Archive for April, 2007
Indians who think rupee devaluation by the RBI is an important macroeconomic strategy to (a) sustain growth and (b) encourage exports by keeping the rupee cheap should definitely listen carefully to Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs sees clearly what Indians don’t see: Asian central banks (including India’s) routinely stockpile large dollar assets to boost their exports. [...]
Filed under: Indian Media, Inflation, Money, RBI | Leave a Comment
Governments and politicians are expert professionals at generating windfall profits out of thin air for themselves and their cronies. But at the margin, they would of course create more windfall profits for themselves rather than their corporate cronies.
Filed under: Cap-and-Trade, Energy, Environment, European Union, Political Auction, Special Interests | 1 Comment
It is, again, generally accepted that free markets must be arrived at quickly, and that phasing them in slowly and gradually will only delay the goal indefinitely. It is well known that the giant socialist bureaucracy will only seize upon such delay to obstruct the goal altogether. But there are further important reasons for speed. [...]
Filed under: Indian Politics, Liberty, Special Interests | 1 Comment
This post is the result of millions of hours of reading of excellent articles and books on inflation from the Austrian perspective and the Friedman perspective, millions of hours of current reading of Ajay Shah (1, 2, 3) and Ila Patnaik (1, 2, 3, 4) as well as the mistaken editorials, op-eds, columns and interviews [...]
Filed under: Incentives, Indian Media, Inflation, Money, Prices, RBI, Special Interests | 30 Comments
The European Union is learning fast from local municipalities and city governments in Europe that make criminals out of drivers to fill their empty coffers. A new rule is to come into effect today that makes criminals out of a huge number of transport and bus tour operators throughout the EU.
Professional drivers must rest more [...]
Filed under: European Union, Incentives, Liberty | Leave a Comment
Dayanidhi Maran must love his job. Kickbacks, fabulous dinners, insincere compliments – why wouldn’t he give away subsidies from our money to building the missing link in India’s semiconductor business?
The policy allows the government to offer subsidies of up to 20 percent of the project cost either through equity interest, tax breaks or other [...]
Filed under: Political Auction, Special Interests, Technology | Leave a Comment
Yay! The ruthless, greedy price gougers at Big Cement have been taken over by generous, loving souls
Apparently, Big Cement in India was busy expanding capacity while extracting profits – what most people would describe as “building muscle” and not “putting on fat“. Look what the “excessive” profits have done:
The supply of the construction raw material is expected to overtake the demand in 2008-09 when the capacity expansion projects of cement manufacturers [...]
Filed under: Indian Politics, Prices | Leave a Comment
So…what’s he really saying?
Vikram S Mehta writes about Indian cricket and Enron in the Indian Express and gets several things wrong. The question is whether he gets them wrong intentionally.
He does not understand (or pretends not to understand) economics, incentives, cause and effect relations arising from incentives or for that matter cricket and concocts some theory about the downfall [...]
Filed under: Cricket, Incentives, Indian Media, Special Interests | 1 Comment
Why is statism good in money?
Here’s a question from an amateur to all you Econ grads because I don’t understand this too well: “Why is state monopoly in money a good thing?”
Mint, an otherwise relatively liberal publication, is advocating statism in money and using the Swedish central bank as a guiding example:
“It [The Riksbank] uses a detailed annual survey that [...]
Filed under: Indian Media, Liberty, Money | 2 Comments
Indians don’t care about liberty
Gurpreet Mahajan writes in the Indian Express:
In societies like ours, where politics is popularly linked with crass opportunism and unprincipled pursuit of self-interest, it is easy to understand why the association with politics and seats of power is often derided. The lure of reward can corrupt the individuals, make them servile and compromise their judgment. [...]
Filed under: Indian Politics, Liberty | 1 Comment
