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Showing posts from May, 2012

What's wrong with the Indian Rupee?

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The rupee is in a free fall against US dollar since last September. It has tanked from its high of 44 INR:1 USD to 55INR:1USD in the month of May; that's 25% decline in 9 months time. Indian rupee is the worst performing currency in the Asian region. US Dollar v/s Indian Rupee Everybody is concerned about it and, as usually, everyone is (wrongly) looking at the government and its central bank RBI for the rescue work. Business world wants RBI to take very proactive steps to stem the fall of rupee against dollar. Finance minister pranab mukherjee said , "It is a matter of great concern. We are watching the situation. The Centre is not (sitting) idle. We are trying to resolve (the issue)." And after that he, again as usually, blamed external forces for the weakness of rupee; he said, "This is due to the Eurozone crisis."  Of course, finance minister is lying or is ignorant of economic laws. The exchange rate of rupee versus any other currency is determin...

The Indian Real Estate Bubble: Signs from Surat City

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Indian central bank RBI is fueling the real estate bubble since many years by keeping the rate of interest artificially below the natural rate of interest, which is determined by the societal time preference. When RBI keeps the rate of interest artificially lower, it induces or encourages entrepreneurs to borrow huge amount of money from banks to start lengthy projects which uses more roundabout methods of production. They are fooled by RBI in thinking that the supply of real savings is increasing which is lowering the rate of interest. In reality it is just RBI's money printing and creating money out of thin air process that is keeping the rate of interest lower. This results into mal-investment in those lengthy projects which are unsustainable in the long-run because the real saving is not forthcoming. RBI money printing finally results into inflation which forces the authorities to increase the rate of interest and this is the beginning of the bust of the prior artificial unsust...

RTE: Right to Education is WRONG!

Recently the supreme court of the political boundaries called India upheld the constitutionally "legal" nature and "rightness" of State rulers' so-called Right to Education Bill (see here ). Under this legislation, State officials have made it compulsory for the on-paper private schools to keep 25% quota reserved for students of lower strata of society. Private schools challenged this ruling in the supreme court thinking that they will get the justice! Well, what more can you expect from the judges who are selected by the State officials themselves? They are all part and parcel of the same thug system of State. The independence of the judiciary system is an illusion. It is a joke on the intellect of the populace. The major issue of concern here is, whether someone has a right to education? and more fundamentally,what is a human right? Without understanding the concept of human right, and its negation, human wrong, it is impossible to discuss such issues let alo...

Socialism and the Corruption of Character

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The debilitating effect of Socialism on peoples' characters is on full display in the series of election defeat of various incumbent pro-austerity governments in Europe. People in Greece , France and Germany have rejected the tough stance - which was just on the surface because in reality none of these governments actually lowered their spending even under the so-called austerity measures (see here ) - of political leaders of suddenly stopping the political largess spigot aka free handout of money in the form of pensions, lower retirement age, government jobs, unemployment insurance etc. As brilliantly analyzed by the German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer in his book The State , there are only two ways of ekeouting one's survival. One, through hard work producing valuable economic goods and selling them in the market receiving in return your own bread & butter i.e., money; Oppenheimer called this way the use of 'economic means', and second, stealing others' ha...