Euro-Neti Neti

Neti, neti: in Sanskrit- neither this nor this(that)....logic of negations to arrive at something conclusive.

Never was it truer than concurrent developments. Example, Eurozone. At the time of its inception, it was held as the paramount of ideals. And now serious threats have emerged on account of member's indiscipline (Greece default, France's regular 8% of budget deficit instead of norm 4%), criticism of loss to members over free monetary policy (no one country can devalue the currency if need be) etc etc.

The question about Greece is not Greece alone (it accounts for only 4% of whole euro economy), but who next. Already term PIIGS is coined: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. It would probably take just one member country to walk away and the whole of 10 years experiment will wash away.

Should likes of UK(though it is not doing good either) and Sweden be happy that they didn't relinquish their currencies or Turkey should have Schadenfreude that luckily it was barred to join Eurozone itself.

Reading God's Mind

So after all theory and conceptual possibilities, scientists are doing what they do best.......confirming it by experiment.

Only it takes 20 years and nearly 10 billion dollars to set-up the most advanced experiment ever conceived via Large Hadron Collider..

Least we expect is the confirmation of Higgs particle, any journey beyond quark begins from.

Beyond this will be revealation on Dark matter, extra dimensions, string theory (which one out of theoretical million postulates) etc etc. All this with 1.0×10-9 grams of H2 at near absolute zero temperature.

Will they generate black hole, will it consume us..though scientists are unanimous in opinions against it, it will still be better to die wiser....

The seers who saw it coming

Quite befitting to retract my harping on failure of so called wise men.....

Madman who was a Prophet.

Probably knowledge is meant to be obscure. Even in the current information-age, so much of noise around doesn't help.

To give due credit, most government in recent crisis adopted Keynesian policies(stimulus) and it worked indeed. This is an open debate though, whether recent recession would have been more severe in absence of such measures. Also where is the reconciliation between Adam Smith's invisible hand (policies of Laissez Faire) and heavily employed mechanism of: 'Lender of Last Resort'. Further fuelling the fire is the blame: are some too big to fail.

Still, public fury notwithstanding, probably the likes of Goldman Sachs would have done equally well without Government Funding.

FT Man of the year

Further a good read on how crisis was weathered: Here

Blue Ocean/Red Ocean

Blue Ocean has apparently caught Strategist's mind too..here

Obviously being Whale is better than to be Piranha. Work on your strength peacefully, become big and royal, far away for bloody competitions.....

But soon there will be challengers to attack your territory and then fight you must. Still isn't life the best at the highest order of food chain, like: Steinadler.

Economics-Imperfect Science

Adam Smith's invisible hand to Keynesian play with Interest rates (liquidity preference). Friedman's dichotomy and still we had decade long Japan's deflation and then recent crisis.

Another root-cause identified for recent crisis..... Was it just one thing....

Why there is always so much of post-facto wisdom. Isn't true knowledge:
1) Can justify past
2) Could predict future(atleast a little)

Should I unlearn what they taught me in science.....Are all nobel-prizes in economics going in vain.......

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.