Deane's Dimension

The difference between Men and Women

2009-02-09T21:31:00.004+06:00

Question : Shall we go out for a drink?
A:

He's a good looking Hooker, with a Real whip..

2009-01-28T17:09:00.006+06:00

That's best one-liner I've ever heard about a Cricketer. Here's CricInfo on TM Dilshan:

..He is a good-looking hooker too, with a real whip in his arms when he does, but he is a compulsive one [..] it has ultimately led to his downfall [link]

I thank Andi S. for the pointer.

Out for a few more

2009-01-11T14:54:00.004+06:00

This blog has been slow for last couple of months. Blogging will continue to be extremely lite (or non-existent) until February. I think. There's much to blog about, not so much time.

I'm in my last few weeks of college, where everything I hear has the word "final" attached to it. Final projects, final exams, final battle, etc.

Meanwhile I post stuff at the mutiny. Mostly, links to other things.

Bloggable Links

2008-12-06T23:31:00.005+06:00

A few links I liked, I could have blogged about..

Dinidu de Alwis is no more. No he's not dead, just quit blogging. Pity.
On Mumbai -- Two of my favorite Bombay-based bloggers offer their take on the Mumbai attacks. Here's Amit Varma and Ajay Shah
Thoughts on Democracy Vs. Technocracy -- Will Wilkinson in fine form.
In defense of Bobby Jindal
Museum of Communism. Interesting Ad campaign.
Look mom, I'm on TV. I learn I have the propensity to overuse the words "complex" and "interact".
Addendum : How to raise income per capita (Please don't show this to Cabraal)

Off Blogs

2008-12-03T17:33:00.002+06:00

I've been off blogs for a while. Both writing and reading. The reasons are many; first I was busy with a lot of things, then I decided to travel to Delhi for a while. Now I'm back to a lot of piled up work, as is often the case with longish trips. I will start blogging again I think, but don't bet on it.

Oh and this blogged turned 3 last month. Time flies no?

Illogical Protectionism

2008-11-16T20:24:00.004+06:00

Today's Sunday Times economist's column is well worth a read. Here's an important observation,

The President when introducing the Budget said the cesses and increases in several import duties were to encourage local production of these commodities or substitutes for them, as is the case of milk, sugar, wheat and maize imports. The economic logic is that higher prices for these goods would raise domestic prices for them or substitutes and be an incentive for domestic production. Therefore the increase in prices is needed for this incentive effect. However the Minister of Consumer Affairs and other government parliamentarians are saying these increases in duties would not raise prices.The Minister of Consumer Affairs, an Economics teacher is on the contrary taking steps to control prices of these commodities. If prices do not rise then there is no way in which the measures taken by the budget are incentives for domestic production.

The whole thing here.

Logic was never a strong point of the present administration. Import substitution, which the administration's economic strategy is based on, will give the results it has always given -- higher prices, fewer choices, less quality of life and eventually, a resounding victory for the opposition.

The world's most annoying paragraph

2008-11-12T01:54:00.003+06:00

Could possibly be this:

At the end of the day, what would you add to this fairly unique list? With all due respect, I personally, at this moment in time, absolutely shouldn't have suggested that it's not rocket science because 24/7 people are saying this and it is literally a nightmare.

Here's the background story. Pointer and the paragraph from MR.

P. J. O.Rourke on the Free Market

2008-11-12T00:58:00.004+06:00

P.J. Has an excellent piece on how the Republicans 'blew it'. Here's an interesting paragraph:

What will destroy our country and us is not the financial crisis but the fact that liberals think the free market is some kind of sect or cult, which conservatives have asked Americans to take on faith. That's not what the free market is. The free market is just a measurement, a device to tell us what people are willing to pay for any given thing at any given moment. The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. "Jeeze, 230 pounds!" But you can't pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can. And voters--all the voters, right up to the tippy-top corner office of Goldman Sachs--think so too.

I agree. The market fundamentally provides a bunch of signals. You can ignore them -- and this is true whether you're an automaker or a lawmaker -- at your peril.

The article offers a lot of insight with less-than-usual, but still good, humor. I recommend you give it a read.

Here's another sample of what you can expect:

If we do have morals, where were they while Bosnians were slaughtered? And where were we while Clinton dithered over the massacres in Kosovo and decided, at last, to send the Serbs a message: Mess with the United States and we'll wait six months, then bomb the country next to you.

The whole thing here.

Budget-Econ 101

2008-11-08T02:07:00.006+06:00

Friday's Daily Mirror Cartoon captures the economics of government budget proposals with surprising accuracy:

Yet I'm sure come next year, there will still be many who believe they can get something from the government for "free". More on the budget, later.

The Youth Vote

2008-11-07T02:43:00.003+06:00

There are few things in the world, that you don't need a chart to tell you. Sex is pleasurable, Mervyn Silva is a crook and Barack Obama has a large youth following.

But here's a chart anyway. The chart shows how much the Republican party has lost the youth vote to Obama compared to the other elections.

According to Andrew Gelman, this idea of a great youth voter turnout is a myth. Gelman writes,

But there was no massive turnout among young voters. According to the exit polls, 18% of the voters this time were under 30, as compared to 17% of voters in 2004. (By comparison, 22% of voting-age Americans are under 30.)

So what does this mean for the Republicans? Harvard econ professor Greg Mankiw thinks that this suggests that the GOP needs to be more libertarian -- be less social conservative while maintaining it's fiscal conservatism. If that is indeed the direction GOP is going to take, I'd be much happy. It's about time.

The iPod Nano Index (or where you should buy your electronics stuff)

2008-11-05T23:16:00.004+06:00

At the moment it's Australia, followed by Indonesia and Canada. No surprises there. Anyone who has been watching the the exchange rate will know that the Aussie dollar has plunged more than 25% against the dollar over the few months.

CommSecs' iPod Index (pdf) takes after the Economist's Big Mac Index in trying to show the cost of local goods for foreign buyers (measuring PPP). Basically it denotes the price of 8 GB Apple iPods from 62 countries in USD terms. Here's the full index:

Sri Lanka is on the expensive side when it comes to electronics. But you'd be happy to note, we have the cheapest Big Macs.

Here's the full report on the Index. I thank Paul Kedrosky for the chart and MR for the pointer.

President Obama

2008-11-05T11:31:00.003+06:00

Congratulations. It truly was historic.

The case for Barack Obama

2008-11-02T02:05:00.003+06:00

The economist makes it:

[Compared to McCain,] Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. America’s allies would rally to him: the global electoral college on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by America’s history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their problems on racism.

So Mr Obama’s star quality will be useful to him as president. But that alone is not enough to earn him the job. Charisma will not fix Medicare nor deal with Iran. Can he govern well? Two doubts present themselves: his lack of executive experience; and the suspicion that he is too far to the left.

There is no getting around the fact that Mr Obama’s résumé is thin for the world’s biggest job. But the exceptionally assured way in which he has run his campaign is a considerable comfort. It is not just that he has more than held his own against Mr McCain in the debates. A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and out-fought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right.

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

It is hard too nowadays to depict him as soft when it comes to dealing with America’s enemies. Part of Mr Obama’s original appeal to the Democratic left was his keenness to get American troops out of Iraq; but since the primaries he has moved to the centre, pragmatically saying the troops will leave only when the conditions are right. His determination to focus American power on Afghanistan, Pakistan and proliferation was prescient. He is keener to talk to Iran than Mr McCain is— but that makes sense, providing certain conditions are met.

Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.

There's much more on the economist piece, endorsing Barack Obama. More than anything else, it's a heavy indictment of how John McCain has run his campaign. It's a cautious, calculated endorsement; no orgasmic (and naive) blabber about how inspiring he is. I can't endorse Obama, but I can endorse the article.

For a slightly different take on Obama and McCain, see Swaminathan Aiyar for the Times of India.

Politically Incorrect guide to politics

2008-10-21T12:10:00.002+06:00

This is a fantastic episode from John Stossel's 20/20. Part 1 is below:

Here's part 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Part 2 discusses the financial crisis.

Cris Lingle on Globalization & Culture

2008-10-19T23:44:00.006+06:00

About an year ago, I helped arrange a lecture by Christopher Lingle on Globalization and Culture. It's now up on youtube.

Among other things, Cris predicts an impending crash in China. He correctly called the last Asian crisis before it happened, so I'm thinking there's something to it. I think most of his work is based on Austrian Trade Cycle theory. I could be wrong. Here's part 2 of the talk. The wobbly camera work is mostly my bad. If you want more, here's a writeup I did based on the talk.

The funniest president

2008-10-18T02:18:00.003+06:00

This is probably the best speech McCain has given. We now know the funnier candidate in this election:

Here's Obama's response. I am also reminded of Reagan's humor.

Joe the Plumber and America's License-Raj

2008-10-17T22:30:00.004+06:00

Apparently, John McCain's favorite Joe the Plumber, doesn't have a plumbing license. My first reaction is : There's something called a plumbing license??

I invite senators, Obama and McCain to visit Sri Lanka where I will introduce them to Sunil the plumber (locally known as Sunil the Paiyppa-baas) operating legally without any need for licensing. The Soviet America really needs to modernize itself into a free-market system and get off from this license-raj stuff.

If you are American, I'd recommend you consider voting for Bob the Builder. He runs with a Son of a Butcher.

More on Joe and plumbing at MR. I thank Whackster for the initial pointer.

In Mutiny

2008-10-17T20:34:00.003+06:00

There's a new blog in town, and I'll be blogging frequently in it, mostly about Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict. For now, I have blogged here and here.

My favorite seperatists

2008-10-16T23:19:00.004+06:00

Via Sanjana, I learn that all this time, my favorite seperatists organization has been the MILFs. I shit you not.

Good news on Reform

2008-10-15T01:56:00.004+06:00

This is excellent news. From LBO,

Sri Lana's government plans to deregulate railway freight rates and invite private sector participation to increase movement of goods by rail, according to a new transport policy unveiled recently.

"Railway freight tariffs will be de-regulated and the Sri Lanka Railways will be permitted to determine tariffs competitively to attract freight transport from road to rail," the draft policy statement said.
The move is part of a series of measures to revive the heavily loss-making state railway service and shift movement of people and goods from road to rail.

The government expects to increase the share of passengers using rail to 10 percent by 2016 from six percent now, and freight to five percent from one percent now.

"Sri Lanka Railways will collaborate with the private sector towards achieving this objective," the policy put out by the transport ministry said.

Much more at the LBO article. This is genuinely a pleasent surprise. Now if only we can have the same policy for passenger rail and buses, we would have more or less fixed transport.

Now I'm more of a patriot

2008-10-14T16:39:00.006+06:00

My weekly dose of patioritism has now been increased by 50 rupees. According to LBO,

Sri Lanka's government hopes to raise an additional two billion rupees a year in tax revenue through a recent increase in excise tax, a senior treasury official said.

The tax on a litre of hard liquor has been increased by 50 rupees and on a litre of beer by 10 rupees. The revenue from the tax hike in the remaining months of this year is expected to be around 300 million rupees, he said.

The tax hike would raise the retail price of a bottle of hard liquor by about 35 rupees.[..]

The government is strapped for cash owing to rising expenditure, especially on the war against the Tamil Tigers, and on a bloated bureaucracy. [link]

..tsk tsk tsk.. the things I do for my country..

Indian secularism

2008-10-13T23:38:00.005+06:00

Vikram Nandwani is probably the best cartoonist I know. Here's his latest:

The background according to Vikram,

The NSA (National Security Advisor) said there was a need to effectively deal with organisations like SIMI and Bajrang Dal "because then there are many copycat organisations ... Several micro units of the same kind may come up." He claimed "SIMI and Bajrang Dal are not two sides of the same coin, but both of them are dangerous."

For those who are clueless about Indian politics, SIMI is an Islamic militant organization believed to be behind numerous terrorist activities. Bajrang Dal is a militant Hindu organization believed to behind the recent attacks against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.

Despite it's many imperfections, my thoughts on the Indian constitution hasn't changed much, although I wouldn't sing it's praises quite so loudly as I did two years ago.

More to the point, my favorite Vikram-cartoon is probably the one he did when the LTTE 'Air-force' came to being.

Global air traffic

2008-10-13T20:59:00.003+06:00

This is just very cool. It' a simulation of air traffic worldwide, over a 24-hour period.

Just looking at that, can't help but feel that Sri Lanka would have been such a logical place for another heavy traffic point. But no..

[Link via Chris Blattman's blog, another person who deserves a permenant link and a regular read]

Krugman wins the Nobel

2008-10-13T20:28:00.007+06:00

Paul Krugman has won the Nobel prize for economics. He wins it for trade theory and location theory. I recall Jagdish Bhagwati, himself in the running for the prize for several years mention somewhere that Krugman, who also happens to be his former student will one day get the prize for this very contribution.

I must say, I'm not particularly enjoying this Sitglitz-Krugman pattern in the prizes, but when Krugman stops his anti-Bushism, he's a very good economist and he's no protectionist. Krugman also has the rare privilage of having a permenent link from my blog, on a list which is otherwise dominated by libertarians or classical liberals. As you can see, I read the right people.

So far, the best synopsis is from Tyler Cowen. More to come I'm sure.

Military Bloggers

2008-10-12T13:03:00.002+06:00

Via the 50 most busiest blogposts, I stumbled upon The Army of Dude, a U.S. Mil-blogger who was based in Iraq, who also happens to be a good writer.

For us mere mortals who don't really know what it's like to run around legitimately shooting people, while some other bastard is trying to blow you to bits, Mil-blogs provide great insight into what really happens in the front lines, which is probably too boring for the movies and too real, too long for the mainstream media.

The curiosity got the best of me, and I tried to find a Sri Lankan Mil-blogger. Milblogging.com lists one, The Long Ranger, the blogger I'm pretty sure is not in the front lines (do they have Wi-Fi in Wanni?) but he seems to be heavily clued nevertheless. I will be a faithful reader.

I also stumbled upon defencewire, supposedly run by a bunch of independent military analysts, which is also kind of good. This is probably as closest Sri Lanka will get to Mil-blogging, unless someone could convince David Blacker to take up a job in Wanni.

Mod Goviyas

2008-10-11T23:16:00.007+06:00

Picture of the day, comes from The Colombo Post:

Sri Lankan Government ministers, trying their hand at farming. Subsequently, one of them got bombed, but survived. Lots of antics, for the rural vote.

Silly statements

2008-10-11T13:27:00.006+06:00

Two silly statements I read today,

Let's forget that 2. for the moment. Why does His Excellency think that the govt. should not sell any state owned land?

President Mahinda Rajapaksa adding that the future generations should be able to enjoy the benefits of these assets as we enjoy them today as a result of a great sacrific of the patriotic leaders of this nation. [link]

I see. Mr.President would not sell, for example, Water's Edge, because he'd like to preserve it for the future generations. Because Water's Edge you see, is "a result of the great sacrifice of the patriotic leaders".

Actually, I don't see. In fact, that strikes me as a whole lot of nonsense. The state owns 85% of the lands in this country. That's a lot of dead capital. A good proportion of this can be used for productive development. Instead it's locked away, apparently preserved for future generations.

Ironically, most people will find those two statements appealing. I think it's derived from a fundamental misconception about the nature government, this romantic, yet nonsensical idea that "government is us". So state enterprises, state-land is seen as somehow being collectively owned by "us". Hence the phrases like "selling" to describe the process of privatization.

A lot of bad public policy can be averted if many of 'us' come to realize one simple thing : Government is not 'us', it's just government.

Where your taxes go (where they actually think it will go edition)

2008-10-10T22:14:00.007+06:00

This is how the government intends on spending your taxes. At least partly how it will be spent. We can't afford the whole thing so the rest will be financed by debt and aid (yes, yes, eventually paid by you).

The largest expenditure is for defence, the largest ever allocation of Rs. 177 billion, about 18% of the total expenditure. The budget 2009 from daily mirror.

More on where your taxes are here and here. For a related post see, the biggest big government.

(HT: on Where Your Taxes Go concept, Amit Varma)

The atlas of the real world

2008-10-09T13:16:00.003+06:00

is very interesting. It resizes the world map according to different criteria. Sri Lanka is really big in a few things:

First, number of book published (per million).

This was a genuine surprise. And the annual rate of forest depletion :

And not so surprisingly, we do "well" in the number of deaths due to war:

Much more info and maps at Creative Review. Sri Lanka is also quite large in the rate of abject poverty (measured at $2 per day, but as I recall it's quite low at 1$ per day). Here's another interesting set of maps.

[Maps via Sepia Mutiny]

The Stupid Atheist

2008-10-08T11:55:00.008+06:00

Dinidu de Alwis thinks those who practice religion are stupid. He mentions my name repetitively in his post, so I’m compelled to write something. My biggest beef with this ‘argument’ is not so much its conclusion – the assertion that religious people are stupid, which after all is a matter of personal opinion, but by simplistic way in which Dinidu de Alwis arrives at this conclusion. In other words, my biggest beef is not with the assertion of the stupidity, but the stupidity in which he makes this assertion.

Dinidu is a devout and a self-proclaimed atheist. Now I have no problems with atheism, I think it’s a sound, rational and reasonable position on the existence god and deity. My contention is that it is not necessarily the only sound, rational and reasonable position on the belief of the existence of god and deity.

I appreciate the atheist logic. Like I said, I think it's sound. But what I don’t quite understand is this militant, evangelical form of atheism. After all if you don’t believe in something why be militant about it?

I don’t believe in the fairy god mother or unicorns, but I don’t go around writing blog posts, books or making movies about how silly it is. If you dont belive, just go on not beliving. Evangelical atheists thrust no bible in your face; they’d just like to forcefully thrust it away.

I think the answer is, this kind of atheists believes that, like Dinidu de Alwis so clearly proclaimed, “Theists are stupid”. So this kind of atheist feels it’s their duty to guide the other irrational, stupid believers in the atheistic rational path. And hence, they must launch the crusade on theism to spread the joy of the atheist discovery.

Now there are many ways of making this, “all-people-who-believe-in-religion-are-stupid” argument. None of which are particularly smart, but Dinidu chooses an especially dumb and comical route. To sum, he basically quotes Bill Maher. (Ideally I should stop right here and rest my case. But what’s the fun in that?). Maher’s argument against religion is based on biblical literalism, and laughing at how dumb it sounds.

Something that Mr.Maher and Dinidu doesn’t seem to understand is, fundamental premises of religion, are not about whether or not Mary was a virgin, whether eating pork is sin, or whether Sidhartha walked on the day he was born; it’s about the claims that religions make about the nature of our being.

And in this, a lot is unknown and perhaps more unknowable. How did life arise on the earth? Why did it arise at all? How do we have free-will or consciousness? Why are there any physical laws at all? Why do planets go in some pre-determined, mathematical orbit? How or who created the Universe? How did this process start?

These are questions we have no right or wrong answers for. Science certainly doesn’t have concrete answers, it gives some possible scenarios, but none that can be claimed absolutely right. And given this, among the sphere of possibility lies the probability that the universe was created by “God”. This probability may be small as you like and among the many possibilities out there, but unless you can rule out this possibility, believing this might be the case is not crazy. It’s certainly not stupid.

For example, when you step into a building you don’t expect it to blow up. You believe it won’t. But it could. Now not entering buildings because it might blow up, depending on the situation, is irrational and probably stupid. But suggesting or believing it “could” is not, nor is your belief it won’t.

What we are stuck with then, is a probability question. The only 'rational' way to settle this is to consider the costs and benefits of this action. If you are getting into a building with a politico and you have absolutely no reason or benefit from being there, you are probably making an error (Dinidu might even call this stupid). But if you stand to gain a lot from this presence and your relative costs of being there are smaller, then this is probably the right move, even with the risk that on the odd day, things could blow up.

That's kind of how religion works. People consider it a positive net benefit. The possibility of heaven, community and support is worth some of the costs. That's sort of what Blaise Pascal argued.

Sure, sometimes religion is a tool of indoctrination, but as Communists and the LTTE have demonstrated, theistic belief is not a necessity for that kind of thing.

So I agree there are and can be stupid forms of religion, but Atheists, like Dinidu de Alwis are not exempt from such classification. I wouldn't accuse Dinidu of necessarily being stupid, just very very ignorant.

Help Map Sri Lanka

2008-10-05T17:08:00.001+06:00

Today, I find this extremely useful Google Map Maker. The application basically allows you to map things you know (businesses, cafes, towns and yes, islands) on Google Maps. So go ahead help, map your town, your neighborhood and help put Sri Lanka on the Google Map. Here is a short tutorial to get you started .

[Pointer via Google Africa Blog]

Mises vs. Marx (Hax0r edition)

2008-10-05T12:15:00.008+06:00

I saw this in the Mises Institute Blog today:

Background : In the 1920s, way before the collapse of Socialism and central planning, Ludwig von Mises (and later his student F.A. Hayek) argued that socialism was unworkable, because the socialist system couldn't 'calculate' . There was no way the planners could know what to produce, when to produce in what quantities without having a proper signaling system.

In the free-market, the rise and fall of prices convey this information which is otherwise difficult or very expensive to obtain. The rise and fall of prices act as signals for entrepreneurs (producers) to make decisions about production, investment -- basically everything. This debate between the Socialists and Mises is famously known as the calculation debate, no prizes for guessing who ultimately turned out to be the winner.

We need the Rs.200 note

2008-10-05T01:01:00.004+06:00

The Rs.200 note. Whatever happened to it? (Pic by PVGM)

Seen any 50 cents recently? (coins, not the rapper) I haven't either. They probably don't mint it anymore. If they did, that would be a subsidy for the guys who mint coins because the metal required to mint the coin would cost more than 50 cents. Like it's cousins 25 cents, 10 cents and 1 cent, 50 cents is dead.

That's what inflation will do eventually to all coins and notes under the fiat currency system we have. That's no big deal so long as inflation is moderate, but when you have inflation at about 30%, like we have, one small but irritating cost of inflation will be carrying costs.

Now that Rs.100 is worth piss, we have to carry more money to make up for it. So we have end up carrying more higher denominated notes (500s, 1000s) and less lower denominated ones (100s, 50s). This means when I try to pay my Tuk-Tuk fellow, or my AC-Bus guy, often times I end up having just 500 or 1000 notes and not enough 100s, and those chaps never have enough change. This becomes just plain inconvenient and on occasion a source of great annoyance. We need a note in between 100 and 500.

I think the government should re-introduce that Rs.200 note that we had in circulation for some time in a much more durable form than the plasticky-version we had earlier. That should help with the situation.

More on inflation at Deaned.

Who Would the World elect?

2008-10-04T22:43:00.005+06:00

When whowouldtheworldelect.com ran the polls, Ron Paul came on top. Now, it's the economist's turn. So far McCain has a clear lead in Macedonia.

Sri Lanka has 30 electoral-college votes and Obama's thrashing McCain 69%-31% right now. Bob Barr is not included.

Obama is also taking the entire U.S. 79% to 21% so far, in voting. So can we finally conclude that all media (except Fox) has both a liberal bias and elitist? thank you.

WTF statement of the day

2008-10-03T19:35:00.003+06:00

Comes from the JHU. According to a Daily News report,

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has called for the appointment of an independent commission to probe the activities of INGOs involved in relief work in uncleared areas in the North.

Such a commission should comprise a team of patriotic retired servicemen who are pro-government, the JHU has said. [link]

I see. I want an independent-commision to look into the retards in parliament. But that would probably consist of pro-government servicemen as well.

Pointer via Court Jester

Obama Camp

2008-10-02T13:37:00.005+06:00

Move over Jesus, the world has a new messiah:

Cute or Creepy? Till about 1.30 it is kinda cute, but then it gets creepy. Very very creepy. I can imagine a conversation between a typical American Mom and her child, in the summer of 2009 after Obama becomes president,

"Mom! I wanna go to Obama Camp"
"Obama Camp? you mean like Jesus camp honey?"
"Mom, who's Jesus?"

Heh.The good people at Reason has made the Pyongyang version. I'm waiting for the Nazi one.

Foreign policy 'Hit'

2008-09-28T22:01:00.009+06:00

Here's something for you Sarah Palin/Asif Zadari haters. The two met recently in New York and here's what happened:

On entering a room filled with several Pakistani officials this afternoon, Palin was immediately greeted by Sherry Rehman, the country's Information Minister.

"And how does one keep looking that good when one is that busy?," Rehman asked, drawing friendly laughter from the room when she complimented Palin.

"Oh, thank you," Palin said.

Pakistan's recently-elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, entered the room seconds later. Palin rose to shake his hand, saying she was “honored” to meet him.

Zardari then called her "gorgeous" and said: "Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you."

"You are so nice," Palin said, smiling. "Thank you."

A handler from Zardari's entourage then told the two politicians to keep shaking hands for the cameras.

"If he's insisting, I might hug," Zardari said. Palin smiled politely.

I'm not going to even comment. I just think someone should make Zadari the admin of Sara Palin:VPILF group on facebook. He earned it. And what did Palin think of all this?

"It's going great," Palin said. "These meetings are very informative and helpful, and a lot of good people sharing appreciation for America." [link]

God Bless America. The whole thing is on youtube. I told you these Paks are horny.

[The story via Sepia Mutiny]

Sri Lanka's brain drain -- Redux

2008-09-28T19:09:00.003+06:00

Last month I tried to estimate how much of Sri Lankan youth go overseas for studies. I found this Island article which puts a number on that estimation:

Around 7,000 students go abroad for higher education annually but the Higher Education Ministry does not keep records or register students going abroad for higher studies privately, Ministry Secretary Mrs. P. B. G. Abeyratne said.

However, the Controller of Immigration and Emigration P. B. Abeykoon said there may be more than 7,000 who go abroad annually for studies but around 20,000 passports are issued purportedly for those leaving the country for higher education.

Higher Education Ministry sources attributed this large exodus of students to the inability of universities to admit all those who qualify at the AL examination. Parents who could afford to send their children abroad do so, source added. "This is a feature of the global scenario of this era."

Though university education is free, it can accommodate only a limited number of students. Currently, there are only 16 state universities and only about 16,000 students are admitted. [link]

7,000 seems like a conservative estimate, especially if the number of student visas issued are around 20,000. But even 7,000 per year is a big number, given that the state Universities can accommodate only around 16,000. There is absolutely no case for free higher education, more on that soon.

Why I love P.J O'Rourke

2008-09-28T12:48:00.011+06:00

Because he says things like this :

From Parliament of Whores (1991)
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.
Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

Eat the Rich (1999):
Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.
Give War a Chance (1992) :
You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism.

FromThe Liberty Manifesto (1993):
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

From All the Trouble in the World (1994):
A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty — their power and privilege — to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians
Of course, the humans in Haiti have hope. They hope to leave.
War is a great asshole magnet.
Why I Am a Conservative (1996):
There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money— if a gun is held to his head.

P.J. is an awesome satarist, journalist and a political commentator. I'd highly reccomend his two books, Parliament of Whores and Eat the Rich.

Myths and Realities of the U.S financial crisis

2008-09-26T00:24:00.006+06:00

There is a financial crisis in the U.S. and we are hearing the same old silly arguments. Apparently, in the last few weeks capitalism has collapsed, Bush has become a socialist and it's all the fault of the World Bank and the IMF. If you belive any of that, you should really update your feed reader.

But if your concerns are more serious, the ever impressive Ajay Shah does some myth busting:

Myth: Governments are bailing out rich people.
Reality: Acute pain is being inflicted on shareholders and top managers of financial firms.

Myth: unregulated hedge funds are dangerous.
Reality: The unregulated hedge funds were fine. The problems were created in the heart of regulated finance, in banks giving out home loans.

Myth: The crisis has demonstrated the failure of financial capitalism.
Reality: Financial capitalism has delivered $50,000 per capita of GDP in the US.

Myth: This is the failure of laissez faire ideology in the US
Reality: The US ‘Federal Register’ publishes over 50,000 pages of new regulations every year. Regulatory expenses rose 44% from 1990 to 2008 in the US. US financial regulation is far from laissez faire! What failed was dysfunctional governance structures.

Myth: The crisis has demonstrated that credit derivatives are dangerous
Reality: The crisis has demonstrated that OTC derivatives are dangerous.

Myth: Innocent bystanders have got hurt because of the shennanigans of millionaire rocket scientists.
Reality: US GDP is doing surprisingly well.

The above is based on slides (PDF here) from a talk Ajay delivered on the financial crisis. Obviously, it would have been better to hear the man speak along with the slides.

The presentation goes into broader range of issues and well worth a look for anyone trying to understand what went on in the financial markets.

Mirror on Me on Obama

2008-09-25T02:45:00.007+06:00

This probably some kind of cheating. It's useful when you have friends in the media. In any case, here is Dinidu writing on something I (supposedly) said about the U.S. elections:

Deane would vote for: Barr–Root (Libertarian)

He says he would vote for the Libertarian candidates because "I agree with Obama on some things and with McCain on others. But I don't agree enough with either one of them to actually vote for them. At least I agree with Barr on most things." But interestingly, Deane goes onto say "Now pretending we are Americans is cute, but the fact is, we are not. Sure Obama knows how to work the teleprompter and give a great speech, and Sarah Palin is one hot governor but surely, those are not good enough reasons to root for anyone."

He explained his stance by saying, "Unfortunately 'talk' is all what most twenty-something Sri Lankan Obama supporters have considered. They might give all sorts of sophisticated policy-wise reasons for it now, but the fact is most decided to support Obama just by listening to him and not by examining his policies. Obama for example proposes to 'save American jobs', now I can understand why some Americans might support that, but why on earth would Sri Lankans want to save American jobs? I'm sure the American union bosses would find it rather cute. Protectionism of one country directly opposes opportunity of others. That's the great Obama plan."

"Like Rudy Gulliani said, "change" is not a destination and "hope" not a strategy, and I think Americans are waking up to empty cheesy rhetoric, and that's why Obama is going down in the polls and loosing the election. There is one good reason though Obama should win – he's black. If he loses, all the media here and in other countries will put it down to racism and would argue the fact that not even in America can a person from a minority win an election. That's not good for minority groups anywhere."

The whole thing here

Ok ok that going down on the polls and loosing the election part was stretching it. But I stand by everything else. I could have written anti-McCain something as well. But what's the point in making fun of an old white guy, of whom everyone hates anyway? Obama-bashing is much more fun. And did you know he just flip-flopped on net neutrality? gasp!

On Barr, he's toast. He just lost Ron Paul's endorsement by playing bad boy. He (and frankly Paul) screwed up what could have been Libertarian Party's best year yet.

More on Obama, McCain and the U.S. elections.

I, Society and Public Policy

2008-09-25T00:58:00.002+06:00

Centre for Civil Society is organizing it's annual seminars on public policy, now called "I, Society and Public Policy" renamed from "Liberty & Society Seminars" starting in October in Delhi, Cochin, Bangalore and Pune. If you are between 18 - 25 with an interest in Public Policy, do apply before the time runs out.

I was in the Cochin seminar in January andI highly reccomend it. See my somewhat related posts on the Cochin seminar here and here.

Early warning on the financial crisis

2008-09-24T21:38:00.001+06:00

In as early as 2003, someone had the wisdom to see what was coming. Who said the following?

One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.

The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.

Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out.

Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged overinvestment in housing.

Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.

Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.

The answer is Ron Paul in a speech he gave in September 2003. The pointer from the Mises Blog. Now most financial experts wouldn't have agreed with Paul then, and probably won't agree with him now. But the bottom line is the Austrian analysis is the only one which predicted what was coming.

In late 2005, Tyler Cowen, himself no Austrian, put a post on "If I was an Austrian post" on his influential Marginal Revolution blog. In it he made several predictions as to what would happen if he were to follow the Austrian business cycle theory. As Tyler later admitted, most of it has come true. He said however, loose monetary policy, like the Austrians thought was only one of several and less important triggers to the problem. Here Paul seems to suggest that apart from loose monetary policy, government guaranteed line of credit to Fannie and Freddie was at fault for creating the 'mal-investment' and the high risk-taking.

Whether you comepletly agree with the analysis or not, you have to hand it to Ron Paul, he called this one. That's why he's all over the media now.

Sri Lanka : The 3rd most horniest country in the World?

2008-09-22T18:14:00.002+06:00

The most horniest is Pakistan, followed by Bangladesh. That's according to Google Insights. See the graph here:

(Click to enlarge or see Google Insight link)

I used insights to show the results for the terms 'porn' or 'sex'. Also notice that the top 4 countries with the highest search volume for these terms are all South Asian -- Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. A SAARC orgy anyone?

In any case, I can think of two possible explanations for the results.

First, in lower-income countries, the utility of non-porn related internet activities (searches in this case) are low. There's no real thriving e-commerce industry, so searching for soap, books or mini-skirts wouldn't yield much. Nor do people search for things like local news on general search engines like Google, because of all the noise created by 'western content'. After all according to Alexa 9 of the the 100 most visited websites in Sri Lanka are porn-related.

But there are few kinks with this hypothesis. If this were true then most lower-income countries would have higher proportion of horny-searches. This isn't exactly the case. Nigeria for example has a much lower per-capita income level than Pakistan and it produces less horny searches than the U.S.

The second explanation, (which I think is more to the point) is this: All people are horny. But countries of who's cultures promote a hush-hush attitude towards sex, find other means to satisfy their horniness, such as watching Internet porn. Notice that middle-eastern countries such as Egypt, Yemen immediately follows their South Asian counterparts in the horny search index.

Conclusion: we are just bloody sexually-oppressed and bored on the Internet. But you didn't need me to tell you that. Bugger, what a waste time..

Notes : 1) Google Insights normalizes all data. Biases resulting from higher-search volumes of certain countries are removed. 2) Horny-country inspiration from IndiaUncut.

WTF Headline of the day

2008-09-22T01:23:00.005+06:00

Comes from the Sunday Observer:

NCPA saves 13-year-old girl from further rape

One must be grateful for the NCPA. Unfortunately, we already know at least one of the questions the Police are going to ask this girl,"why didnt you use your mobile phone?".

[HT on link: Achcharaya]

The upside of the Colombo Visa

2008-09-21T22:57:00.001+06:00

Marking the International day of Peace, the Sri Lankan Police decided to launch registration of residents from the north currently staying as 'guests' in Colombo. The new Colombo Visa is complete with details such as purpose of visit, expiry date, etc. Those already having 'visas' will be able to confirm the validity of their documents. But that's not all, according to a report from the Sunday Observer,

Refreshments will be provided for the northern civilians who register themselves today with the police in the Western Province

Realiable sources say however, that the 'refreshments' consisted of bunty toffees.

A Palin Theocracy in a bikini

2008-09-17T17:13:00.006+06:00

It strikes me as rather odd when the most right-wing of the Sri Lankan media is retardedly leftwing when it comes to reporting about U.S. politics. But this choice picture for an anti-Palin piece on the Sunday Times takes the cake. Here's a screenshot : (Also see it in the ST site)

I mean, Christ..

Oh wait, I shouldn't say that. That would make me an extremist fundamentalist christian who wants to shoot women in cases of rape, incest and have a fondness for pigs with lipstick. No, I dont think I have that quite right.. but you get the picture. Oh and by the way, the bikini pic is fake.

Racists playing the 'Obama' card

2008-09-16T02:46:00.001+06:00

Obama is down in the polls, including on InTrade, which means lots of people are quite literally betting he will loose. So the Sri Lankan communalists are now pointing to racism to explain this turn of events. Case in point -- this Island piece by some fellow called Mano Ratwatte. The writer makes number of claims,

Obama is loosing because there is a racist conspiracy against him. Majority of the people in the southern states will not vote for a black candidate because of racial prejudice and tradition.

He says, "No one other than a Christian will ever have any chance of seriously running for public office even for a small city council (perhaps, with the exception of San Francisco)".

Iraq war was about oil.

Sarah Palin is a rightwing christian extremist. These people brainwash innocent people, doesn't care about Iraqi IDPs and calls Obama a baby killer.

On the other hand, Sri Lanka is wonderful. There are lots of instances where Sinhala Buddhists majorities voted for Muslims, Christians and Tamils.

Ranjan Ramanayake and Janaka Perera are devout catholics. They got highest preferential votes in the buddhist dominated Sabaragamuwa and North central provinces. Sinhala-buddhists are not so bad like the newspapers say.

In sum, Obama is loosing because of racism, We are so much better. Yay!

If Obama continues his downward trend and eventually looses, expect to hear more of this, and not just from Sri Lanka. If there was ever one good reason for Obama to win the election, it's because he's black. Just that. For the sake of proving that it can be done. and deny all those other communalists the pleasure of making "look it can't even be done in the U.S., so why here" type arguments.

Let's take some of these "arguments" by the writer. First of all, isn't it criminal that in the days of Google and Wikipedia, these 'journalists' don't bother to using them?

If Ratwatte did manage to use a search engine, he would find that there have been plenty of Jews who have been American politicians including at least a couple of Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, and at least one Atheist. Some of these people have been Governors, congressmen, mayors, senators and Republicans from 'red states'. So.. Can't run for city council? Ratwatte is lying or most probably have no idea. Let's also bear in mind we are taking about a country where non-christian religious beliefs comprise of just 5.2% of the population, including Jews.

But let's go back to his first point, Now I don't claim to know why exactly Obama is loosing ground. If I did, I'd be a Washington strategist, not a Sri Lankan blogger. Perhaps Obama is following a flawed strategy, perhaps Americans are waking up to the naive "Hope" and "Change" stuff, can't be sure. But claiming that it's racism is just nonsense.

As for the 'Southern states', they are called red states for a reason, they go Republican whether the opposing candidate is black, white or luminous green. The battle is not fought in Texas or Alabama like Ratwatte suggests, it's fought in swing states like New Hampshire and Virginia. One needs to understand how the U.S. presidential electoral college system works, it's not like the guy with the most votes win as in Sri Lanka.

Finally, anybody who thinks Sarah Palin is a christian extremist needs get his/her head examined. If evangelicals are in control of the Republican party like some liberals like to think, Mike Huckabe would be on the top of the ticket, not John McCain.

Now I don't know about Sinhala-Buddhist majorities voting in Muslims, Christians and Tamils, but if that is indeed the case, as a litmus test, let's put a Tamil to run in Hambantota, A Sinhalese in Jaffna and get one of the major parties to nominate a Muslim in one of the presidential elections, let's see how that go. I won't be that optimistic. I wouldn't read too much into the Ranjan, Janaka Perera situation other than achievements of an actor and a Military man.

To summarize, yes, I do think there are racial prejudices which play a part in the election, and yes, there are intolerant Christian fundamentalists U.S. politics, but they are not in control of this election and unlikely to make a deterministic impact in the future. Nor can Sri Lanka hope to compete for a prize in multicultural politics with the United States.

Austrian Economics in Sri Lanka?

2008-09-15T18:26:00.004+06:00

Emailing me about to my last post, a reader asks me whether I know any Austrian economists in Sri Lanka.

Personally, I don't. I'm pretty sure it's not taught in any university. I'd say the popular Sri Lankan business portal LBO has Austrian leanings, especially the fussbudget column focusing on monetary policy.

About an year ago, I helped arrange a couple lectures by Cris Lingle, an economist of the austrian tradition also a fellow at CCS. He spoke about Globalization for a Youth group I'm involved with and also about imbalances at global markets at the Chamber of Commerce. That pretty much sums up what I know about Austrian economics in Sri Lanka.

Personally, I'm a student of the austrian tradition as much as I am a student of the neoclassical tradition and not really prepared (or know enough) to pass judgements on either.

Austrians are also committed classical liberals or Libertarians. Sadly, I don't know many Sri Lankan libertarians either. If you have any info about Austrian economics in Sri Lanka or Sri Lankan libertarians, leave a comment or better yet, drop me an email. I'd be interested in knowing.

Seminar on Austrian economics

2008-09-13T16:55:00.004+06:00

Foundation for Economic Education has put up podcasts of its seminar on Austrian Economics. Sri Lankans might find the two podcasts on monetary equilibrium and costs of inflation interesting. You'd need some background in economics and at least some familiarity with the Austrian school to fully appreciate it. The cost of inflation lecture might still be useful for anyone given the current circumstances.

Austrian theory is certainly not mainstream econ, but it has informed the mainstream throughout the last century. Austrian monetary theory in particular, is probably more valid here, in developing countries where central banks truly do suck, like the Austrians like to think.

Non-economists, especially those not trained in the neoclassical mainstream would probably find Austrian econ easier to appreciate and understand. There's no hunt for the elusive equilibrium, there's no emphasis demand curves (austrians think it's more like a demand fog than a curve), no assumptions about perfect competition. It's logical and commonsensical, until your probably get a sense where the austrians are taking it. I wouldn't do away the Friedmanites just yet, but If you want to give it a go, Mises.org have excellent resources on the subject.

For daily doses of Austrian econ, both the Mises blog and even more so the Austrianeconomists blogs are highly recommended.

Updated.

Holy.. Cat?

2008-09-12T20:19:00.003+06:00

See this is why I hate cats. From the Daily Mirror

A cat in Ratnapura is wanted for swallowing jewellery worth thousands of rupees after it entered several houses uninvited and swallowed valuable rings and pendants lying around, police sources in Colombo quoted residents as saying.
Residents reported their missing items to the police early last week but were unable to identify the suspect.
However when contacted the Ratnapura police said they have some complaints of jewellery being missing but could not confirm an involvement of a cat.
The brown street cat, who had been roaming in the neighbourhood for over a month, was spotted swallowing the jewellery by a gardener who immediately narrated the incident to the house owners. The cat which carried out its crime in another house the following day was immediately caught red handed, swallowing a gold earring by three people who had been following the animal, but escaped unharmed when the men tried to grab it.
The hungry cat has not been spotted in the neighborhood since then. [link]

Maybe the JHU should just bring an Animal Disciplinary Act. Otherwise these cats nowadays..

Budget-air, No-plane

2008-09-12T00:51:00.009+06:00

Finally, it dawned on me why they call Mihin Lanka a "budget airline". From LBO:

Sept 11, 2008 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's troubled state-run budget carrier Mihin Air is to ask for another three billion rupees in peoples' money in the next budget to revive operations, an official said.

It's financed by government budgets you see. Budget-airline, get it now?. Anyway Moving on..

The airline is now without aircraft after having lost its start-up capital and also money borrowed from state-run Bank of Ceylon, and was said to be in the red by more than two billion rupees. [..]

With no source of revenue, the firm is paying salaries with difficulty and out 200 workers about 40 have already left the airline the official said.

Ok so let me this straight, Mihin. You are an airline with 200 employees and you don't have any planes?

All I can do is clap for such brilliant entrepreneurial ingenuity. No further questions.

For a Colombo Reform Process

2008-09-11T15:17:00.004+06:00

Finally, there's some good news on the reform front :

Sri Lanka has been rated the top South Asian reformer in an annual business regulation study by the World Bank group, with a new company law and credit information improvements boosting its scores. [link]

That's according to the World Bank's Doing Business Report 2009, an annual study which analyzes and ranks countries on easy it is to do business in countries are. The bad news of course, is there's still a long way to go. Although Sri Lanka is the top regional reformer for the last year, it still languishes in 102nd position globally and behind regional countries like Pakistan (rank 77) and Maldives (rank 69), south-asia's richest and most business friendly economy. India is further behind in 122nd position, but I think the study ignores the impact of SEZs and other regional disparities in terms of policy.

Sri Lanka does especially badly with regards to paying taxes with a total of 62 payments and a total tax rate of 63.7%, which frankly is insane. This ridiculously high number of interactions with the bureaucracy is one of the reasons for bribes and corruption in the public sector. Maldives, as LBO notes, only has to make 1 payment as opposed to our 62.

We also door horribly poorly when it comes to property registration, dealing with construction permits and enforcing contracts. Labour laws are inflexible as well, something that will really hurt Sri Lanka in a low-tariff, post-GSP world.

That said, it's great that we have done some reform in the past year. The type of reforms undertaken are just mainly improving legal framework rather than getting into more politically-explosive issues, which is, at least for the moment, a decent strategy. Another thing we can probably improve is trade facilitation, which will have enormous benefits without being a political hot-button issue.

I have been thinking for some time about, what I decided to call the Colombo Reform Process. The idea is kind of modeled similar to the Copenhagen Consensus. The idea is to bring together, perhaps bi-annually, bunch of experts (mostly economists) and get them to come up with the top 10 (or 20) reforms which Sri Lanka could peform and rank it according to effectiveness and political feasibility and produce a report. I think that could really speed things up.

But this is not something that I'm in a position to do at the moment, so here's a shoutout to all the policy people at IPS, Chamber of Commerce, and the likes -- try and do this!. It might just work.

Convention speeches

2008-09-10T16:20:00.004+06:00

I just managed to catch John McCain's full speech on Youtube. I think he did a reasonable job, and his VP Pick and the convention bump means he's now leading in the polls for the first time. The thing is with Sarah Palin in it, the Republican ticket looks likable, and have this thing going on which Obama had when he first came in. We will have to wait and see how things play out.

My favorite convention speech though is by Ronald Reagan, not his own nomination speech, which is also good, but the speech Reagan gave in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964. I think it eloquently articulates the values and principles which would fundamentally change the way government worked in the U.S. ever since the Reagan presidency.

A small excerpt of the speech is below. But do see the full version (Video| text)

Here's a few quotes from the speech I really liked:

"You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down--up to a man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth."

" the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that just isn't so"

"You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery."

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny"

Barry Goldwater's son, Barry Goldwater Jnr, himself a former congressman was not at the GOP convention last week. Instead, he was at Ron Paul's convention. Interesting times.

Could Sinhala Rock?

2008-09-10T00:52:00.002+06:00

I just finished watching Rock On, which is quite a good hindi movie about four guys and a band. I dont think I like the music all that much, but generally there is a decent hindi rock scene. I'm wondering why there aren't any(?) Sinhala Rock bands. Does certain languages sound better in rock than others? I wonder. But listening to songs like the Nadee Ganga Tharanaye by Chitral Somapala (Lion beer ad.) one would think not. But I wonder..

You have free speech, except when you don't

2008-09-09T21:17:00.010+06:00

A friend of mine likes to obsess about the article 14 of the Sri Lankan constitution, which according to him guarantees freedom of expression. Here's what Chapter 3, article 14 say,

(1) Every citizen is entitled to -
(a) the freedom of speech and expression including publication;
(b) the freedom of peaceful assembly;
(c) the freedom of association;
(d) the freedom to form and join a trade union;
(e) the freedom, either by himself or in association with others, and either in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice or teaching;
(f) the freedom by himself or in association with others to enjoy and promote his own culture and to use his own language;
(g) the freedom to engage by himself or in association with others in any lawful occupation, profession, trade, business or enterprise;
(h) the freedom of movement and of choosing his residence within Sri Lanka; and
(i) the freedom to return to Sri Lanka.

Sounds allright at first glance. But anyone who obsess with this must read article 15, which says:

5. (1) The exercise and operation of the fundamental rights declared and recognized by Articles 13 (5) and 13 (6) shall be subject only to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of national security. For the purposes of this paragraph “law” includes regulations made under the law for the time being relating to public security.

(2) The exercise and operation of the fundamental right declared and recognized by Article 14(1) (a) shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of racial and religious harmony or in relation to parliamentary privilege, contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.

(3) The exercise and operation of the fundamental right declared and recognized by Article 14(1) (b) shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of racial and religious harmony.

(4) The exercise and operation of the fundamental right declared and recognized by Article 14(1) (c) shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests, of racial and religious harmony or national economy.

(5) The exercise and operation of the fundamental right declared and recognized by Article 14 (1) (g) shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests, of national economy or in relation to -

(a) the professional, technical, academic, financial and other qualifications necessary for practising any profession or carrying on any occupation, trade, business or enterprise, and the licensing and disciplinary control of the person entitled to such fundamental right, and
(b) the carrying on by the State, a State agency or a public corporation of any trade, business,, industry, service or enterprise whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of citizens or otherwise.
(6) The exercise and operation of the fundamental right declared and recognized by Article 14 (1) (h) shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of national economy.

(7) The exercise and operation of all the fundamental rights declared and recognized by Articles 12, 13(1), 13(2) and 14 shall be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of national security, public order and the protection of public health or morality, or for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others, or of meeting the just requirements of the general welfare of a democratic society. For the purposes of this paragraph " law " includes regulations made under the law for the time being relating to public security.

(8) The exercise and operation of the fundamental rights declared and recognized by Articles 12 (1), 13 and 14 shall, in their application to the members of the Armed Forces, Police Force and other Forces charged with the maintenance of public order, be subject to such restrictions as may be prescribed by law in the interests of the proper discharge of their duties and the maintenance of discipline among them.

In other words you have total freedom of speech, expression and assembly except when they think it conflicts with national security, national economy, public order, health, morality, harmony, disciplinary control, general welfare, etc, etc..

Maybe they should have just said something like "you have all the freedom of expression you want, except when you don't". That would save space, paper and probably help mitigate global warming.

On a related note, take another look at how our right to free speech is worded in the Sri Lankan constitution,

(1) Every citizen is entitled to -
(a) the freedom of speech and expression..

and compare it with this,

American Constitution, Amendment 1- Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…

On the first, the emphasis is on the citizen, while the later puts it's emphasis on the government. The latter puts in writing what a constitution is meant for -- to put limits on what the government can do, and not, as is the case with Sri Lanka, put limits on what citizens can do.

At least The Sri Lankan constitution is forthcoming about it's socialism and like any good socialist document, assumes state-ownership of our lives and gives us licenses to live, under certain conditions. This is one more reason why we should have a fresh constitution. If you need another good reason, just go through the ~~damn~~ thing . It's really really badly written with tons of redundancies.

Harsh Gupta, who first did this comparison with the Indian constitution, puts the whole thing more succinctly than I do. Do read it here.

Street food and the Spontaneous Order

2008-09-07T20:01:00.009+06:00

Partnhe Wali Gali, Old Delhi. Pic Courtesy: Krishna 1951

Lanka Reviewed has a post on my favorite street food joint in Colombo, "Burger King" in Malay street. Here's a brief about the setting from LR,

Mr Burger King is imaginatively located in Colombo 2 on the pavement next to the intersection of Malay St and Union Place: the one where you can go straight to go to Taj/Holiday Inn or turn right to Trans Asia.

MRBK is a cart with a grill next to it. They have placed a canopy right next to it with four plastic chairs so as to accommodate a more settled dining experience, with the aroma of diesel fumes and sounds of bus engines adding just an ambient touch of class. (It probably also makes the meat taste smokier so it's all good!) [link]

The place makes an awesome chicken Shawarma, the best I've had in Sri Lanka. Shawarma brings back childhood memories from Oman where I lived for sometime and spent all my Christmases till I was 11. Every weekend, or when he was free enough to take me out, dad would get me one of those 'rotating sandwiches'. Shawarma in Oman, If I recall correctly, tasted different and they had this amazing pickle to go with, which local places don't seem to have.

Among my other favorite street food joints are those juice stalls in Pettah, which sells anything from cordial to lime juice. The cordial is best avoided, but the lime juice is unbeatable, especially when you are in frantic Pettah under the hot Colombo sun.

But if you are a street food fan, you can't do much better than New Delhi. Street food is an integral part of Delhi's culture and you get wide range of stuff. The best I've had is possibly at Candni Chowk's infamous Paranthe wali gali or "Partha lane". The paratha joints there have been around since the time of the Mughals and the cooking is exclusively on the street, which frankly, makes me feel safer when trying out street food. Delhi's full of roadside eating joints but I especially recall Cannaught Place (or C.P. for Delhites) where I digged into Momos, corn and masala chai, perfect for the freezing weather, I found myself at that time in Delhi.

Another reason I love street food and the street vending in general, is because it teaches me economics. I'd wonder things like, why lime juice costs Rs.20 in Pettah and Rs. 120 inside say Queen's cafe? Then I'd get it, I'm not paying for lime juice at Queens, I'm paying for the service of getting a lime-juice at a place like queens. I'm paying for the possibility of chatting up with a bunch of friends, munching into a burger while I sip my juice in a comfy, cool environment. Something I cannot get at the Pettah place. The same goes for coffee prices at Barasita's. This realization has lead to my first (untested and probably wrong) theory in economics: There's no such thing called 'goods' in a market place. Only Services to provide goods.

Half-baked theories aside, watching and thinking about the seeming chaos in places like Pettah and Chandni Chowk has helped me visualize a Hayekian insight that a few people understand, and even fewer appreciate. I think Mary Kissel, writing for the WSJ captures it well,

The first time [my friend, Shruti] took me to Chandni Chowk's maelstrom of commerce, my feet froze in fear. She grabbed my hand, I shut my eyes, and we plunged into a bewildering web of weaving couriers, tooting cycle rickshaws, buses bursting at the seams, sacred cows, sari-clad grandmas and the occasional man stomping by with a 100-pound bag of chilies perched on his head.

After a few minutes, I stopped long enough to take a good hard look. And then I noticed it: Order. Not a single laborer walks aimlessly around this place. In every cranny, nook and lane, someone is selling something to someone. Even the men sitting on the sidewalks are ready for work. [..]

There's no government imposing order. And why should it? As Smith said, there's a "certain propensity" in human nature to "truck, barter and exchange one thing for another," so it's natural that a certain kind of system, guided by an "invisible hand," results. Chandni Chowk must be the perfect place to watch it at work. [link]

Hayek would call it Spontaneous Order.

Why Chinese can't speak English and why Singlish rocks

2008-09-04T07:49:00.005+06:00

Swaminathan Aiyar offers an explaination:

I was asked once by a Chinese magazine for a ‘short’ article of 3,000 words on the Indian economy. I protested that 3,000 words was much too long. ‘‘No,’’ said the Chinese editor, ‘‘when translated, 3000 English words will shrink to just 800 Mandarin words.’’

Every letter in Mandarin is a full concept. That gives Mandarin a totally different structure. So, it is truly difficult for the Chinese to master English, and for the British to master Mandarin. For similar reasons, the Japanese remain weak in English. Some Chinese speak excellent English, but they are so few [..]

It’s much easier for Indians to learn English. Sanskrit (the root of Indian languages) and Latin (the root of European languages) belong to the same group of ancient Indo-European languages. When a Swaminomics column of 800 words is translated into Hindi, the translation is also around 800 words. [link]

Sinhala ~~(and Tamil)~~, like Hindi, have the same Sanskrit roots, which is why Call Centres could have become big in Sri Lanka, had the Sinhala nationalists not abandoned English driven education.

Swaminathan dedicates the rest of the article to talk about how Hindi-speakers directly translate Hindi to English, producing more than a few chuckles. Sinhala-speakers do much the same. It's common for Sri Lankans to ask 'so so how how?' a direct translation from ' ithin ithin kohomada', a reference to how someone is feeling.

My favorite phrase comes from my 12th grade physics teacher. One day in class, a friend of mine has not done his assignments and was giving an elaborate version of the 'dog-ate-my-homework' story. Ms.Kumudini listens for a while, but soon looses patience, She cuts him off mid-sentence and yells, "Niroshan! enough! you're lying horizontally and vertically!"

The Brain Drain

2008-09-02T19:17:00.001+06:00

Last Wednesday, Anila Banradanike's column for FT focused on Sri Lanka's 'Brain Drain' particularly among urban youth. She complains, rightly, that there are no credible statistics available on how many people go abroad for studies. I agree, all I can say is it's quite a large and growing number. Why do I say this? Let me offer a small anecdote.

After completing up to my O-levels at St.Peter's, a semi-government school in Colombo, I transferred to a so called 'international school' to finish my A-levels. For you non-Sri Lankans, that's a type of schools which offer (mostly) British curriculum of study. My batch consisted of about 70-80 people. Thanks to the weird subject combination I took -- Physics, Economics, Math and Computing -- I took a class with everyone in the batch and now about three years later, I can count only about 6 people in the country. I may have lost touch with a few, but I am quite positive the number remaining in Sri Lanka is less than 15. The rest of them are studying in places like Australia, U.K, U.S., Malaysia and increasingly in China, India and a few medical students in places like Bangladesh and Belarus.

Let's do the math, 15 out of 80 students is roughly about 20% of the batch in my school, that means in general roughly about 80% of most decent international schools (some more, some less) go overseas annually. Add to this the contribution from local schools, we have a significant proportion of some Sri Lanka's best talent going overseas mostly because, higher ed. in this country sucks.

If anyone's serious about stopping (or at least slowing down) the brain drain, they should really think about reforming higher education.

Joseph Stalin is relentless

2008-08-31T22:19:00.000+06:00

The story is from Saturday's Daily Mirror,

The Sri Lanka Teachers’ Union warned yesterday that it would go for a massive trade union action by bringing all teachers together.

Charging the government had hoodwinked the union and the general public by stating that it had resolved the salary anomalies, the Sri Lanka Teachers Union President, Joseph Stalin told a news conference under the government’s proposal a teacher would only get a salary increment ranging from Rs. 105 to Rs. 200. [..]

Mr. Stalin said the trade union action of refraining from GCE A/L paper marking had been successful during the past 10 days.

The Union charged the government was provoking the parents and the general public to unleash violence on the teachers. “The government is doing this as it is helpless without being able to resolve the salary crisis,” Mr. Stalin said. [link]

Responding to the charges, The secretary to the Ministry of Education, Winston Churchill said, "Stalin is a pig, but I like him". Ok, not really. But for what it's worth, Sri Lanka's tourism secretary is called George Micheal. I love this country.

[HT on Micheal: one one things]

Sri Lankan PMCs in Iraq

2008-08-28T16:48:00.004+06:00

David Blacker has an interview with a Private Military Contractor, who's Sri Lankan-based company operates in Iraq. Interesting.

Who needs Cricket?

2008-08-27T20:35:00.005+06:00

Via Hilal's blog, here's a very entertaining video of making something out of a washed out cricket match. It's 13 minutes, but well worth it. The Direct link to the video is here. Also see this crickinfo post, which kind of narrates what went on.

Hilal also runs this 'Aney Yako' video series of cricket goof ups.

Right to Information in Sri Lanka

2008-08-27T01:47:00.003+06:00

Finally, a Sri Lankan judge makes an excellent proposal. From LBO:

A top Sri Lankan judge has called for laws such as a freedom of information act to enable people greater access to information to create an 'informed public' that is essential for a democratic society.

Justice Saleem Marsoof, President's Counsel and Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka said most democracies now have legislation providing a mechanism through which the public can have access to information.

These include the Freedom of Information Acts of the United States and the United Kingdom and the Right to Information Act of India.[link]

The Right to Information Act(RTI) is one of the best things that happened to Indian democracy. The act allows ordinary citizens, journalist, civil society organizations to request for and obtain information from any public authority within thirty days.

There are of course many shortcomings in implementation. As my favorite Delhi-based think tank, Center for Civil Society, pointed out in their Duty to Publish reports a couple of years ago, there was low compliance levels for the act at state and municipal levels. But some compliance is better than nothing, a RTI act would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Legislation along the lines of RTI is something the peace-obsessed Colombo civil society should push for. It doesn't seem too unfeasible and definitely improves governance.

In related notes, Amit Varma, one of my favorite sources for Indian affairs, has written quite a bit about the RTI, including this piece for the Mint.

American Imperialism?

2008-08-26T10:39:00.001+06:00

The Mises blog points me to this interactive map showing American troop levels. Apparently, Sri Lanka has 7 troops and U.S. pretty much has a presence in everywhere, execept for like 7 countries. Must confess though, I haven't seen a single U.S. troop in Colombo. Go see the map here, no endorsements.

What Desi's are wearing to the Democrat National Convention

2008-08-26T03:17:00.000+06:00

For the background, see this and especially this.

Marxism in Sri Lanka, RIP

2008-08-25T23:44:00.005+06:00

The museum of Communism in Prague.
The entrance is through McDonald's. (A pic by udijw)

The Rajapakse Administration won, despite some irregularities, a genuine victory over the UNP in the recent provincial council elections. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the last election is how poorly, the Marxist-Nationalist JVP did in the polls. Here's a bit of a summary from the Island editorial on the JVPs plight:

[..]a huge crisis is staring the JVP in the face. Its ignominious defeat has strengthened the hands of its breakaway group. Dissident JVP MP and leader of the National Freedom Front Wimal Weerawansa said yesterday afternoon that he was willing to join forces with the JVP if the present leadership of the party changed. He has pointed out that the JVP vote has dropped in Anuradhapura from 50,000 at the 2006 LG polls to 19,000 at 2008 PC polls within two years. In 2006, it polled 19,500 in Polonnaruwa, 38,000 in Ratnapura and 36,500 in Kegalle but on Saturday it managed to secure only 7,000, 9,700 and 9,000 in those three districts respectively. The breakaway of Weerawansa and others has, inter alia, manifestly taken its toll on the JVP.

The pathetic performance of the JVP where the postal votes are concerned is proof that the JVP lacks following among the public servants in spite of its campaign to obtain a 5,000-rupee pay hike for them. More importantly, the JVP's vote has shrunk despite an increase in the number of young voters.

The indications are that, faction ridden and enervated, the JVP is reaching the end of the road in electoral politics. Another disastrous split is inevitable sooner or later. The JVP must be ruing the day it parted company with the SLFP, which helped it gain benefits disproportionate to its real strength which has now been exposed. [link] (emphasis mine)

and it's worth emphasizing. JVP is no longer, or fast unbecoming the youth party. That's a cause for celebration. Marxism is alive and (somewhat) well in the local universities, but since only less than 2% of the population (pdf source) ever gets to enjoy Sri Lanka's "free" education, and the rest of the 98% has found other ways of acquiring higher education, that's no longer a deciding factor.

True enough, in recent times, portraits of Lenin, Marx and other communist symbols were little more than decorations for the JVP, while most of it's popularity came from it's Nationalist and anti-LTTE rhetoric. But great many JVPers (and I've met some) are Fabian Socialists, thinking of the nationalist rhetoric as a vehicle for some sort of socialist society in the future. And it's agenda, however nationalist, has always contained a very definitive left-wing economic agenda.

Nationalism and anti-LTTEism is alive and kicking in Sri Lanka, but the movement has a different symbol and a leader in Mahinda Rajapakse's coalition. Separating the nationalist lobby from the socialist baggage of the JVP, if and when the party is sufficiently pushed off from the political discourse is definitely a step in the right direction and a happy outcome of this election which will help put Marxist and other leftover socialist thinking to the dustbin of history, where it truly belongs.

Related -- Museum of Communism, the website.

Why we should listen to economists

2008-08-24T20:52:00.004+06:00

Scot Adams makes the case. (yes, he's the guy who created Dilbert, but he majored in economics in college and nowadays runs a stellar blog). Scott writes,

If a weather expert tells you what the weather will be on a specific day next year, you can safely ignore him. If he tells you a hurricane is heading your way, it's a good idea to get out of the way, even if the storm ends up turning. That's playing the odds.

Likewise, if an economist tries to tell you where the stock market will be in a year, you can safely ignore that. But if he tells you a gas tax holiday is an unambiguously bad idea, that's worth listening to, especially if economists on both sides of the aisle agree.

If you think it is okay to ignore economists because they are so often wrong, you're looking at the wrong questions. Economists are generally wrong with complicated models but right about concepts. For example, they know that additional domestic drilling won't make much of a dent in the energy problem. And they know that free trade is generally good for all economies. (You can argue with my examples, but the point is that some things are generally known by economists while not being understood by the general public.) [link]

There's much more in his blog. Scott is also funding a survey of what some 500 economists think about some economic policies of the two candidates running for the American presidency. The results will be interesting.

As Scott finds in his survey, most economists are moderate Democrats. But also the kind who likes things like free trade, and in general freer markets than your average democrat. Jagdish Bhagwati, perhaps the one of the world's most staunchest free trade economists is a registered democrat and an Obama supporter from the start, although he disagreed with Obama's populist NAFTA bashing.

My general observation is that if you have a liberal/cosmopolitan upbringing and eventually learn economics, you tend to be more sympathetic to policy proposals and ideas of classical liberalism (i.e. support more individual freedom and freer markets) or as Scott says in the current American political language, be more socially liberal and economically conservative.

Boobs on Bikes

2008-08-23T00:23:00.003+06:00

Apparently, theere's a Boobs on Bikes Parade in Auckland, New Zealand. Some kiwi conservatives wants to stop that on legal grounds. But here's what the judge had to say,

It is topless people, men and women, in a public place, which is perfectly legal under our Bill of Rights and under New Zealand law. Mr McCoskrie [director of Family First] keeps harping on that it is pornography. They are breasts; they're not a big deal.

This is probably what The Sri Lankan cultural conservatives say when they want to reconcile the porn ban with the Sigiriya paintings. They are just boobs -- no big deal.

More at reason.

Porn, Dogs, Federalism and other stuff I would have blogged about

2008-08-22T21:07:00.005+06:00

I am in London stuck in a 12 hour transit, catching up on some reading I've missed during the last couple of weeks. There's a bunch of people I know in the city, but the immigration chaps won't let me go out, because, I'm um, Sri Lankan. In any case, now that I'm coming home, regular programing on this blog would commence, I think.

What follows is some stuff I probably would have blogged about had I stayed home the last few weeks.

Just before I left the country, His Excellency (no doubt under the influence of the JHU, the all-monk party in government) banned Internet porn in Sri Lanka. Now they seem to have some adult password, for people who still want to watch porn, going against our Buddhist morals. Or something like that. There's a new satirical blog on the issue. Very entertaining.
Zimbabwe, which has the world's highest inflation, has a new currency -- gasoline coupons. More at the Beacon, Independent Institutes's revitalized blog which is latest addition to my 'regular reads' list. (initial pointer via Tyler Cowen)
Here's a great video on School Choice from Yes, Prime Minister. British Comedy at it's best. (HT: Club for Growth)
The Mint has an article on privatizing dogs as a solution for the problem of stray dogs in India. That is, basically all dogs should be owned by someone and stray dogs should be put on sale by the municipalities to be purchased by anyone including animal rights activists. I agree in principle, although I don't see this happening. That's not a reason for not discussing it though. First step in changing things is spreading ideas.
and finally via Amit Varma links to these two very interesting pieces on the Kashmiri Secessionist tendencies. This by Swaminathan Aiyar for TOI and Vir Sanghavi for Hindustan Times. The situation in Kashmir, in my opinion, weakens the case of the Sri Lankan federalists as a solution for the conflict here. For every example of successful integration with greater regional autonomy, there are counter examples. Nation building is indeed a complex science. It's rather fitting then, that I was in Quebec for the last two weeks. More on that later.

Travelling..

2008-08-09T21:41:00.002+06:00

I'm in Canada for something. Will be travelling from Toronto to Montreal to Quebec City. Blogging will be uncertain for another couple of weeks..

What's so alarming about the trade deficit? ST responds

2008-07-27T17:07:00.007+06:00

This is probably not as a result of my earlier post on the subject, but ST economist's column today addresses the question I posed about an earlier column.

My Wordle

2008-07-25T00:32:00.007+06:00

This is kinda cool. It let's you generate your own word cloud for a bunch of text. Here's mine:

It generates the cloud for the current posts in the home page if you give your blog address, you can play with the colors and fonts. Here's one for Kottu :

Go Play.

[Worlde stuff via Atanu Dey]

We report, You Decide Alliance.

2008-07-24T17:09:00.005+06:00

Fox News is now on MTV Channel one. I Just watched O’Reilly Factor, which I used to follow through Fox's site earlier. It's good to see good old American-Conservatism on TV, really. Both channels are undoubtedly partisan, one on behalf of the GOP and the other one on behalf of the UNP, GOP's local buddy.

I think that's ok, all media is biased for something. Why not have it in the open. U.S. newspapers endorses candidates, Sri Lankan ones should do the same.

1983

2008-07-23T01:13:00.004+06:00

July usually passes me by without too much notice, beyond the vague worry that there might be a Tiger attack on Colombo, and a few flashbacks to that weekend in 1983. But this time it’s been a bit different. I’ve found myself reliving that day a lot more this year. It isn’t the fact that this is the 25th anniversary of the carnage which most people see as the starting point of our war, though that has been the focus of a lot of attention. What did it was a phone call a couple of weeks ago.
My mobile rang with an unfamiliar number, and an equally unidentifiable male voice asked for me. When I confirmed that it was indeed yours truly, the voice asked whether I was an old boy of Wesley College. I groaned inwardly, and confirmed this too, expecting to be hit by my school’s OBU for a donation or offer of membership of some committee or whatever. However, it wasn’t any of these things, and the next question blew me away.

“My name is Cedric,” he said, “do you remember me?”
And after twenty-five years, I did.[..]

That's David Blacker. Read the whole thing. It's simply the best blog post on the '83 riots, ever.

SAARC eviction and Property Rights

2008-07-22T02:44:00.006+06:00

(Pic courtesy: The Daily Mirror)

In view of the SAARC summit, the Sri Lankan government decided to demolish the homes of a bunch of poor people living in 'unauthorized dwellings'. Apparently aesthetics are more important for the government than life and property of people. Writing on the topic, last Sunday's The Island makes a few interesting observations :

The houses that have been broken down were certainly unauthorized and built on state land by people who had no title to such property. But the responsible authorities permitted not just their construction but their consolidation. Water and electricity have been connected. The Colombo Municipal Council, the victims say, even made rating assessments! The occupants of these houses were not Johnnies come lately, some claiming to have lived there for 30 and 40 years. They had sunk roots in that neighbourhood, got their children into schools in the vicinity and had probably been even buying and selling houses there. [..]

The reality is that while those evicted are wrong-doers, if they have long been permitted to do what they have done, then the State and its various agencies are complicit. Out in the countryside when villagers encroach on state land and cultivate crops, such encroachments are often regularized by the authorities as it is recognized that these farmers really deserve the land they till. [..] [link]

The whole episode reminds me of the work of Hernando de Soto, the influential Peruvian economist who studied why capitalism didn't work so well in the developing world as it did in the west. His ultimate conclusion, articulated in his book, The Mystery of Capital, is simple. The reason why capitalism worked well for the west is because of it's legal institutions, or more specifically -- property rights. Much of the poor in the developing world doesn't have property rights. They may occupy a land, own a house, but they don't have the title to that property. This means that they can't get credit, can't make long-term contracts and they can't formally enter into business. De Soto argues the world's poor is essentially locked out the system while sitting on a mass of 'dead capital' which they can't profitably use, simply because, they don't own the right to property.

What should have happened then (and what De Soto has done in number of countries) is to come up with a systematic way which formalizes property based on existing understanding and "social contracts" that exists among people. What happened last week was the opposite -- instead of giving them a hand up in the ladder to prosperity, the government destroyed whatever little they had. It's a crime of the highest order.

Update (27/07/08) : Via indi.ca see this video of the police destroying the houses.

Note : I Don't have time to make a longer case for this. But do see the work of Darin Gunasekara, who created a stock market housing exchange in Sri Lanka along the same lines which de soto articulated. For more on De Soto's work check out his wikipedia page, and see this excellent speech by him in the ILD website, or better yet read his book.

In related news, I'm hitting two unbelievably busy weeks. Blogging will be slow.

Peanuts and other nuts

2008-07-21T17:49:00.008+06:00

We have had lots of nutty regulations recently. But there's room for comfort, at least Sri Lanka is not the only place with nutty regulations. Here's a peanut packet from the U.S:

The packaging says : produced in a factory producing peanuts and other nuts. Inevitable result of silly food processing regulations.Sigh. Democrats..

[pic via Don Luskin]

Uncertainty SAARCs?

2008-07-20T10:55:00.002+06:00

Everybody's been bitching about the SAARC summit. The government is spending some 2.8 Billion, Colombo is (supposedly) under a draconian security plan, as a part of which a bunch of poor people kicked out from their homes and while their houses were demolished (more on that later). Not a great start for the SAARC.

Unnoticed in all this the cost of uncertainty. Just the last few days, I postponed at least three meetings. People just can't plan for things in the coming week, which means stuff gets canceled postponed or done at sub optimal levels.

More SAARC pun at Indi's.

For inflation targeting

2008-07-17T17:26:00.002+06:00

Ajay Shah has yet another article on India's inflation. Here's an important one-liner,

Professional economists agree with professional politicians on the importance of low inflation.

I think that sums up the case for inflation targeting.

I have previously been an advocate of currency boards, as the best institutional reform we can go for in the face of spiraling inflation in Sri Lanka, joining the camp of guys like Fuss-Budget and Steve Hanke. I have since changed my views, not so much because I have suddenly have faith in Sri Lankan institutions. I still think they are crap and I have have knee-jerk sympathy for abolishing government institutions (in this case, the central bank). But I think inflation-targeting regulation would better stand the political economy test than currency boards.

As Ajay points out, in this rare case, both politicians and economists (and the general public) agree on something -- low inflation is good. So a mandated low-inflation target for the central bank should be workable.

But I digress. This is the same country which removed inflation alcohol from the CPI index due to moral reasons and has perhaps the only central bank chief who thinks of more than a 9% of 'Core inflation' as being rather low. If there is an inflation target, perhaps the Central Bank would resort to Index manipulation. I guess I am taking a leap of faith afterall.

Despite that, I don't think abolishing the central bank will hold very well with both the electorate and most political parties. I can already hear the JVP and other lefties shouting that our monetary policy is set by Washington (in the case of a dollar-pegged currency board, this might actually be true!). Also, as the currency spate of monetary expansion in the U.S. shows currency boards are not without their problems.

Inflation-targeting on the other hand goes well with most economists I have met and seems to have stood the test of time globally, assuming it survives the current commodity hike. Realistically, this might be the best institutional reform we can get.

Mahinda's biggest lie?

2008-07-17T10:17:00.001+06:00

For the past few years, despite high inflation, despite the war, there's one statistic that the government had been harping about -- Sri Lanka's GDP growth has managed to hover at around 7%.

Writing for her regular column in the DM Financial Times, Anila Dias Bandaranaike, the former Asst. Governor for the central bank thinks that figure is fake. Here's a few choice excerpts :

Currently, the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS), the national statistical agency, is solely responsible for compiling and publishing these statistics. In the past, both the Central Bank and the Chamber of Commerce released their own estimates, and DCS was in the happy position of being able to cross check its own information with that of others, thereby leading to stronger and more robust estimates. Unfortunately, since the other two organisations no longer compile these data, this verification process is no longer possible. [..]

DCS, which was an independent institution directly under the President some years ago, currently falls under the Ministry of Finance. I understand that the present ST holds meetings with DCS officials to discuss preliminary GDP estimates, at which senior Treasury officials provide feedback before the estimates are finalised and released to the public. [..]

First, let’s compare agriculture production with prices. The food sub-index of the CCPI(N) rose by over 30%, rice prices rose by unprecedented levels and the Central Bank’s monthly monetary policy reviews specifically referred to the adverse impact of “domestic supply constraints” on inflation in 2008-Q1. Yet, GDP statistics recorded that production of - paddy, other field crops, vegetables, fruits and livestock - rose by between 2% and 8%. [..]

Second, although inflation rose so sharply and FMCG companies reported declining volumes in most categories, domestic trade recorded 5.5% growth in 2008-Q1. Throughout 2007 too, while agricultural and manufacturing sectors producing domestically traded goods had grown at lower rates and paddy output had declined, it was inconsistent that domestic trade had grown by a much higher rate than the goods to be traded! [..]

Fourth, road transportation reported 8% growth, although registration of new vehicles had declined by 17%, indicating lower growth in private transportation. With rising fuel costs, tightening security and road closures, what drove such high growth? [..]

The whole thing here. (unfortunately, the DM site changes the location of pages rather frequently, so if this link is broken, it's their fault.)

Interesting. Looks like somebody's being creative with their statistics.

(un)free enterprise

2008-07-17T01:54:00.005+06:00

Recently, Sri Lanka's government decided to impose severe restrictions on the use of mobile phones citing 'Security reasons'. Anything fly in Sri Lanka these days, if you say 'national security'.

The regulation dictates that all Sri Lankans must carry a certificate confirming they own the phone connection. The new regulations will also stop people from sharing mobile phones, and restrict mobility of CDMA phones which most lower-income groups use in both businesses and at home, the law requires users to use them only at a specific address. Much more at Lirneasia.

But even with such idiotic regulations, entrepreneurship reigns. One Sri Lankan mobile operator, Tigo, has already adjusted to the regulations by issuing a plastic ownership cards. The company aims to package the card with other perks for the users.

It's great to see spirit of enterprise alive and well, despite the government. But that's no justification for stupid regulations.

Lies, Damned lies and Naomi Klein

2008-07-16T09:20:00.002+06:00

Cato's Johan Norberg has a detailed rebuttal on Naomi Klein's superficial claims about Milton Friedman and free-market policies made in her book, The shock doctrine. Here's a video of Norberg explaining how Ms Klein misrepresents what Friedman said:

Also see this follow up video.

I have leafed-through Klein's book. No one who has actually read Milton Friedman, will take Klein's claims seriously.

Klein's main ammunition is in the from a out-of-context quote by Friedman, who said that real change happens on a crisis, and that it will be led by ideas that are lying around at the time will be implemented. Friedman said this to emphasis the importance of working towards ideas which doesn't seem plausible right now, but might be some day, when people are looking for new ideas, such as in a financial crisis. He didn't mean this in the sense of a natural disaster nor did he advocate disaster.

This is clearly an ideologically neutral statement. If in the current financial mess in the U.S., ideas of more regulation holds sway, that will be implemented. In the face of high commodity prices, if someone is able to convince policymakers that price-controls are a good way of handling the 'crisis' there is a chance of that happening. The former is already sort of happening, the latter doesn't seem to be, thankfully.

It is also true that most important market-reforms did happen in financial crisis, like that of Sri Lanka in 1977, when the economy was squeezed through central-planing by the previous socialist government, or in the case of Indian reforms in the early '90's. Thanks to those reforms millions today are out of poverty. But if a different set of ideas were on the table, things might have gone in another direction.

Obviously, the likes of Klein doesn't have the cognitive power needed to understand this. See Norberg's full rebuttal and also see, Tyler Cowen's take.

$500 Oil, are the Liberals happy?

2008-07-16T00:39:00.007+06:00

Williem Buiter writing for Maverecon blog paints a gloomy picture about a world with $500 oil. He thinks when it comes to Oil prices, "sky is the limit". With ever increasing demand from places like India and China, he thinks Oil prices will continue to rise in spite of a global economic slowdown, all of which he thinks will adversely affect the poor.

I find that plausible. High oil prices may not be the driving factor behind Sri Lanka's inflation, but it does have a say in everyone's cost of living.

This reminds me of an exchange between me and Indi, where he (and a surprising number of my liberal tree-hugging friends, I might add) think that this high oil prices is actually a "good thing". Their argument is that high oil prices will lead to behavioral changes towards less energy use and incentivise alternative energy use. I certainly agree, but I don't think that's is enough to call high oil prices a "good thing". You will have to consider adverse consequences on the poor and commerce in general before coming into such conclusions. Forgetting all of that is succumbing into the church-of-gore global warming hysteria, which by the way, I don't think of as being "hippie", but simply, elitist. American-liberals shouldn't impose their values to people who cannot afford them. The same goes for democrat obsession about imposing environmental and labor standards in trade agreements for countries which can barely afford them.

For my part, I don't think of high oil as being either good or bad, high prices just are. In some ways, we should be happy about it. This means that millions of Indians, Chinese (and even some Sri Lankans) are climbing out of poverty and able to afford automobiles and in general, more quality of life. For some reason, this part of the story is often neglected.

However, I'm not as optimistic about the benefits of high oil rise, particularly for developing countries. There are several reasons for this,

First, thanks to high taxes and inefficient refinery, we already have higher gasoline prices at the pump, compared to the U.S. even without considering the heavy subsidies given to cover the daily losses of the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.

Secondly, any breakthrough from alternative-energy research is unlikely to be spawned by places like Sri Lanka, although my Indian friends might beg to differ. So while global price rise may indeed help incentivise alternative energy research and adaptation, it doesn't justify high taxes in places like Sri Lanka.

Thirdly, behavioral changes in the magnitude that we are seeing in the U.S. and other developed countries are unlikely to be seen in places like Sri Lanka. This is because, high consumption of gasoline in the U.S. is partly due to exuberance -- air travel, SUVs, long trips, so on. and when gas prices rise, Americans change their behavior. So SUV sales are down and Americans are driving less. But consumption of gasoline in places like Sri Lanka has more to do with necessity. Most Sri Lankans use public transport, which doesn't have good alternatives. As for people who are used to driving cars, public transport won't be appealing, given it's poor quality. So even if behavioral changes come (and it will) they will be smaller compared to the U.S. and at a greater cost in terms of living standards of average Sri Lankans.

So no, I don't think high oil prices are a good thing.

But I do have faith in human ingenuity, that when price of oil becomes unsustainable we will find alternatives. I don't know what that alternative is, I don't know whether it's solar, wind or nuclear. I don't know whether we will drive electric cars, or cars which runs on water or hydrogen. But what I do know is we will keep on driving.

For much of human existence, petroleum was a useless, gooey, waste product, until we figured out we can use it for energy. Similarly, we will find something else which can serve the same purpose. Humankind got out of the stone age, not because we ran out of stone, but because we found out new and better things. Similarly, we will come out of the oil-age, with something new and better. But in the meantime, let's be rational about the benefits of high priced oil.

See more stuff about Oil on deaned.

Creative Capitalism

2008-07-15T23:55:00.003+06:00

Inspired by Bill Gates' speech at the World Economic Forum, someone has created a creative capitalism blog with an impressive list of contributors, ranging from Gates to Buffet to this latest piece from Jagdish Bhagwati. Even the late Milton Friedman makes a reappearance. Do Check it out.

What about legalizing hard drugs?

2008-07-14T07:33:00.003+06:00

Prompted by my earlier post on legalizing marijuana, Jack Point thinks that a good way of tackling the problem of hard drugs, such as heroin is for government to give it away for free for addicts and encourage them to voluntary enroll themselves to treatment. I think that has some sense to it and better than our current policy.

I'm generally skeptical of government programs, once it's passed through the parliament and other bureaucratic processes, it wouldn't be nearly as optimal as one would want to design it. Given budgetary constraints, poor service delivery in places like Sri Lanka, there would inevitably be restrictions on accessible quantity nor would most taxpayers be too thrilled for the fact that they are financing someone else's doping habits. I think the market would do a better job in the goals Jack Point outlines, except in extreme cases where the addiction is uncontrollable.

None of this, including marijuana legalization, will happen anytime soon. At least in places like Sri Lanka where we (or at least the politicians and other intellectual types) like to pretend some sort of morally superior to the west. Even in the U.S. where marijuana usage is rampant -- Barack Obama of all people admitted he "inhaled frequently" both cocaine and marijuana. He even put it in his book. But once the changes comes in the west, not just in terms of attitude, but particularly in marijuana policy and eventually hard drugs, I think you will see changes starting happen here as well.

On the question of whether or not this will significantly reduce crime, I recall this interesting exchange between Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle.

A great Obama Poster

2008-07-13T20:51:00.004+06:00

Despite vowing to oppose unauthorized wiretapping legislation, senator Obama decided to flip-flop on the issue and support wiretapping bill anyway. This is now one of many 'policy shifts' by Obama scrambling to center of the spectrum after taking a ride on to the left to get not-so-well-off democrat votes to win the primaries. So much for "Hope" and "change" the way washington does business. See This NY Times editorial and the economist article for more of Obama's centrism. This doesn't come as a surprise for me, but should be clear to everyone there is a huge difference between the real and the imaginary Obama.

Also see Why not Obama and more on Obama on deaned.

[Poster via Technology Liberation Front]

Are Libertarians ready for the mainstream?

2008-07-12T21:41:00.001+06:00

Some observations from the TIME magazine,

Libertarians are getting ready for the mainstream, and mainstream America may finally be ready for them.

The whole thing here.

[Link via Hit n Run]

If you are sober, you are a c**ksucker

2008-07-12T17:41:00.008+06:00

That's according to Dialog, Sri Lanka's largest mobile service provider. They offer a SMS dictionary service, so Poojitha of TimesEye decided to test it with the word 'sober'. Here's what dialog sent him:

More at TimesEye. They seem to have fixed it though, when I tried I get the standard explanation. Maybe Dialog was trying to do a pimped-up version of the Urban Dictionary.

Legalizing Marijuana in Sri Lanka

2008-07-12T09:40:00.000+06:00

I was recently reminded by a friend that Sri Lanka actually does have legal access medical Marijuana (Ganja). The practitioners of traditional Ayurvedic medicine are allowed to carry 1kg (figure unconfirmed) amount of Ganja to be used for medicinal purposes. Unfortunately, the government doesn't extend the same courtesy to medical doctors in the western tradition.

I am told the veda mahathays (ayurvedic doctors) have access to the best quality stuff, which they often sell for other um, recreational purposes. Don't ask me why, but I believe him.

A dilemma I often face is whether advocating for decriminalization or legalization of Marijuana in a place like Sri Lanka is actually worth it.

Obviously, there is very little case to ban the substance in the first place. Not only because Ganja has medicinal properties, but the risk of addiction is comparatively low, there's also no evidence that it's any more harmful than tobacco. Most arguments for prohibition is based on some notion that this is 'risky'. Well yes it is risky, so is tobacco, alcohol or for that matter, living in Colombo. Should most motorsports, or professions which has risk in it's job description -- policing, security guards, army personnel -- also be banned? I think not. What we have is a social stigma against using stuff like Marijuana. There is almost no objective case.

But now that it's illegal, does it make sense to advocate for legalization? From a purely consequentionalist standpoint, I think the answer leans on being 'No'.

I haven't been to a party in Colombo with late-teens or twentysomethings which didn't have someone lighting up Ganja. Even if you are caught using or carrying moderate amounts of ganja, you can pay the market-price for the bribe in most occasions (unless you really F up). Same goes for most other victimless crimes like prostitution. If you want the service, you can get it. When enforcement is weak like we have in Sri Lanka, does really it make sense to fire up the debate and actually make this an issue? from a user-perspective, I think the answer is No.

However, critical to the overall consequentionalist argument for the status quo is whether keeping marijuana illegal has other consequences, like providing revenue streams and upkeep for criminal gangs. Economics of prohibition is simple. If you ban something that's in high demand, it simply goes underground. Think prostitution, think kassipu (illicit liquor), think almost anything that has wide appeal, and is banned. These things don't disappear, they just fall into the black-market operated by goons and criminals.

People familiar with the Indian scene might remember the case of Scarlett Keeling, the 15-year-old British girl who was raped and murdered in Goa by a few drug dealers. Soon after the incident, I remember Jug Suraiya's article in TOI which hinted that perhaps Scarlett would have survived, had drugs in Goa was legal. In the article (I recommend a read) he presented the following statistics:

UN has estimated the international drug trade at $400 billion a year, a sum larger than the US defense budget and which constitutes 8 per cent of all global trade (textiles account for 7.5 per cent and automobiles for 5.3 per cent). [link]

Most of this trade is not Marijuana, it's probably other drugs. The critical question is how much exactly does Marijuana contributes to crime. This is difficult to answer, since marijuana dealers don't exactly report their accounts to the Inland Revenue Department. But for what it's worth, legalizing may be a good way of cutting down revenue potential for criminals (including perhaps the LTTE) and getting entrepreneurs in to the business of ganja.

If we require a debate at all on this issue, it's this one we should be having. But what are the chances of that happening?

Books & Things

2008-07-11T09:33:00.001+06:00

Crosswords in Bangalore. Pic courtesy:Kishore

This last post reminded me how much I rue the fact that Sri Lanka doesn't have good book stores. The Vijitha Yapa is not really a book store, it's a small book-shop. There's no place to just chill, read a few pages of the book you want to buy while you sip a cup of coffee.What's my ideal book store? It should have preferabaly, the following:

Lots of books (duh! - but a good collection of politics/econ books is a must and for that to hapen your book store must be large)
Comfy places to sit around and read, your book store should double as a sort of a library.
Coffee.
Wi-fi or a way in which you can read reviews. (same goes for my ideal DVD-store)
Some things other than books -- DVDs, and other little 'things' you can buy (not essential really, but good business stratergy)

Sady, I haven't found this place yet. The closest I've been to something like this is Books & Things, in Gurgaon, in one of the malls.Gurgaon is this up and coming place just outside of Delhi. Fun place. the store didn't have any coffee or internet, but it had almost everything else right. In fact, India is a good place for book-people. Not only can you find pirated books on the street, if you are someone on a student-budget, but you'd find places like Books & Things or Crosswords. For all the Hindi-movies/Soaps they copy, I wish a few Sri Lankans copied some of that.

There maybe reasons for this though, India (according to some) has the world's largest English speaking population. With 350 million speakers, that's more than the combined populations of the U.S., U.K, Canada and Australia put together. Sri Lanka's whole population is about 20 million, about the same as Mumbai's total population. Fortunately or unfortunately, laws of demand and supply apply to everything. But then again, given all those coffee houses and up-market cafe's, I'm sure there is a market for a decent book store.

Striking is for Loosers

2008-07-10T22:14:00.004+06:00

That's part of my Gtalk status today. The inability of the (allegedly) Marxist JVP and (supposedly) the main opposition UNP to mobilize enough 'working class' for the country-wide strike today told it's own story. Truth be told, thanks to the financial might of the Rajapakse administration, both opposition parties have been rendered useless. Their own incompetence doesn't help them either.

I'm more than happy, if this signals the demise of the JVP. Which, I think it does to some degree. We will have to wait till the next parliamentary election to see whether the party can be resurrected, most right-minded Sri Lankans will be hoping it doesn't.

The other part of my status was asking Mahinda to fire the workers. This is partly to provoke a JVPer on my list. In reality, despite my constant complaints about this world's largest government, I don't advocate one-day reforms. The last time JR Jayawardene did this, some 30 workers , I'm told, committed suicide.

Now I'm no fan of trade unions, but their existence, or powerfulness is because their wage is a function of political power rather than market forces. You don't see three-wheeler drivers going on strike nor do you see people at McDonald's on strike or really, any private sector workers on strike all that often. We all know, what needs to be done. But where are the incentives?

On The Logic of Life (A review)

2008-07-10T12:56:00.014+06:00

Ever since Stevens, Levitt and Dubner broke into the scene with their enormously popular Freakonomics, there has been a multitude of popular economics books. Books that uses the tools of economics -- the study of incentives, laws of supply and demand, trade-offs -- and apply them to everyday life. The result is often a fun, counterintuitive explanation of how the world works. Dubner and Levitt's most memorable contribution being attributing the decreasing crime rates in the U.S. to legalizing abortion.

Tim Harford wrote the first of these pop. econ. books -- the undercover economist. A popular book among economics students, perhaps not so much outside the discipline. With his latest work, The Logic of Life : the rational economics of an irrational world, Harford takes on the mainstream.

If you are interested in finding out why your boss is overpaid, why racism is still persistent or why teenage girls are increasingly giving blow jobs to their boyfriends, this book is for you.

Fundamental to Harford's book, is rational choice theory. His argument is not so much that “people are always and everywhere rational”. He admits they aren't. His contention is that people are "rational nearly enough and often enough" to make rational choice, a useful framework to understand the world. "Earth isn't a perfect sphere", writes Harford, "But it's nearly a sphere, and for many purposes the simplification that the Earth is a spherical will do nicely."

If you are thinking Harford imagines human beings as absolutely rational beings, along the lines of the infamous "homo economious" or the "economic man" capable of sophisticated reasoning, you are wrong. Harford is deeply aware that human beings are motivated by all kinds of human emotions. He writes, "These motivations are not financial, and not always selfish -- but our responses to them are national. As any teenager will remind you, no less planning, calculating, strategizing goes on about maters of heart than about the matters of the wallet."

Harford surveys the the work of number of economists, experiments involving human beings to lab rats, and data involving house prices to blow-job rates to answer the most interesting of questions. Why do more women live in the cities? why do racial minorities self-segregate? Why do voters choose bad politicians? and why do more and more teenage girls go down on their boyfriends? To all of this, there is a rational answer.

Ask that last question from any Sri Lankan TV-intellectual and they would give the standard western-culture-destroying-our-culture explanation. Social scientists might similarly offer more sophisticated versions of the same story. Ask an economist (or at least Tim Harford) and the explanation is simple. The American "blow job epidemic", according to Harford, is a rational response to changing incentives. When costs or benefits of something change, people change their behavior. Thanks to sex education, many teenagers (at least in the U.S.) know that regular sex has real risks -- they are much more aware of not just about the risk of pregnancy, but the risks associated with sexually transmitted diseases which comes with penetrative sex. Comparatively, oral sex has less risks or as Harford puts it, "The costs of oral sex are, quite simply, lower than the costs of regular sex". Teenage girls weigh these costs and benefits -- not always consciously -- before going down on their boyfriends. The result is while the rate of penetrative sex among teenagers in the U.S. is going down, the popularity of oral sex is on the rise.

The Logic of Life, is full of this type of fun and provoking ways of explaining things based on hard data. You might think that much of the stories in the book doesn't apply to places like Sri Lanka. Certainly, some of it doesn't, but a lot of it, (especially the chapter about "rational racism" and politics) does. Harford's logic of life is smart, well-written and a joy to read. I you liked Freakonomics, you'll love this one. Even if you didn't, you'll still like it.

For more (admittedly better) reviews, visit the Book's website. Harford, like many economists of this genre maintains an engaging blog, which I read often. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the book in Sri Lanka as yet. You can order it from amazon. For some excerpts from the chapter about love and marriage, see this slate article.

Where your taxes go (chep tea edition)

2008-07-09T15:27:00.004+06:00

According to a reliable source at the University of Colombo faculty of law, a cup of tea at the University canteen is Rs.2 (less than $ 0.02 USD). He told me this just before purchasing a 100-times more expensive cup from Barista's.

It's bad enough we have to pay for their 'free' education. But cheap tea?? I want my money back!

More about taxes.

Your mobile phone can save you from rapists

2008-07-09T11:31:00.009+06:00

Sri Lanka's new IGP is an innovative chap. According to the Khaleej Times,

Inspector General Jayantha Wickremeratne, who assumed duties last week, says camera phones could play a bigger role in crime busting.

“If someone comes to rape you, use your mobile phone to record it,” he said addressing journalists in Sri Lanka’s hill capital, Kandy yesterday.[link]

This is the problem with technology in the hands of government-people. They find new and innovative ways to do idiotic things with it. Sanjana has more.

What's so "alarming" about the trade deficit?

2008-07-07T15:02:00.003+06:00

I'm usually skeptical of obsessions about trade deficits, which is (to be a bit simplistic) the difference between exports and imports. I think most such worries about the trade deficit comes from the old mercantalist notion which holds that "exports are good" and "imports are bad", which economists as far back as Adam Smith tried to explain, is nonsense. The only reason we export is to get imports, if everything came in for free, why on earth should we produce anything?

Given this, I was a bit surprised to read the the Sunday Times economics column titled "An alarming growth in the trade deficit". The columnist goes into detail on what type of goods lead to this deficit. Now, trade deficits are in it self not really a problem, but it could be (but not necessarily is) a symptom of a problem, depending on how the deficit is created. The U.S. (among other developed countries like Australia) has run a huge trade deficit for a very long time, doesn't seem to have affected them too much.

Now, I'm not saying SL trade deficit is not a problem, but the ST economist doesn't really make the case as to why it is and worse, why this is an 'alarming' situation. His only claim is that 'spending' on imports has increased largely due to high oil prices and the growth of industrial exports is "quite inadequate to finance the increased expenditure on imports".

I'm at odds with this argument. I don't know about you, but the likes of MAS and Brandix, doesn't exactly pay my fuel bill. In reality, countries don't really trade, people do. To pay for the increased Oil prices, I don't necessarily need to export stuff overseas, I can "export" my products/services/labor to my neighbor which doesn't really have an effect on the trade deficit. We don't fret over the trade deficit of Colombo or Kandy, why should we fret over the trade deficit of Sri Lanka unless someone there is evidence to that effect. But then again, he's the economist and I'm the student. So please, anyone, enlighten me, what exactly is so alarming about the Sri Lankan trade deficit?

Related links : Adam Smith on balance of payments, John Stossel on trade deficits, Russ Roberts on Why we Trade.

Don't tell Cabraal

2008-07-05T15:08:00.004+06:00

Apparently the German government is doing Zimbabweans a favor by stopping the Munich-based company which provides the 'high quality' paper for the Zimbabwean central bank to print it's bank notes which helps create the countries' million percent inflation. The WSJ has more.

Incidentally, it's the same company behind the Germany's own hyperinflation in the 1920s. With such an impressive record and with Sri Lankan inflation hovering at around 30% (modified index rate), no doubt the company is looking at Sri Lanka as it's next big client.

Much more at Marginal Revolution including a pointer to a very relevant paper by Greg Mankiw for the Sri Lankan context.

p.s. -- for the unintiated, Cabraal is Sri Lanka's governer for the central bank. More on inflation at Deaned.

A Marraige Proposal (Chintana Style)

2008-07-04T23:27:00.004+06:00

I thought one WTF story would do for the day. But no, look at what Anar got herself into this time. According to the Daily Mirror,

Popular actress Anarkali Akarsha has complained to the Kollupitiya Police that Western Provincial Councilor Duminda Silva’s men had forcibly taken her to his office on Thursday evening and threatened her to get married to him soon. She had also said that she and her mother were taken by armed men carrying semi automatic weapons and they were later dropped near a five-star hotel in Colombo. [link]

This is how the Chintana-types, propose to their girl friends. Get a gang to abduct her and stick to a gun to her head and ask, "will you marry me?" So much fun.

Getting back to the story, The Government in a statement, has denied any knowledge of this incident and vehemently condemned this horrendous act. The president, speaking at a meeting in siyambalnduwa, said that this is the work of a systematic gang trying to discredit the government. Some in the government have pointed out, that all of this is fiction, staged by Anarkali herself to become the her stated goal to be the Paris Hilton of Sri Lanka.

Ok Ok, not really. But they just might say something like that.

WTF story of the day : pregnant man has baby girl

2008-07-04T16:19:00.002+06:00

BBC has the story. See this for more stuff on pregnant men.

Drew Carey on Free Trade

2008-06-28T00:43:00.006+06:00

Drew Carey in another installment of his series at Reason.tv takes a swing at the U.S. protectionists' (Obama-types) fear mongering over NAFTA.

Something that's rarely understood by protectionist all over the world is that the biggest source of "job losses" is technology, not free trade agreements. The emergence of Digital Cameras have dented the guys who sell films. small-time Christmas/Vesak-card vendors are feeling the pinch because of SMS. Does this mean these technologies need to be banned, discouraged or taxed away at least until "everyone adjusts"? Protectionist usually don't say stuff like that.

In all economic activity, whether you buy this soap over that one, or go to KFC instead of McDonald's, you create winners and losers. Should you be fined for picking one over the other? Free Trade (or international trade) just allows you to do this across a political border. There's nothing special about international trade, that isn't also true about domestic trade, except for the fact that governments have introduced barriers. I agree with those who say, that the source of much of protectionist opposition to free trade comes from the fact that in international trade, the trading partner is a "foreigner".

If you haven't already, go See the video. It's drew carey! (I love that end bit)

Related Link :Tyler Cowen : This Global Show must go on

P.S : Now that the primaries are over, Obama is a "pro-growth, free-market guy". Heh.

What's Sri Lanka's gas tax?

2008-06-24T21:14:00.005+06:00

As readers of this blog would know, I have been trying to figure out what the total tax for petrol and diesel in Sri Lanka. I put the question out in a related article in LBO. Some people responded, you can read them here. I'm reproducing, without permission, the comment by ddm (who, by the way, I wish blogged more) :

given the frequent changes it's hard to keep track, but the best source is the customs website's tariff calculator. It's not 100% up to date but it's the closest freely accessible source of tariff information.
Before the change in May it was something like this;

Petrol - customs duty of Rs.5 per litre and a surcharge of 10% on this Rs. 5 which makes it R.s 5.50 per litre. Excise duty of Rs. 20 per litre, VAT 15% (in the last budget it was brought down to 5% but I'm not sure where this stands at the minute), Ports and Airports levy 3% and social responsibility levy of 1.5%. This is when petrol is completely imported as it is done by LIOC.
So if petrol costs Rs. 127 per litre CIF, the taxes on this would be Rs.38 at 5% VAT at Rs. 57 at 15% VAT.
According to Customs there are no tariffs, VAT, or any other levies on crude oil imports - and CPC refines 50% of its petroleum from crude oil imports (but still pays the VAT, excise on the petrol retail price).
For Diesel, again prior to changes in March, there was no customs duty or VAT, there was a Rs. 2.50 per litre excise duty, 3% PAL and 1.5% SRL.
But do check out www.customs.gov.lk - it's a great eye opener about how restrictive our import regime is. [link]

So, according to this, before the increase in May (Which was a whopping 37% for Diesel and some 23% for Petrol) The total tax is about 30% of the retail price of petrol at 5% VAT and about 44% at 15% VAT. TheIndian article, which quotes an Association of Indian Chamber of Commerce official is probably just about right when they say the total tax for petrol in Sri Lanka comes to about 37% of the retail price. That's high.

More on petroleum on deaned.

p.s. : Blogging is slow these days. I'm suddenly very busy and every time I do blog, I can think of 100 other things I "should" be doing. So if this doesn't update often, don't be surprised.

War against Men

2008-06-21T17:02:00.006+06:00

According to the Daily Mirror all Sri Lankan males (and some females) are criminals. Here's a report,

Women and Child Bureau (WCB) is filing legal action against Sri Lankans appearing in pornographic videos and pictures on the internet violating the Indecent Publication Act of 1983 Article No. 23.
On information provided by anonymous sources, the WCB was conducting investigations into the people posing for illegal video and pictures for internet websites, CI, Buddhika Balachandran of the WCB said.
“Most of the people have been posted on the internet didn’t know about it,” CI Balachandran said. The WCB is using the provisions made in the legal system and will take legal action against the relevant parties.
Initial investigations which began a month ago have found 20 cases but he thinks the issue to be deep-rooted with many other cases, CI Ariyaratna said. The WCB hopes to charge the maximum fine of Rs. 10,000 with a definite jail sentence of more than one year for the parties who are found guilty he said.
Although he believes the fine was not tough and needs a revision, he was willing to take legal steps to deter people from encouraging and taking part in such videos and pictures.
According to him it was against the law for a Sri Lankan to be watching pornographic material [link]

Bugger. I can have sex, get married, booze, join the army but no says mommydaddy government, "you can't watch porn!".

[link sent in by Nm]

Postscript : DailyMirror is updating their site. That's great. But in the meantime (or most probably forever) they have broken all the old links. That's poor web strategy. Now all the old links need to be prefixed by a dailymirror.wijeya.lk address instead of the dailymirror.lk domain, which I assume is where the suppsed "2.0" site will be hosted.