will be collected from the Medicaid beneficiary's estate. This program has a rider, if a person can be taken care for 60% (in Ohio) of nursing home cost, the person will be provided care at home.

Every Friday, I distribute meals to seniors who are provided care at home and it raises the question in me on what basis the decision to provide care at home is made.

One person to whom I deliver meals, turned 94 last week, he is severely arthritic whose leg freezes in Cleveland winter, he lives alone, I am sure he wouldn't have chosen to live alone but for the Medicaid rules.

Another person aged enough to call a 80 year old kiddo, collects soda cans as donations to supplement her meager Social Security Income, she lives alone in an apartment, an existence beyond description.

These people are not free riding the system, during their productive years they went to wars, produced steel and automobiles and worked as teachers.

Throwing the rule book at these seniors and subjecting them to discomfort seems............

Industrial Policy and USA

What is common through Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Samsung, Nokia and Sony. These corporations are product of Industrial Policy, of the governments of the countries from which these corporations originated. For these corporations governments, spent time, effort, feeding them with ideas and making their success in overseas market as part of their diplomatic corps' work ( In fact South Korean foreign minister is designated as Minister for Foreign Affairs and trade).

One of my earlier work on Industrial Policy was cited for the first time in a paper about the present condition of Korean Industrial Policy, I thought this gave me license to talk about Industrial Policy and US.

What the Industrial Policies have done to US industry? Decay of US automobile is largely attributable to Industrial Policy of Japan and now South Korea. Motorola becoming irrelevant in mobile market can be attributed to Industrial Policies of European Union and South Korea. These examples prove there is nothing called free market, if US keeps harping on free market while the foreign governments keep helping their corporations to have the US market for lunch, US has a serious problem.

US Govt. is being criticized for just investing in companies without any operational role, it is being called Industrial Policy or Socialism. Since, I have a researched a bit on Industrial Policy and since I grew up in socialistic India, I know US Govt. role is neither Industrial Policy or Socialism.

US has reached a stage where it cannot cede any more industry to foreign companies, because it destroys the economic base of the country and continued $ 1 trillion trade deficit cannot be justified by any argument, I don't see any new industry coming up in the near future that will make the trade deficit go away. US has to make some serious decisions about its relation with its corporations, rest of the world has shown the way.

PS: I think I need a job...ideas

Judicial Impartiality

Two days back Supreme Court delivered a precedent setting judgment on judicial conduct. The case Caperton vs A T Massey Coal Company was about "Whether the Chief Justice of West Virginia Supreme Court should have recused himself in a case involving a corporation that spent $ 3 Million on his election.? The decision on a 5 to 4 split was yes, I was surprised by the slim margin. I thought the issue of judicial fairness is something black and white with no shade of Grey.

It is a basic principle of justice that "justice is done and justice is seen to be done", when a judge who has drawn heavy campaign contributions from a litigant, I think this basic rule is violated.

In my opinion the members of the minority should have recused themselves from this case because they don't believe in recusal or go back on their words about recusal. Justice Scalia refused to recuse from cases involving Dick Cheney despite going on hunting trips with him, nobody expects a person to be impartial towards a hunting buddy. Justice Alito didn't recuse himself from cases involving Vangaurd despite giving assurances that he will not judge cases involving Vanguard during his confirmation hearing as noted in this NPR report

The main argument of the minority is that it will open a lot of recusal claims , I think judges are uniquely qualified to work thru this and avoid these claims. Their actions should prove justice is blind and not selectively blind.

PS: After the Supreme Court judgment the Supreme Court of Ohio delivered a judgment that favored the police and firefighters in relaxing the residency requirements. All the Justices in the majority were endorsed by police and firefighters in their elections.

CEO Pay

Other day in a coffee shop a free enterprise supporting lady was defending CEO pay saying it is supported by free market and pay is determined by market, like the salaries of athletes.

The truth is salaries of performers like athletes are determined by market because billions of viewers watch them performing, when billions vote with their pockets or remotes the salary of a permformer is determined, it is like an everyday American Idol.

Whereas number of people who manage to look at a CEO perform is less. With heavy concentration of stock holding and CEOs performing tricks to please Wall Street it is very difficult to determine what the CEO does is for the benefit of the organization.

Normally pay is for competence and competition, for example an average welder in an organization may get a certain pay and a brilliant welder will get a different pay. Competition may try to pouch the brilliant welder so he/she may be compensated more to be retained. In case of a CEO, the work often falls in grey area, like planning, the value of the work can't be determined so the board negotiates, since the board is not any wise it gives in to the CEO demand. The pay of CEO since is not in direct proportion to any measurable value in many cases the CEO pay tend to resemble Rent Seeking behaviour. This tends to dimish the validity of arguement CEO pay set by the market.

PS: Costco CEO pay is $315,000 and underperforming Sams Club CEO pay is an annual salary of $800,000 and $2 million in restricted Wal-Mart stock

When did I realize Internet has made me dumb?

When I checked the local temperature on Internet before going and sitting in my balcony

Season Finale

Season Finale in TV jargon generally means rest for the production team, the TV show ends with an unanswered question. In Cleveland, today is the season finale of Cleveland Orchestra a cherished and revered institution but as the season comes to an end, an unusual question lingers, whether it will come back in its full glory next year? with financial troubles many people are asking this question. The fear is not unfounded with the loss of city industrial power Cleveland lost many institutions like {Red} an Orchestra, Ohio Ballet , Cleveland Ballet (which now performs as San Jose Ballet) and Ohio Chamber Orchestra.

This fear has spread to sports as Cleveland Cavaliers reach the season finale and face the elimination in the play offs questions have risen whether LeBron James will come back or will it will be the end of rise of Cavaliers.

Its wrong time to utter season finale in Cleveland, but I would love to bring atleast one of the Cleveland Ballet companies back, to prove that there is nothing called a finale

Is my conclusion right?

I volunteer for the Case Western Commencement every year, since I manage the doors every year, I see thousands of people passing thru the doors. Like any event attracting thousands of people, the commencement has restrictions like not to use a particular entrance, clear the path for commencement procession etc..

What struck me was in any particular year a bunch of South Asians don't want to follow the follow the simple rules, this year one South Asian gentleman threatened to break my bones when I stopped him from entering thru the wrong door, he was so obnoxious that I had to send police to read his Miranda Rights. I don't understand why they do it, because they have concluded rules don't apply to them, or another South Asian like me cannot enforce the rules that might affect them.

On a recent visit to Silicon valley I saw a South Asian screaming at a pharmacist for delay in medication, while the pharmacist was explaining that she hasn't received the prescription from his urgent care clinic. During the same visit at an Indian restaurant few Indians walk passed the door my cousin was holding open without even acknowledging him, needless to say I was not please with this behaviour. The number of such incidents were too many to be counted while at Silicon Valley.

What ails South Asians? What attitude rubs on them when they land with their 32 kg Rexine bags? Do they conclude they can shout at anybody and have their way? Is the behaviour shaped by resource constrained environment in their native lands too hard to change? Do they believe the basic norms of society doesn't apply to them?....................................?

US and UN

Most high schools and colleges in US have a club called Model UN it is supposed to be a place where the school children learn the high ideals of UN, but the behaviour of the US government is anything but the opposite of it.

The attitude of the US and other so called world powers towards UN has made it ineffective as stated by these video clips from most trusted news sources in US, Daily Show and Onion

From more serious news you can hear the former US Ambassador to UN John Bolton deriding the Obama Administration effort to engage more with UN, this same gentleman can be seen deriding the International Criminal Court , in the movie The Reckoning. In the movie one can see Bush administration's effort to stifle the court and African countries putting their foot down and saying they want the Court, so that no genocide happen again in their continent.

The best part of US policy towards UN, is directed towards UN Human Rights Council, US boycotted this body for years because it elected countries like Libya etc. US used to make these statements without looking inside. US, Iran and one or two more countries execute juvenile offenders, US is the only country that executes mentally challenged offenders and, US and Somalia are the only countries that haven't signed UN Charter on Children Rights, with such company US joining the Human Rights Council will be more like joining the party instead of US creating change from within as stated by US Ambassador to UN.

Since US believes it is MY WAY or HIGHWAY it can walk out of UN it can save money to the tax payer, though it is a different story US has the largest arrears to UN

What makes UN dysfunctional is that it being used a vehicle to promote agendas of various countries which may conflict with each other. Since this problem cannot be solved best thing to do dismantle the peace making and intervention role of UN. Let the peace making be relegated to regional bodies of the world. UN should do the current functions of WHO, FAO, UNICEF and ICAO. UN may sell its New York headquarters to a developer like Donald Trump and use the proceeds for more useful purposes.

Constants of Life

I just learnt that a new born child of a friend of mine passed away though there is a surviving twin this is a small consolation for a life that didn't drive the parents nuts, that didn't bruise its knees, didn't play an instrument in high school band or go to college. The joy of seeing a life going thru life process was lost.

This death follows another which did affect me was that of the 37 year old nephew of the owner of my favourite restaurant in Cleveland. The deceased's daughter was close to me, the 5 year old was always ready for an argument with me. The young man who passed away at the prime of his life didn't have joy of giving away his daughter or seeing her thru tumultus teenage years.

Events mentioned above underlines the important fact of life that only thing that is constant in life is change and the extreme change is death. Change destroys our comfort with time, space and relationships. Death creates a void leaving those left behind to be healed.

I was mulling over change and death when I stopped at a convenience store, the owner out of the blue congratulated me on having kids which surprised me, he explained he saw the Children's Hospital tag on me and guessed so. The tag was put on me when I visited the hospital to meet my friend. When I told my friends story he said he
was moved and said that his prayers are with my friends family.

An absolute stranger's prayers showed the prevalence of goodness of mankind despite the perceived negativity all around , I realized that is the other constant in human life which we don't realize. Since mankind benefits from pervasive goodness it trumps over other constants in life.... change and death

Cuyahoga Valley and Silicon Valley

As I looked at downtown Cleveland from the glorious Edgewater drive, across the Cuyahoga River and Industrial Valley, I saw the Rockefeller Building where the Standard Oil was born, I also drove past the now shuttered factories of GE where Edison once tried his tricks before moving eastwards, Cleveland area had been the home of many innovators and entreprenuers who defined the industrial revolution in USA.These entreprenuers were migrants from Baltics, Balkans, Germany, Poland (Delicious Polish Perogies at West Side Market YUM) and Ireland. Currently, Cleveland area has few large corporations, Eaton, Parker Hannifan and 9 more are the Fortune 500 companies in the region. As I drove thru the various industrial areas of the past in the region it was saddening to see the various buildings standing like carcasses let out to dry, biggest carcass was 14 building complex of the former White Motors which was acquired by Volvo and shifted the plant and headquarters to Virginia, Cleveland lost a lot of industrial power due to bankruptcies, acqusitions or simply CEOs took the companies to fashionable places.

Last week I was in West Coast I drove around the Silicon Valley as a student of Industrial History I couldn't help compare it to Cleveland's past, plenty of ideas going around, people with energy and capital.The Silicon Valley has attracted many immigrants mainly from India and East Europe, the El Camino Blvd looked more like Serangoon Road of Singapore of Yester years. It was also intriguing to see the industrial cycles consuming the valley, Yahoo almost collapsing, Cadence shaky and pink slips galore. I was also alarmed at the amount of vacant office space indicating the predicated explosion of the Silicon Valley didn't happen. The vacant spaces looked like freshly cut meat unlike the carcasses back home

My take aways from the trip were despite what the people like Anna Lee Saxenian might say about places of strong innovation like the Silicon Valley, they have limits to growth, other take away was places of strong innovation like the Cuyahoga Valley or the Silicon Valley are better off innovating till the Wall Street types come and demand returns so that they can get Zillion Dollar bonuses

Elections

As the counting in the month long Indian general elections begins tommorrow evening (US eastern time) many NPR stations will be broadcasting this program to commemorate the election.

Before discussing the Indian election, it will be worth while to look at various elections that took place from around the US election to till now and what it means to US.

Russian presidential election meant continued hold of Putin on power despite being term limited and continued source of pain, Russia is more like a wounded tiger waiting to strike, Baltic states will be first to go.

Eucador election and Bolivian referendum indicated the continued shift to left in Latin America, not a good trend in American backyard.

Israeli election meant a lot to US as it wants to be peacemaker, statements like "Annapolis agreement is dead" by President Netanyahu, diminishes US role in the region

Other important election was Algeria were a good Arab friend of US got elected.

South African and Indian elections are of a seperate category as seen by US, only expectation US had from these two countries was that the election to take and government to be formed.

South Africa which had shown alarming signals of being consumed by the African trend of anarchy after President Mbeki was eased out, was pulled back from sure disaster by none other than Nelson Mandela.

India (oh boy) surrounded by Pakistan (where Taliban is gaining strength), Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Burma, is a strong buffer against all the negataive forces of the world that is of importance to US. So, it is important that election results are declared at the earliest, but the election will throw a fractured verdict and it may be months before a government is formed. That should not hamper security operations because of the seperation of army and political process.

For India a delay in forming the government may not matter because the Indians are these days getting government out of the way instead expecting anything from the government. With strong socialist principles of governance in India, irrespective of any party that forms the government it will be a case of more things change more they remain the same

Mother's Day

On my third full day of my visit to west coast I met a maternal cousin of mine, I had met him once 25 years ago briefly. The main reason we didn't get to meet too often was due to fact mother and siblings spread out due to unpleasant circumstances of their family.

My mother despite her family circumstances didn't allow any of her past to cloud our family, she spent all her energy in developing her children despite hurdles she faced.

Mom, on this day I realize all difficulties you faced and applaud your strength to face them and, thank you for the energy and encouragement you provided us.

Corporations

Despite having two masters degrees in management I haven't read much of business literature in the recent past. Probably because of some life changing events or probably I am cynical of trite I get to see in management journals, magazines and books.

Today I got to see the latest Inc. magazine which nearly shook me awake to the wonderful world of business with entreprenuers sharing their stories of struggle making things happen, probably it was enriching thing I have had in the recent past. It reminded me of the Business as an Agent of World Benefit, I subscribed to and will continue to subscribe to.

There is an all pervasive cynicism about business and rightly so. Looking at the economic mess around us one might call for end of all corporations but the alternate to businesses will be more undesirable.
Probably at the end of current economic turmoil better and reponsible corporations will emerge.

Corporations are dead Long Live the Corporations

Mental Illness and Homelessness

Most of the Tuesday evenings are incomplete for me without listening to the voice of the Will_Lyman during Frontline program broadcast over Public Television.

This past Tuesday Frontline broadcast a documentary which was sequel to this original documentary broadcast in 2005

The 2005 program titled New Asylums discussed the national trend of using the prison to lock up mentally ill and release them, only to see the mentally ill come back to jails with in months.

The program telecast last week saw the developments in the lives of few inmates over the intervening years the news was not good most of the inmates tracked alternated between homelessness, crime and prison.

This phenomena can be tracked to decision in the past years to close the asylums and allow the mentally ill to recover in free environment and in community. The objectives of the policy has not been achieved.

If one sees the movie Soloist, it will become clear the amount of effort that goes into keeping mentally ill out of trouble and in safety.

It is estimated 1,000,000 mentally ill in prison in US who will be out in some time most of them will be out without the knowledge of good and bad, and no skills to survive in this world.

We expect the powerful nation ever to exist in this world to perform the moral duty of protecting the weakest, that contract has been abrogated, it's the duty of the civil society to do something about it.

Lanka

The longest running civil war in Asia between LTTE and Sri Lankan government will be soon over.

Lalith Athulathmudali, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Amrithalingam, Neelam Thiruchelvan and Rajiv Gandhi if you thought these are alphabet soups, the answer is no, these are the names of real people, real presidents, real prime ministers killed by LTTE.

LTTE which claimed to protect ethnic minority Tamils in Lanka, I hope will be soon part of history, and no terror organization will ever match its ruthlessness and network.

Ever since a civil war started LTTE has been pushing Tamil minority to create a huge diaspora to fund LTTE. There is a large diaspora in Europe created by the liberal asylum policies and European countries failed to see that Tamils were also part of the problem. The presence of large number of Sri Lankan Tamils in Europe shaped a policy which was antagonistic to Sri Lankan state. I think Lankan government was right in sending back the Swedish foreign minister this morning who arrived in Colombo to press for cease fire, Sweden has recalled its ambassador but in this era of Hugo Chavez sending diplomats and kicking them out is like playing cards

LTTE spread the word Tamils can't live safely in Sri Lanka when there are suburbs in Colombo like Welawetta dominated by Tamils. I remember once meeting a Sri Lankan Tamil in a train in India he started lamenting about how unsafe it is for Tamils to live in Lanka. I told him about my very long stay in Lanka as part of my work and discussed about my trips to Tamil neighborhoods for dinners, he became quite and didn't utter a word for the rest of the journey.

LTTE's ruthless strategy, European support to Tamil cause and effective propoganda made it a controlling force in Tamil speaking parts of Lanka.

Now with relentless pursuit by Lankan army and government refusing to accept cease fire which doesn't allow LTTE to regroup, I hope it's over for LTTE.

The bloody battle shifted focus from grievences of Tamil minority who suffered from affirmative action that favored the majority Sinhala and Sinhalese official language policy. The affirmative action was introduced because when British left Lanka the beaurcracy was dominated by Tamils. Major reforms have happened like official business can be done in Tamil and trivial ones have happened like removing the Sinhalese character Sri from license plates, but much more needs to be done.

Sri Lankan goverment will do a great favor by addressing the problems of all its citizens, and make use of the opportunity created by the defeat by LTTE to achieve lasting peace.

American Dream

I had commented on the New York Times story which you can find here, soon after that New York Times published a story about Newark, Ohio high school student Tiffany Clay
.

Tiffany's story is remarkable one, she grew up fast, while at school she works almost full time, maintaining high grades and most importantly excels in music. The quality of her talent is evident from video clip in the NY Times about her. One doesn't hear much good news about economy from Ohio these days but there is no dearth of news of people making things happen despite tough times.

Tiffany is remarkably pragmatic, she doesn't want to pursue music because of the uncertainties and instead wants to pursue nursing because of the demand created by the huge health care industry in Ohio. One doesn't know how many talented Americans have to give up their dreams for want of money, guidance and encouragement. Probably American Dream is not for them, there is no popular support for these young people achieving their American Dream, I see more press for more work visas and immigration reform to enable people achieve American dream, it seems bit odd to me that young Americans should be denied their dream after all charity begins at home.

The New Story about Tiffany was an remarkable piece of journalism which you don't see much see these.

Next Year's Oscar

Next year's Oscar for best actor will go to Jamie Foxx for his outstanding performance in The Soloist (A great movie, you will get to see some Cleveland too)

Columbine 10 Years After

Second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings was observed two days ago. Today was the tenth anniversary of the Columbine shooting, these incidents remind me of the shooting incident here at Case Western which I survived.

I heard news about these anniversaries while driving, it made my anxiety levels go up, in one occasion I almost caused an accident. Being a survivor is tough time heals rather slowly.

My prayer and thoughts go to victims and their families and to survivors who are living with it.

My prayers also go to perpetrators of these incidents who in most occasions took their lives, after being isolated, misunderstood and taunted, lost the sense of their humanity. I hope they being in a better place will make them realize world was not a bad place.

Charter Schools

I looked into Charter Schools concept as I am involved primary education these days. I noticed in charter schools a sort of self selection is taking place, a kind of students who don't move around 12 schools in a school year and students who have relatively stable households (a rarity in many inner cities).

If suburban school success is due to urban flight, success of some charter schools is due to fact the people it attracts would have joined urban flight if given half a chance.

I can't see a necessity for charter schools if it can help only self selected students.

American American

After looking at the controversy surrounding the lifting the travel ban to Cuba I thought of this.

American policy making has to satisfy Cuban Americans, Venezuelan Americans, Colombian Americans, Mexican Americans, Hispanic Americans, Irish Americans, Polish Americans, Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, Indian Americans, Pakistani Americans, Filipino Americans, etc. My doubt is when will the American policy making will satisfy American Americans

Tech Recruiting

I say a news article in New York Times with the following title Tech Recruiting Clashes With Immigration Rules, it talks about recruiting foreign tech workers. I don't know whether it reflects bad immigration policy or failed education policy.

I was also surprised when former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said in a morning TV show today, calling President Obama's plan to increase college graduates in US a unnecessary and elitist. The conservative's disdain for education is a bigger threat to American Power than China and India

Kirtan

I was part of a Kirtan singing evening yesterday. Kirtan is form of prayer in Hinduism, where gods name is chanted repeatedly, with a person leading a group. The proponent of this form of prayer was 14th century Indian saint and reformer Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who made in popular in current Indian states of West Bengal, Orissa and Republic of Bangladesh. Kirtan is the most visible form of Bhakti Yoga philosophy.

Kirtan does exist in India these days mostly in the small temples of rural India, most of them located on river banks or the edge of village tank. It is treat to listen to evening Kirtan along with setting sun reflected on the river or tank and also chiming of temple bells. Most of prayers in temples in India reflect the the Hindu orthodoxy with a priest facing god and perform rituals and devotees standing in attention with little participation nor understanding.

After attending the Kirtan by Krishna Das, I was elated and refreshed. I also noticed that most of people who turned up for the prayer were White Americans who enjoyed the event in their own way, chanting, singing and even laying down, allowing the magic of evening to seep into them. After the evening I couldn't compare the the form Hinduism I saw there and orthodox form I know. That evening event helped people to celebrate god, celebrate one's life and gain new energy. Orthodox Hinduism is rife conflict based on various ethnicities in India, caste, class etc.

What was surprising was the realization that post independence secular India has not led to serious movement to reform Hinduism. This is mainly due to compulsions of electoral politics regional parties want to Hindus into castes and sub castes to micro target them, putting master in micro targeting Karl Rove to shame. One national party assumes that history of India began in 1947 and doesn't believe in Hinduism and the other National party believes that one and half millennium foreign invasion should be corrected so status quo should continue

GOP and Government

If Republicans hate government, why do they want to become presidents.

Cleveland FIlm Festival

Last week was dysfunctional and sleep deprived. There were 26 reasons to it, they are listed below.

Lightbulb (English)
At the edge of the world (English)
Children of Invention (English and Chinese)
Apron Strings (English and Punjabi)
Ramchand Pakistani (Urdu and Hindi)
Reckoning (English)
Strangers ( French, Hebrew and Arabic)
Candidate (Danish)
Dunya and Desie (Dutch and Arabic)
Loss (Lithuanian and Irish)
Back Soon (Icelandic and English)
Shall we Kiss (French)
Alexander the Last (English)
Thing with no Name (Zulu)
Generation Rx (English)
Chery Blossom - Hanami (German and Japanese)
Kanjivaram (Tamil)
Sin by Silence (English)
Surveillance (English)
Ciao (English)
El Camino (Spanish)
Treeless Mountain (Korean)
The Tour (Serbian)
Loose Rope (Persian)
No One's Son (Croation)
Quite Chaos (Italian)

The list is of movies with their language in parenthesis, the movies explored human greed, cunning, serendipitous nature of the world, human relations, issues of race, conflict between poor and rich and many more subjects. They were some of the movies that were part of the recently concluded Cleveland International Film Festival. What was amazing was that issues explored by these movies seemed to be of importance across various cultures. The movies also opened my eyes to acting and film making talent across the globe. Raising doubts about importance placed on expensive Hollywood talent.

Amidst the celebration of talent, I had a lingering doubt about quality of subtitling, my doubts arose after watching the movie in my native language (Tamil), I felt subtitling did a good job of translating words but not the language.

I'm Bewildered

I saw groups of people marching against stimulus and throwing tea bags.

I was wondering how come some many people with jobs and spare money managed find each other and get together? (There are with jobs because they are against stimulus spending and have spare money because they were throwing tea)

Newspapers

It's a moment in history where a decision has to be made about the future of the newspaper industry. Certain notions about newspaper shifting to web sounds ridiculous to me. I read two newspapers and surf web to comment on this

Reading a newspaper one gets a whole picture, surfing web one gets few headlines, forcing the reader to develop worldview on few headlines that are sensational.

My calculation is reading a newspaper for 15 minutes is equal to reading a web based newspaper for 2 hrs, and also time spending reading 10 classifieds in the web can be used to read 100 classifieds in newspaper.

So the newspaper is good way to gather information and also time efficient.

Having squawked about newspaper, I have to talk about the newspaper industry, one thing is for sure newspaper industry is not going to give Wall Street pleasing returns, so it is time to look at NPR model.

The newspapers should be converted into non profits, with a $1 paid as sale price to current owner and also by 2 cent royalty for each copy sold in perpetuity to owner.

Reduction in newsroom staff is fashionable owners should realize it is a vicious circle, soon readers will realize there is no value in newspaper because it is too shallow and no effort went into news

Readers should be encouraged to buy long term subscription which can be tax deductible 100%, with changes in ownership pattern and providing an incentive to readers I think the newspaper industry should be viable

Billing at VA

Gen. Shinseki, Secy VA testified that some expenses incurred at VA hospitals will be billed to private insurers if the veterans had an insurance. It triggered usual noise in the senate, with a senator saying the proposal will be dead on arrival.

The government doesn't require an enabling legislation to do this, it will only be carrying out mandate of the congress, which is 42 US 2651, which imposes strong subrogation rights on the government.

I am surprised by the fact senator doesn't know the laws of the land, it is not surprising that Justice O'Connor lamented on the lack of civics education in US.

Veterans group are using scare tactics saying that this measure will increase insurance costs and make it difficult for veterans for getting employment, anybody who has worked with insurance companies all pre existing conditions are used in pricing of insurance. This scare tatics should be taken with a bag of salt.

I think one common thread thru all this is thce insurance lobby, we all know what they are capable of.

Detroit

Soon taxpayers will write a cheque to Detroit 3 to save themselves. Opponents of bailout say free market should prevail.

I am surprised by the fact that there are people who believe that car industry is subject to free market forces. Japanese government thru its Ministry of Industry and Technology has invested in its car makers for decades including the development of Prius. This method of goverment supporting was copied by Korea. The resources were used to develop efficient cars especially under the guidance of Deming.

If Deming built Japan's car industry, a congressman by the name of Dingell (D-Mich), maintained the status quo in US car industry by blocking rules for increased fuel standards and enhancing safety features.

So in an industry were the foreign competitors have access to their home countries' treasury and also where US congress played a part in shaping a bad car industry in Detroit, it is only natural US govt. support Detroit.

Talent Wars

Kauffmann Foundation has recently put a report saying 100,000 Indians and equal number of Chiense will return to their countries from US taking with them expertise and business skills.

Let us be very clear many of the people who return will be doing so with a shining new US passport (just in case), and go and work for American corporations local operations. They willl have the best of both worlds, comfort of homeland and familiarity of their previous career. The net effect will not be as painted by the report, that is the erosion of American competitiveness.

The next question is how to reduce the dependence on foreign manpower either techical or otherwise, the answer is sending as many US citizens to college as possible and reduce the dropout rate from current 50%. The US students should be encouraged to major in engineering and sciences rather than liberal arts, even Case which has strong tradtion of CIT is a liberal arts school now.

I think US will be better off not expecting the talent to be delivered by Air India or China Air

Trade and Recession

If recession is due to decrease in economic activity, the remedy is to increase the activity. The way out seems to be heavy government spending, on projects that may provide jobs which in turn provide more economic opportunities, so that the government can one day repay the debt incurred carry out economic activity.

To get greater bang for the buck spent, it may advisable to include a buy American clause in the bailout program, much against advice of US (sic) chamber of commerce. It is correct as per WTO rules, since a country can suspend any rule because of emergency conditions. This emergency condition has allowed many developing countries often use health emergency to help their companies in pharmaceutical piracy.

US currently has a trade deficit of US $ 1 trillion in 2007, in case of retaliation there is no way it is going to have an effect. US exports close to $ 1.1 trillion and imports close to $ 2.1 trillion, so who is at an advantage in this game?

Recently some Johnny come lately countries were advising that US over consumption is the cause of the current crisis, the buy American clause should help to reduce consumption in case of retaliation and also teach them what happens to their domestic economies when US doesn’t consume.

Communism Lasted for 90 Years.......Reagonomics Lasted for 28 Years.

The year 1991 the Soviet Union broke up and following year in USA the a Republican president to raise taxes amidst ballooning fiscal deficit was ousted out of office.

What made a Republican president to raise to taxes, especially the one who followed Reagan is a mystery. Probably he wanted to be responsible unlike other republican presidents who gathered debt while talking about smaller government, cutting taxes and individual responsibility.

The following eight years under a democratic president some fiscal responsibility was established, but in the years of Bush administartion we had fiscal deficit, large government and large government spending.

Reagenites will attribute mid 2000s growth to tax cuts, on the contrary it was due to increased govt spending for security.

Tax cuts and giving the money to the rich have never worked to make the economy grow, especially when there is a strong market failure like we are seeing one now.

If the stimulus work is unleashed targeted at poor they spend to get thee economy going again, if the rich are given tax breaks or refunds as we saw when banks were given TARP money they partied by not releasing the money into the system but taking a huge bonus.

Reaganities didn't have anything to prove their point, but the anecdotal evidence of payments proves Reganomics has failed without any doubt.

Let's be clear rich understand money how to save it, multiply it and invest in companies sending jobs overseas. Middle class will talk about market without knowing anything about it, and poor understand economy better because they know if the inventory piles up in the factory they will loose their job.

The Reagonomics finally died this year after a run of 28 years but Communism lasted for 90 years

Nano Second Decision and Year Long Enquiry

Recently we saw the "Splash Landing" of an A 320 in the Hudson river. The process is not as simple as dumping the aircraft, it involves aligning the aircraft without any instrument support and hitching it whereby an aircushion is created in the last seconds of the aircraft using every bit of the Auxillary power. The aircushion is necessary jump, into water from 3000 ft is near death as can be noticed by people dying from jumping into Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

It took nano second for the Captain of the aircraft to ditch into Hudson, now the year long review begins, the beauty of the review is that it took two days for the NTSB to confirm whether the wreckage had one or two engines. Now the so called enquiry will subpenoa FAA records, US Airways records , Airbus , and National Weather Service. The enquiry will accumulate a lot of records, will do simulation and finally issue a probable cause report covering everything and finally a chapte on crew lapses. Crew lapses give me a break, it is a tradition in enquiry reports to drag the crew over the coals.

Even in the Challenger disaster there was inadequate training of crew, whereas any untrained eye could have seen huge debris hittting the side on take off.

Blaming crew is easy and that is what everybody wants, FAA wants to wear emprorer's new clothes saying it runs perfect system, Airbus wil want save its skin despite its A 320 has had one of worst safety records. US Airways as a commercial operator will stop anything that affects its brand. So, finally it is blamed on the crew shortcoming, atleast in this case Captain lived to walk up and down the aisle twice checking everybody is safe before getting out, in many cases crew don't have the luxury living to fight for the truth.

I forgot............

In one of the earlier posts I had complained that Presidential candidates disappear from Ohio soon after elections. Last week Now Pres. Obama spent a day in Cleveland, hoping to seeing him soon in Ohio as President.

Thanks Pres. Bush

I have a lot of Democratic leanings, but I think it's my duty to thank Pres. Bush. In an era public service is increasingly least preferred option, people who step forward should be thanked. This is not a day for looking back, that's for another day. Thanks Pres. Bush and bye.

I am Concerned

I am really concerned by a decision handed out by the conservative majority in the US Supreme court this week. The decision HERRING vs UNITED STATES diluted the fourth amendment which protected citizens from "unreasonable search and seizures". This important check prevented police abuse and suppression of evidence collected illegally during trial.

The case was about a person by the name HERRING was stopped by police officer despite no any signs of criminal behavior. HERRING refused such a search without a warrant, then the officer checked with the local warrant clerk who replied in negative for the presence of such a warrant. Then officer requested the clerk to check with neighboring counties for pending warrants, the neighboring county reported a pending warrant against HERRING, officer immediately conducted search and found traces of meth and a gun, he was not allowed have a gun by law because of his previous felony conviction.

Immediately after the search it was discovered the warrant mentioned by the relevant clerk had expired, so technically the search should have called off and any evidence seized should have been returned to HERRING.

The court said that evidence need not be supressed the court has given reason and my comment in italics follow them.

1) The fact that a clerk had only been negligent means that evidence has to be suppressed, I am always negligent so I am not going to pay taxes

2) Fourth amendment is targeted at police officers who may abuse powers not court officers who may not officers. Court officers and Police Officers are so intertwined that court officers have a tinge of blue, what is a guarantee that warrant are entered as a conspiracy and latter just explained as conspiracy.

3 There was a reason of GOOD FAITH under U.S. vs Leon. US vs Leon is one reason that helps police to get away with any brutality

I think justices are thinking that they are empowering police to launch a war on some social strata of society, they must monster unleashed by them may come comeback to haunt them.

Endpoint of Hamas Israel Standoff

Some body asked me when will current middle east mess end ? Hamas knows its fate but what the quatret of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, really want is the over throw of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian regimes. I really doubt whether US has spare intellegence and clandastine assets those friendly regimes.

When do you know recession is bad ?

When an McDonalds employee goes around the restaurant offering free Coffee refills

Republicans have gone Bonkers

This evening I was watching the evening news, after seeing the Republican Congressional leadership including Boehner(Bonehead) R-OH, I nearly jumped out of my seat. Among the measures proposed by President Elect Republicans lapped up tax cuts, as for the the other measures they said they were worried about leaving debt to future generations. They should have looked at the example set by the current resident of White House (Bush 43), who leaves after incurring deficit, fighting wars while doling out tax cuts to wealthy and slept on the wheel while the economy tanked.

I think Dems should learn to launch a campaign against Reps for not co-operating against Economic Failure caused by Bush 43.

Definition of an Immigrant

A person who jumps many hurdles to come to US and immediately buys a foreign car

Wages and USA

I want to narrate a story which I heard from my grandmother while growing up in India. In India, values are instilled in children thru stories and tales.

The story is goes like this .... A king wanted his citizens to donate milk to an orphanage, so he asked his citizens to bring a pitcher of milk and pour it in a huge container in front of the palace, and they were also asked to assemble in front of the container the following morning. When the sun rose following day king and his subjects saw clear water in the container. The upset king said each one of you thought it will be easy to get away by pouring water because everybody will be pouring milk, now there is nothing to be given to orphanage.

Why did I say this long story from a far away land, If a prosperous America is a container containing milk, reducing wages is like pouring water into the container. It started with world's largest retailer which has pushed a big chunk of the population below poverty limit, if Congress insists that there has to be a massive reduction in wages in auto industry it will be similar to pouring water in huge quantity. One may argue southern plants pay much less, my reply will be "when was south a part of prosperous America"? If current recession are used to drive down wages, there will be no end to this recession. America will cease to be America

Mumbai and Thanksgiving

As a recent immigrant from India it took some time for me to understand the essence of Thanksgiving day. Events in India on the eve of Thanksgiving drove home the message to me strongly, be thankful for anything you have and make everyday a Thanksgiving day.

I can't wish happy thanksgiving in good conscience but be thankful to everything you got

Take a moment to pray for those who died and men in uniform who walked into harm's way

MBAs

After the collapse of the financical markets which led to the near disappearing of the real economy the focus will now shift to three letters MBAs. MBAs who dominated the wall street and brought it down, while the country's first MBA president other side. Treasury Secretary with an MBA seems to be clueless of what is happening switching his stance about bailout faster than water drying in hot desert sand. His Asst. Secretary, an MBA sounds more like a double agent for the financial services industry.

With so many examples on is forced is conclude that MBAs have a more negative effect on society than poistive. MBAs have been always regarded as greedy and arrogant. But with so many facts going against the MBAs what is the truth.

With my long association with management education including two masters degrees and observation of careers of people with MBA degrees, I can say there are lot of people who are putting their MBA training to good use in corporations and various other places like school systems. If I can point out many arguements to substantiate my point, what is the problem with the MBA education.

Problem is from day one in the MBA course students are trained to measure results so we have all types of jargons right from profit to Investor value. This "results oriented MBA education" restricts MBA graduate thinking and motivates them to be short term focussed to achieve numbers.

Other side of the ""results oriented MBA education" will be "business oriented MBA education", "business oriented MBA education" seems bit of oddity becaues MBA is about business. The definition of "business oriented business education" will reflect how businesses were born and grew mainly post industrial revolution world. The entreprenuers building business ideas and growing them by bringing new ideas.

The difference between reults and business orinented MBA education can be drawn from medical education. The current medical education system is something similar to"business oriented MBA education" where people given training in basics and indepth medical knowledge. Imagine what will happen if the medical education is filled with jargons like medical reimbursement rate, profit per procedure.
The end result will be have adverse effect on medical care.

The need of the hour regarding MBA education is making business growth oriented instead of result oriented

President of USA

President of USA, leader of the free world, Commander-in-Chief of the world mightiest military, foreign service across the globe marketing the ideals of America, and CEO of USA Inc which has 535 members in the board, with 300 milllion shareholders.

Job reponsibilities include keeping USA safe and military ready for wars overseas, have many contries friends as possible thru the marketing team (state department),ensure corporation's budget is balanced and keep the overall economy of USA kicking.

Despite clearly mentioned responsibilities measuring the performance is difficult it can be explained away,core group of shareholders and board of directors will support the CEO under any circumstance.

Shareholder and board of directors come from two groups the blue group or the red group. Red and blue groups have a core set of beliefs, blue group will go for wars over oil and starve the poor, red group will operate a welfare state and make the rich poor.

Whatever the group the president comes from it is easier to make the country's position worse than better, then the question one asks is why one needs the job. Only thing I can think of perks of the job great housing and retreat, specail planes and helicopters, expense account to host parties to heads of states and large contingent of personal staff, that will make a president feel like a emperor rather than a democratic head

Zimbabwe

It is with disgust I see the ongoing mess in Zimbabwe. For those like me who were in grade school in India and wider British Commonwealth, birth of Zimbabwe it ended the British colonial rule in the world.

Also in India it marked continuation of optimisim that began with independence of India and gained momentum as more countries gained independence. In India we were still worshipping leaders who worked for India's independence, as more contries gained independence they were added to this list. When Rhodesia gained functional independence to become Zimbabwe we celebrated. Some of my friends fathers travelled to setup basic infrastructure like the railways and the central banking system. We even began equating Mugabe to Mahatma Gandhi

But within few years lot of things unravelled, rot in the Indian system became apparent, independence leaders of many countries became despots or deposed in a coup.

What is happening in Zimbabawe is a pattern that happened post colonial era across the world. Only this time in front of the camera

Tim Russert

Last week saw the passing away of Tim Russert, with him the last of the three giants who impressed me in the news business are no longer in business. Other two were Peter Jennings who passed away in 2005 and Ted Koppel now semi retired.

Ted Koppel with his semi documentray style covered wide ranging issues,made the viewers learn more about the topics covered (I think many people will remember the series about the slow degradation of a professor afflicted with ALS).

Peter Jennings was a master in delivery an evening was incomplete without a dose of Peter Jennings, with his voice and perfect modulation was a sultan among news anchors.

Tim Russert with his technique depending on probing and research made the guests realize there is no free pass in a democracy.

Russert and Jennings went away, without long good byes typical of this business. Koppel must have felt that he should not overstay his welcome.

The point to be noted as each every day passes the replacements of Jennings, Koppel and lately Russert remind me how great these three were.

Charles Gibson looks like an intern with promise in front of Jennings.

Yesterday Brian Williams ran the Meet the Press for Tim Russert my reaction was, thank god, he won't come back.

Terry Moran , Cynthia and Martin look like well behaving frat boys compared to Koppel in Nightline

A Commencement and an end of a term

Last month around the same date, I volunteered my time for CASE commencement ceremony, It was grand affair with music, flowers and commencement speakers. Students would have many events to celebrate the occasion. The newly minted graduates will be called class of 08, they can look forward to annual reunions, great careers, graduate schools and blissful suburban life.

Over the last two weeks I was involved in process of completion of academic year at the GED progarm at Lakewood Schools where I am a volunteer teaching math. The activities were 1)sorting student files into two piles. One pile for students who passed GED during the year, a green sticker was placed on those files and carted away for storage and other pile for students who didn't pass GED , a red sticker was placed on them and kept on active status.

Today (6/18/2008), there was small recognition ceremony for those who graduated during the just concluded academic year, there was no music, no robes, no ceremonical procesion, no robes( infact they were in all types of dresses and bandanas) and no commencement speaker, except for some school district officials. GED graduates will now try to escape minimum wage job, go to community college,probably go to suprevisory level in their current jobs and become islands in their inner city existence.

The difference between CASE and GED Lakewood commencement is very stark, so is the difference in thea chievement of the CASE students and GED students. CASE students were brought up with high expectations, proctected from difficulties of life.Whereas GED students are products of school of hard knocks each of them overcame troubled past, beat low expectation and poverty to manage their first significant acheivement of their life.

Having been thru the commencement and end of the term I am not sure what needs to be applauded

So Long, Dr. Hundert

By the time this blog is published, the graduating class of 2006 would have left the campus and resigning president will be soon leaving.

Class of 2006 will have the honor of having a president with them for theit entire stay here. While the class happily graduated, sadly Dr. Hundert will be confused about his achievement here in Cleveland.

Dr. Hundert will be confused over his achievements at Cleveland, he has a long list of achievements and some mistakes. Achievements include sorting out the mess between UHC and Case School of Medicine, unleashing a good master plan, integrating CASE with community and renewing focus on undergraduate program. His failings will be making some of the worst recruitment decisions for his senior level positions, pushing the CASE identity (which could have waited, I am saying this with the benefit of hindsight) and underestimating the Case Institute of Technology graduates feel for their, seperate distinct alma mater.

Faculty who campaigned against him will have to realize that it is not the job of president alone to bring bacon home. I know of one faculty who actively campaigned against Dr. Hundert, has center with no activity and no serious effort to raise funds to fund the center which is attached to his department. Faculty will have to realize that there is no indefinite supply of college presidents (at any price) to be recruited and voted against. Trustees will have to bring in a institution builder not somebody to solve a specific problem. All problem will Case Institute of Technology Alumni have to be solved before the next president comes in, not a part of laundry list for next president.

Dr. Hundert. thanks for spending sometime at CASE, whatever your next assignment please look forward. So long, Dr. Hundert.

This isn't Basketball....

Like all good Cavs fans, I sat down to watch the Cavs match. I realised that it is not what basketball used to be and also explains why US will never be a World champion or an Olympic Champion, despite having world class players (I know a couple who travelled from Japan to watch King James and took the next flight out of cleveland).

NBA has amended the game rules, to make it friendly to the NBA TV audience. THe game has strayed from the mainstream basketball. Too many NFL words have netered the basketball lexicon for American basketball to remain mainstream basketball, plays, possession and what not.

When I played baketball, there were no strategic timeouts to sfift the placement of the ball. and no strategic fouls (And Pistons fans no foul language). The new rules might appeal to audience retain interest in the game, the question whether the are doing more damage to the game will be redirected to the US Olympic Committee.

Oil , Galbraith and Loud Mouths.

I spent the entire week, trying to decipher the dynamics of oil prices.

Some people said, the supply said is messed up, but the Saudi oil minister was in town last week, telling anybody who bothered to hear him that anything above $ 50 /Barrel of oil is harmful to world economy. He doesn't want a penny more than $40-50/barrel. The monster is definitely NOT on the supply side.

The six year trend of consumption shows that US consumption has incresaed by 6 million barrels a day, where as the consumption by China and India increased by .75 million barrel/day and .5 million barrel/day, so much for oil sucking growth of the new developing countries.

The supply-demand analysis, leaves out the role of mercantile exchange. Mercantile exchange is like a stock market. always in search of information to distort the market, this week's Time magazine estimates the informatiom distortion premium is about $15 /barrel. This is the cumulative value the traders at Mercantile exchange have added to the price of barrel by listening to the irresponsible statements that come out of the adminsitration regarding Iran, Venezula and now Russia.

The analysis and solutions, thrown around might not make any impact on the oil prices.

Solution 1: Send a check, this is outrightly rejected.

Solution 2: Windfall tax, this will lead to a response form the companies, not to invest. The oil companies haven't invested in refining capacity in the last 25 years. The govt. can set aside some amount of the windfall profits for refining capacity expansion and drilling. Might have some impact on long term prices.

Solution 3: Oligopolistic nature of oil industry in USA and needs some attention. This analysis has some merit, despite the fact that opponents argue thatcompanies like SABIC are much bigger and have tremendous economies of scale while drilling. SABIC example can't be applied to ExomMobil, or anybody else, because SABIC doesn't have customer contact and drilling activity of Exon Mobil is very limited. Bulk of US oil companies'profit come from refining imported crude oil. So, it will definitely help customers if refiners-marketers are made to compete with each other.

Solution 4: Drill ANWAR, proven reserves of ANWAR are so low, it may not be worthwhile drilling that area, unless the crude price can be maintained at $75+.

The issue of doing something about the price brings us to Galbraith, a brilliant economist who passed away this week. He was the last official price fixer (Office of Price Administration) during World War II. Many of his writings were influenced by this experience, he wrote, one should always look for elements in a system that get automatically incorporated and destructs the system.

The current elements that are destructive in the oil pricing syatem are:

1)Growing American demand, much more than any other nation.

2)Growing Illegal population making demand predications go awary.

3) Inept handling of foreign policy in middle east and other oil producing regions providing oil traders fodder to jack the price. Dick Cheney was ridiculing Russia this week, so Russia's support for any resolution on Iran goes thru the window. Russis still has a score to settle with USA, over Afghanistan. Imagine the chaos that will be unleashed if Russia sends anti low flying aircraft missiles to Iraq.( This is the strategy used by the current US ambassador to Iraq to win the Afghan war 1 )

4)Strong Oligopoly in the oil market, focussed on profits and not on investing the profits.

Solutions I suggest are

Short Term:

Silence the likes of Rice, John Bolton and Dick Cheney. There should be a moratorium on the use of word Iran in the state department. If US is concerned about proliferation, the nation to be taken to task is China, which generously gave away missile and nuclear technologies to North Korea, Iran and Pakistan.

Many oil producing countries have said they would like to see oil price to be settle at $50/Barrel. Enter into long term contracts at 55 Dollar level with these countries ( Some body suggested going to WTO to coax more oil out of OPEC, unfortunately WTO deals with cross border trade amd unfair subsidies, and cannot force countries to produce what the world wants.

3)Reduce internal shocks to oil demand like unregulated population growth, so the illegal population has to be reduced.

Medium amd Long term:

1)Alternate fuels (Ethanol and Hydrogen)

2)Public Transport.

3)Fuel Efficient Vehicles.

Heros, Zeros & Plagiarism

I was amused by the noise, created by the discovery of alleged plagirism in a book written by a Harvrad Sophomore. It is evident that somebody has worked hard, to read the books in question and come up with a case of plagirism. Add to this lawyers, publishing houses and movie rights, we a cheap version of Boston Legal popping up.

I went thru the so called original author's version an example given below:

"He smelled sweet and woodsy, like cedar"

I don't think there is anything original in this, millions of people would have used the sentence without receiving a penny for it. The many passages claimed to be original, are so cliched that only a person out of his or her mind, will dare to call it original.

Here is another example of the so called original:

"Bridget is my age and lives across the street. For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget’s braces came off and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh-grade honors classes"

I think this phrase would have been said by almost all the teenagers under the sun. I think we have reached a stage where all the possibilities of combining the words have been exhausted and anybody indulging in creative writing, claiming to be really original must be living in fools paradise

I think in this era of instant heros and instant villans, the young author has been made a cannon fodder for News Media, a period of hype followed by a period of character assassination. People who claimed to have spent time discovering similar phrases, probably could have used their time in a better fashion

Correct Right Moral Legal

Never in my life, I ever thought I will sit down and try to figure out difference between the words mentioned in the title. They seemed so close to me for the duration of my familiarity with english language, I didn't even bother to see them as different words. Now I came across a situation where I am forced to understand the fine difference between each of them.

The recent firing of a senior CIA analyst for revealing the secret prison, started my thinking on these words.

First CIA was correct in firing the employee, because she violated the terms of her contract. Any person who violates the terms of his/her employment deserves to be fired, there can be no two ways about it.

But the question that arises is it illegal , former Chief Justice once observed from the bench "just because it is legal doesn't make it correct", my opinion is just because the CIA made a correct decision, I don't think the employee has done anything illegal as defined by law. The law says it is illegal (therefore a crime ) if the employee had helped an enemy, which is not the case here (despite the claims by the government that it has affected the war on terror), she just made something public to American public, which means if she is tried for a crime, only her conduct will be tested by a jury. The instruction to the jury will be whether the conduct of the analyst fails to meet the standards of the society. I think no jury will convict her for this conduct.

The fact that a Pulitzer prize was awarded for this story means that there is a large section of the society, which feels that the action of the analyst is right in making the information about the secret prisons public.

American concept of freedom, liberty, due process under law and human rights, doesn't go along with the operation of GULAGS, despicable Soviet concept, of holding people in secret location, so anybody with a knowledge that such an amoral activity, had a duty to blow the whistle.

So my analysis of the CIA analyst firing is bit complex, while acton of the CIA is correct, analyst's action is moral, her decision is right according to a large section of society and I doubt whether her action can be proved to be illlegal

Learning to be the Majority

I was shocked by the transistion in the Airport director in Cleveland. Technicaly a Mayor is entitled to his/her cabinet, but considering a business operation as cabinet position doesn't make a bit of sense to me.

Cleveland the majorty minority city, the minority hasn't realized that it is in majority and taken up the responsibilities of being in the majority.

Being in the majority means treating everybody including minority with fairness. There is no excuse for playing victim card while being in the majority.

Imagine the reaction that we would have seen, if a white mayor had replaced a performing black airport director with a white.

Replacing a performing professional for reasons of race and not being submissive doesn't speak of leadership, which the current mayor repeated like a parrot while campaiging.

I wonder how the EEOC will react if the current airport director files a complaint

Surprising Pulitzer

Another set of Pulitzers was announced this week, while the spotlight always shine on categories like Public Service, Investigavtive reporting (Journalism awards), I am really heartened by the selection of the book "Polio An American Story" in the category History for the awards in the Letters and Drama section. Yes, there is more to Pulitzers than Journalism.

The book by Oshinsky one of the greatest contemporary historian, narrates the American struggle with Polio. While Polio doesn't mean anything to Americans anymore, recent NY Times series on world's communicable diseases highlight the struggles the world community faces to wipe out the disease.

My father was afflicted with polio, which gives me a ringside view of what that disease can do a person. By rewarding this book Pulitzer has done a great service to the world community; reminding the challenge that lays ahead for the world's public health experts.

I am awaiting for the day, when the 1000 or so Polio outbreaks per year becomes zero.

Has Wall Street become a Parasite.

Wall street has clearly becoming a parasite for the most of the basic industries or industries that are facing technological shift. The crazy notion called shareholder value has destroyed so many companies and led many business executives to become convicted criminals.

Why the wall street analysts are not being tried for aiding and abetting the scandals at Enron and Worldcom , becaue the executives there were generating numbers for the wall street.

Wall street is in the path of destroying the newspaper industry, while yahoo which posts some arbit news pulled from wire services commands ridiculous valuation. Newspapers which do indepth local coverage a basis of democracy is branded a dying industry. Everytime Pratt Whitney losses an opportunity to build an engine for a new aircraft United Technology's value goes up.

Add to this new group of investors called hedge funds who buy a minority holding and create nuisance by demanding change. I can say with confidence, the wall street may increase value of some shares for short duration by its demands but net destruction to the economy is enormous and not studied.

I am confident that if the present day wall street had existed in industrial era, human enterprise would not have made much progress.

Let me make it clear I distrust wall street where a single analyst may cover the health care industry and also the funeral home industry.

OM shanti

The Immigration Debate

am really surprised by the audacity of illegal immigrants to challenge the system and the fact the law enforcement was a bystander when millions of lawbreakers were walking, came as a shock to me.

I don't understand why so many lawbreakers are tolerated, when a mother who forgets her child in a car, faces five years in the prison.

US may be a nation of immigrants, that only explains how the country was populated, it doesn't explain the success of the country. The success of US was due to law abiding people, philanthrophy, top quality education and many other factors. The fact that congress is tempted to legalize lawbreakers on behalf of another set of lawbreakers (business who employ them), sets the country on a slippery slope. These actions sets the country on a slow path of destruction, when the damage is realized it may be too late.

I am amused by the reason put forward by the people who advocate for illegals. I would like to answer some of the points.

Point:
Agriculture economy will collapse.
Counter Point:
Why produce strawberries in US, when it can be bought from any other country like bananas.

Point:
They mow our lawns.
Counter Point:
I thought people mowed their own lawns untill recently.

Point:
Restaurants will close.
Counter Point:
There are too many restaurants in US leading to misallocation of labor, if some restaurants are closed net impact on the economy will be zero.

Point:
Deporting 11 Million will be dificult
Counter Point:
US had a prison population of 4.5 million, which indicates handling 4.5 million is not difficult. Last year 600,000 were deported beyond the 1 million stopped at the southern border.

I don't have anything against any ethnic group but giving amnesty (By any name) is not acceptable to me, in the interest of long term stability of the society.