BMW: Leipzig

Had a visit to the BMW factory and was wowed by it. Though they manufacture only 1 series (3 door) and 3 series car here. And boy, 1 series far exceeded my expectation..

Quite clean process...how to make car manufacturing easy...from metal sheeet to car body to paint shop (3 layers of paint), then 'marriage' of car body to engine, just in time, just in sequence. The clean process was also testified by a colleague who has earlier worked for Toyota, saying they were rather crowded. The final relish was having a seat on 1x red cnvertible....I felt like a baby given a new toy...

Leipzig city itself has own rich history..quite merchantile and now German government is trying to restore its old glory. It looked somewhat similar to Belgium rather than a German city..the university centre was impressive. Interesting stories, how a church survive 2nd world war bombings but not communists' dynamite..people's peaceful resistance..place of Bach's romance etc etc....

Now this is the place of Carbon Credit trade in Germany which smells of some 90 billion euro across europe.

Perfect Outsourcing

A coutry can do nothing and still remain at top for ever.

For simplification of argument let's say a developed conutry decides that its citizens need not work at all, except to be at (probably) management position. Work will be done by inviting all the third world laborers. This will work.

Now a citizen needs food, cloth, home, luxury etc. To cater one citizen of country A, say 5 third world laborers are working in that country. Also assume, every laborer gets decent salary (so that best of the people at third world coutries vie to come to country A), but never a citizenship(understandable). A typical income-tax on country A is 33%. Say in the perfect scenario, this tax is routed as social-security for its citizen. So 5 laborers will provide the citizen not only only as good as 100% of their salary (which should be less than 100% because earning citizen will also have to pay some tax), but also 66% extra, besides producing all that citizen needs.

So country A:
1) Gets everything done for its citizen who need not do anything for living
2) Gets an extra income in its treasury, equal to 66% of the one person's salary, much more than what if everyone of its citizen would have worked and paid taxes.

Say if all the people are from same 3rd world country B, then B gets:
1) Income not by tax (because single taxation allows tax at location i.e to country A only) but by percolation/spill effects i.e if these laborers return home and spend on things at home country.
2) Still aspire to become next best i.e number 2 position.
3) It will still be a lucrative option, to monopolize the service industry otherwise there are others to offer services


The basic assumption is that following is ruled out:
1) Idle people at country A lose competency(with technological advances etc) to stay at top. Country B becomes assertive and after becoming number 2, forcefully acquires the number 1 position.

Now to calculate odds of the above risk.....
Say all salaries are equal. Per citizen A has more than 66% of salary (assuming the citizen consumes the whole of their 100%) that it needs to plough back to retain its competency (R&D, Buy-outs, creating rivals for B etc). Wait, even 100% salary that A's citizen is earning is after his requirements are fulfilled by the work of 5 laborers(i.e for free). Per citizen B has less than 66% salaries (assuming they use whole of their after-tax salary for home-country-economy).

Chinese must surely have thought about this.

India among most corrupt nations

Is the corruption, symbol of dynamism. Read this article.

India is stated to be one of the most corrupt countries, Germany is one of the least. On saturday session, on 45 minutes lunch break just went to a restaurant (one of the very few open), wanted to grab something quick, odered menu like cake and coffee, potato soup, sandwiches, chocolate shake and reminded the guy 10 times that the time for us is short. But time it took. Good 30 minutes after we placed order.

Now to reassess corruption et al in India. 1st, there will be no dearth of options of eateries on weekends and 2nd they will be quick to make 'Jugad' if requested. Another similar example is bargain, a true delight for a shopper, something unheard in this part of world.


Isn't one reason of corruption is originating from 'Jugad' that we enterprisingly make which is mis-understoood to be against the rule-book. In case of bargain, if the shop keeper sold me a book at Rs 100/- and to my another friend bough the same in Rs 80/-, I will feel cheated. But how many of us complain if Thanksgiving price is 80$ and the same if purchased in Christmas reaches 100$ at big superstores. Is it by the psychology that randomness is painful, organised is beauty.

Not an excuse, just I am not sure if such factors are assessed and if to improve our ranking, we might lose on some of our beauty with randomness.

Asta la Vista

Time to be self indulgent...last day in London, importantly last day of a phase...have quit everything for an utopia. Tomorrow I begin a new phase, off to Berlin to be younger as a student, old of so many things and independent of time as a lover.

All for that knowledge, to justify event(present)/past, to predict forthcoming. True sciences -physics/chemistry/biology - do so, social sciences don't. (Was Jesus the most knowledgeable person who besides telling stories(past) could predict own death).

Engineering and MBA are the disciplines, try to build/maintain something. The knowledge no doubt is a mandatory component and should be streaming always.

Am I trying to be emotional....am I good at it...do emotions catalyze (positively/negatively), are there good-bad emotions...immediate thing is packing my bags, no time for emotions then.....

Caledonia: Land of Ben, Glen. Loch and Whiskey

Romans named Caledonia to what is today Scotland....Scots always kept a little independent attitude from England. That's why there is England team(Cricket, Football, Rugby) and then there is another for Scotland..even the tour guide while showing the Edinburgh Rugby ground proudly claimed that they defeated English for last two years.
Ben is mountain and Ben Nevis is highest in Scotland, with hardly ca 1344 m to its credit. Fort William is close by and the whole area is still used for Military training especially for SAS: British Commandos.
The short height of Scottish highland is attributed to massive wear and tear in ice-age. It is said till 10000 years ago it was lying under 1000m of ice layer. Pity that there is hardly any place of good ski with very short ski-duration wheresoever left today. So not the height but the curved peaks and the marks of glacier, not to mention astounding flora and fauna are reasons of must go here. This is an ideal place of long walk but beware of midges.
High-land speciality food is Haggis, which was not bad and they have Yak like hairy cow Hamish.
Scotland stands on matrix of fault lines and eartquakes are relatively frequent. The Atlantic pierces the land quite deep and sometimes it is hard to identify whether it is a sea or a Loch(Lake).
Now Loch Ness is one of the most beautiful lakes. Another reason of its fame is Nessie, a monster said to be living here and sighted by a few. Discovery has even put Sonar equipments on the tourist boats regularly plying here.
There is high-land, there is low-land. William Wallace was a high-lander. Unlike Mel Gibson (under 6'), Mr. Wallace was around 6'7'' tall. The Wallace monument at Castle of Sterling has statue of Mel Gibson at the bottom. And word 'brave-heart' is not associated with William Wallace, but with his successor Robert the Bruce(a low-lander, who are considered more suave and hence often at English bestowed high positions), who participated in crusades and wanted his heart to be buried in Holy Land. But since Holy Land was under capture of opponents, his followers could reach only till little distance away and then threw his heart saying 'there goes the Brave Heart'. However one dialog in the movie is quite genuine; 'How can I be traitor to king, whereas I had no King'.
Glen is valley, Glen Coe being one of the most famous ones. It is perfectly U shape with Loch Leven adding to its beauty. Now this beautiful valley has seen massacres of McDonalds by their guests Campbells. It is more disgusting that this clan fighting was at the insistence of common enemy- the king of England. Divide and Rule was English policy not just for India. Another famous dialogue from Braveheart: 'the problem with Scotland is that there are so many scots. Some hotels in Glen Coe area have put signs: 'No Campbell allowed.'
There is lot of peat, water is black (and same coming out of tab is not necessarily bad) and the local whiskey is acidic: Strong, Smokey etc. Common complaints of local distillery are MNCs, big gobbling up small. For connoisseurs, it is loss of subtle variations of many local varieties (water and produce of barley) because big industries produce at mass-scale. Drink whiskey the Scottish way. Only single malt not the blended. Drop water to 1/10th of whiskey. It breaks the oil and induces the right flavour. Contrary to popular belief (at least popular where I grew up), whiskey is taken at room temperature. Whiskey on rocks is the dialog of a stylish moron. Sacrilegious to ask Soda and asking coke along with would be sheer blasphemy.

Vereinigte Koennigreich

So there are 3 conutries in the Island: England, Wales and Scotland (with offshore British Isles)...together making Britain...add Northern Ireland and this makes United Kingdom. Also Ireland is separate nation too and people quite resent their northern territory occupied by UK. Scots and Welsh don't like themselves being called English. Welsh have their own language too, however Scots have been more freedom-minded. A case exemplified by recent Lockerbie bomber's release. Nevertheless quite famous English personalities are from these regions: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes and Sean Connery of James Bond fame were Scots. The Prince of Wales is only a customary designation given to eldest son of King of England, certainly the fact not pleasing to Welsh.
It took me 6 months of stay in London to understand all this. Hardly 3 weeks left and I have never gone beyond London...next is long weekend and I should go either Lake District (of William Wordsworth fame) or Wales or Scotland or stay back here do pub scrawling.

End of World: 2012

Lots of prophecies for world ending in 2012 and today my co-passenger in the bus said about this, London will not see 2012 Olympics...I promised her I will call her ($$&&^&&£!^(*) in beginning of Olympics.

Now now Maya calendar has concrete dates (21-24th December, 2012) and rest all seem to be fictitious. A movie too is getting released sometimes late this year, probaly the hero will be moses of 2012.

For my point of view, if it really happens and a few survive then none of them will be atheist or agnostic any more. Can this become self fulilling prophecy. Not likely.....rather such threats will create less chaos and more peace(subsiding little of existing ones). Who will want to do misdeeds before facing His judgement.The religious people will becme more religious. Non religious ones will be anxious, a few of them will re-convert, most of them will ignore(also many religious people).

Likely scenario:
1) Environment is worsening year after year with unheard type of calamities frequently coming. Any large scale calamity at near about said duration will be treated as such. But to justify the prediction, it has to be atleast as big as to kill a large proportion of humans. Even 10% of world's population makes 8 billions and no calamity has ever touched 1 billion record.
Now environment changes might create new varieties of virus. It is said they evolve in 25 years so much so what it took humans to evolve from monkeys till date. Will there be new black death, H1N1 flu, or some other virus will make zombie out of us......

2) Nuclear wars: they can kill in billions. One or many of India-Pakistan-China-America-Russia etc. But precisely in that year. Actually it can happen any year. All the indians and chinese dead will still leave world with 5 billion out of ca 8 billions today, certainly not all of them worth living. Though nuclear war might precipitate global effects which can certainly make above prediction true. So this is worth the thought. Rekindle the India-China-Pakistan bhai-bhai thoughts. But what to do about terrorists with atom bomb, will they take command of Russian (America, China less likely) core system and shoot in all direction. Naah...but what to do if God has already decided.

The any or all of above can be true any time. Hopefully this rumour make people spiritual and peaceful. But then naysayerswill be active after 2012 bringing us back to square one. Better still would be to know if we will be alive even till then....

14/11: On the positive note, found this today: http://www.idiva.com/bin/idiva/At-worlds-end-maybe-not