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

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.

Bloggable Links

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)
  

Illogical Protectionism

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.

Budget-Econ 101

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

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

Congratulations. It truly was historic.

The case for Barack Obama

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

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

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.

Joe the Plumber and America's License-Raj

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

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

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

Good news on Reform

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two silly statements I read today,

1.  "Government will not sell any state owned property under any circumstances" : President
   
2.  "No state institution will be privatized" : Minister.

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.