Kingfisher & Government Support

The news papers and internet news portals are abuzz with the crisis at Kingfisher Airlines. Some reports indicate Government of India stepping in to "help". Infact our beloved puppet prime minster chacha Manmohan Singh has made a statement suggesting that he will talk to the civil aviation minster on ways & means of helping KF Airlines.

This is a disgrace, why should government help a private airline? Yes, there are many passenger staranded, the employees are worried for their jobs and it is not a good situation for them.

But why are rest of us Indians accountable for decisions made by private individuals? Why can't I or many others get a bailout for our bad investment decisions when the stock market crashes or prices of something falls? Is that a legitimate role of government? If government starts rescuing everyone one who fails there will be no end to it. It also the case of privatized profits and socialized losses.

This "rescue" package for KF airlines means it is a package for the banks. It is bailing out banks indulged in careless lending decisions. In-fact I think they engaged in "name lending" i.e. lending to KFA & Vijay Mallaya's name rather than the KFA's financial standing.

I'm outraged at what my government is doing....making arbitrary decisions and helping people who have made poor decisions. By the way where is the money going to come from? Recently GoI has given Air India a whopping Rs 23,000 crore. And, this is neither the first one nor will be the last Air India will receive.  That will also be the case of KFA it will need a lot of money. GoI does not have this money it will print it, borrow or have to tax....... all of them are bad and burdensome on the citizens.

All these are being done in the name of saving jobs, helping the needy blah blah.  Best way to help passengers & airlines to bring down entry barriers by de-regulation and reducing taxes.

This bailout will create even more moral hazard......... leaving us all less poorer.

What a shame :-(

What is money ?

In this lecture Prof. Joe Solerno gives us an essential education on Money. 

Money is one of the least understood topics espcially in our country, do take time to listen to this one and clear your mind.

Essential Lesson for all Indians

Here in this short video Prof. Aeon Skoble talks about the importance of property rights especially for the "Little Guy". 

Property rights simply put, is the idea that no one can take what is yours without you voluntarily parting it. This is very important and it should be sacrosanct. This is our only hope against tyranny and abuse.

Why are we spending 3,023 crore and want to increase that to 18,000 Crores

Econ Times reports that Fin Ministry has denied Nandan Nilekani's request for Rs.18,000 crores to be spent on the UIDAI. 

For a poor country like ours 18,000 or 3,000 even 23 crores is a lot of money. 

To begin with the whole UIDAI is meaning less, it is arrogant and attack on the citizen's privacy. The presumption of this grand spending programme is that, like cattle if one can tag all Indians.......we can eliminate poverty. Think about it.

By the way, the most important thing................. where is the money coming from ?

Government does not produce anything like us individuals, so it has to take from us..... either in the form of taxes or via inflation. Are we not being taxed already ?

Nandan is irresponsible, he could serve his countrymen better if he could get back to private sector and create another Infosys and lost of good and high paying jobs.

Rich must pay higher tax, says P Chidambaram

As reported in this ToI article Chidambaram wants to tax us Indians even more than what we are already paying today. There is already Income Tax, Sales Tax, Value Added Tax, Education Tax, Cess etc., etc., and above all the invisible and the most evil tax i.e. Inflation.

Note that all Indians rich, middle class and poor pay huge taxes to our government and what does government do with it, it spends carelessly....breeding corruption leaving all of us poor, expect the government bureaucrats & politicians who get to spend the tax money and award contracts to their favorites.

Now back to this article, PC goes on to say "We must raise the tax revenue to defend (the expected aggregate decline of resources). I know many people won't like this. But I think, I can summon the courage to make the statement." 

Yes, PC you need a lot of courage to demand other peoples money and force them to pay. Robbery, theft and extortion requires a lot of courage and you have to shun your conscience as well.

He also talks a bunch of nonsense such as Inclusive Growth, Eliminating poverty blah blah blah.

Government spending does not eradicate poverty, in fact it increases it and when government spends money it spends it in the most inefficient way. Let the citizens spend, trade, exchange, produce, create jobs and thereby reduce poverty levels and raise everybody's living standards.

Daylight Robbery by the predatory state

KIADB with 1,000 acres; farmers helpless  says this headline. The issue here is that a Govt. of Karnataka agency called Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board has taken over 1000 acres of land belonging to farmers and they have done it without even telling the owners. Poor farmers my heart bleeds for them. Where would they go........ what would they do ?

Only Property Rights can rescue us from tyranny. Nobody, including the government can take your property without your consent. 

As along as we believe that government can take what is yours in the name of common good, public service, good of the society blah blah blah.....such injustices will continue.

Petrol Price Hike and government lies

Govt. of India the master planner of our economy  hiked the price of petrol by Rs. 3.40. 

Our loving and caring government who has nothing but our interests......... that is the interests of the common and poor man.....says that it hiked the price of petrol coz the rupee dropped against the dollar. These guys in our government could not even come up with more realistic reason to hide their lies.

Well... the rupee dropped just paises against the dollar but the hike is disproportionate and in multiples of rupees. Once you dig deeper you will discover very unpleasant details. Petrol prices in India is heavily taxed and of-course the tax money is grossly abused by our caring politicians and bureaucrats. Anyways please read thru these two links exposing our parasitic government lies and tells you how our glorious state cheats us all.

http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/tathagatabhattacharya/2947/62714/facebook-petrol-price-hoax-think-before-you-like.html

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/opaque-petrol-pricing-brings-deregulation-into-disrepute-85697.html

It is a tragedy that this subject is not commonly discussed.

Economics Lesson --- Worth the 30mins of your life

Listen to Peter Schiff  and think about it.

The best "Demand does not come from Govt. Spending, Inflation comes from govt. spending"

Part 1

Part 2

The one and only Ustad Rashid Khan

Kirpa Karo Maharaj

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

My mood this Independence day

I'm upset, really upset, very upset.

Sixty Four years of freedom. I see kids on the street paraded by the schools in their uniforms carrying the tri-color. There is a lot of jingoism with many cars, trucks, autos hoisting our flag. Even after 64 years  our foreign rulers left us we are still being ruled.....ruled by our own politicians, bureaucrats and crony capitalists.
Rarely do we ask this question what does it mean to be free? Where do we get our rights from? What is the role of government? Why is there poverty? Why is the Infrastructure in our country so bad ? Why are and cities so dirty? Why are our kids taught to repeat rather than think? Why do have so many less doctors? Why is there so much price rise (inflation) and shortages ? Why are there so many rules and departments ? Where does the government get all this money it spends ? Why is there corruption even after many stringent anti-corruption laws ? Why is there so much un-employment ?

I checked all the major news papers and TV news channels none of them ask these questions. I'm upset that as country we do not ask what it means to be free .......but celebrate Independence day. It seems like a blind faith and an illusion that we as Indians are supposedly free!!!

Have you heard this one ?

Is there something called copyright, patents a.k.a Intellectual Property ?

 

This great video by Nina Paley will "re-educate" you in less than one minute.

If you want to understand more on this false idea called "Intellectual Property" and its dangers I recommend the following material

1) A short essay "The Fallacy of Intellectual Property" by Daniel Krawisz
2) The book "Against Intellectual Property" by Stephan Kinsella
3) The book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine

National Statistics Day --- what a waste of an event

 I was surprised to know that we in India are supposed to celebrate National Statistics Day according this government advertisement. I do not see any reason to celebrate, rather I want to grieve. There was this half a page ad in the Times of India. I'm sure the govt. would have paid the newspaper hefty sum for the space.

Anyhow, what was shocking to know is that we have a Ministry of Statistics, that is spending a whopping 650 crores of our money. Money the government of India will either borrow or print, we as citizens have to pay for this waste via taxes or indirectly thru inflation.

Even if one assumes that we have the money, then we as country could be better off spending 650 crores on other pressing priorities.

There are many things that is wrong with use of statistics and odd economic indicators. Good reading material that explains this are Statistics: Achilles' Heel of Government by Murray N. Rothbard and The Trouble with Economic Statistics by Robert Higgs.

In the corporate world I come from, there is a general obsession with data. Many a times it supersedes common sense, reason, experience and conviction even though the quality of "data" is suspect and full of biases of the data collector and interpreter, there is a blind faith often leading to wrong decisions. I guess years of state prescribed curricula and factory schooling has contributed to this.

Besdies, the wasteage of money involved in operating a Ministry for Statistics, just for data collection which obviously will be stale and junk, the real issue here is the dangerous policy presrectipons that will come out subjectively interpreting this "data".

Glories of government land grab

I read a puzzling and very troubling news about the High Court asking the Government of Karnataka to provide details regarding the utility of 2,650 acres of land allocated to Bangalore International Airport (BIA).

The story is that that the government wants to acquire even more land i.e 1000 acres for an aerospace park and guess what the project requires just 35 acres and govt. has not even paid compensation for some of the land owners from whom it had grabbed land earlier.

This is another case of government preying on its citizens and once again shows us the importance of property rights as the only way to prevent tyranny.

The court rightfully has asked what is the utility of the land that was grabbed and it has come out strongly against the state. I do not think it will make any difference until "Right to Property" is a fundamental right all existing clauses, sub clauses and other means of acquiring land for development purposes, for public good etc., are revoked.

Below is the full news item and exposes the sinister intents of the government. By the way I did a quick research and comparison between our own BIA and the Heathrow in London one of the busiest airports of the world. As you will notice BIA has way to much land than it requies for its buisiness.

	Heathrow	BIA
Total size of Airport:	1,227 hectares	1,600 hectares
Number of runways	2	1
Aircraft stands	119	42
Number of remote stands	80	19
Number of airlines	89	31
Number of destinations served:	176 in 90 separate countries	50 destinations across India & of the world

HC pulls up government over land acquisition

Express News Service

The New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The High Court on Tuesday said that the submissions made by the State Government over the land acquisition for Aerospace Industrial Area near Devanahalli are unacceptable, vague and evasive and adjourned the further hearing of the case. Justice D V Shylendra Kumar observed that the court had asked the government how the project originated and what was the basis to acquire 1,069 acres of land.
The state government replied that some very important companies,without naming them, had evinced interest to set up their manufacturing units there. The court found the reply evasive.
According to the information submitted by the state government, there was demand for only 35 acres of land and it was not a valid justification to acquire 1,069 acres of land in eight villages, he felt.
Justice Kumar observed, “You have acquired over 1,000 acres of land disturbing the lives of these land owners and drain `370 crore from the State exchequer without any basis. This sort of acquisition is due to arrogance of power. According to the normal procedure, the companies approach the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) and the board submits a proposal for the land acquisition based on the demand for government’s approval.
However, in this case, the State Government has directly told the KIADB to identify the land for acquisition.
This is a gross violation of statutory provisions, even a high level committee cannot violate the laws.” Justice Kumar further asked the State Government why Sections 28(2), 1(3) and 27 were simultaneously invoked to acquire the land under urgency clause though there was no urgency.
Expressing his displeasure over the submissions made by the State Government, Justice Kumar observed, “The annexures submitted by the State Government contain only the Supreme Court’s judgements, correspondence made between the government advocate and the principal secretary and some regulations. Nothing in these documents answers the questions raised by the court.” Mathekar-Un-Nissa has filed a writ petition challenging land acquisition. She contended that the government had acquired 12.5 acres of her land without notice.

Theft in the name of development and industrialization

The Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board [KIADB] plans to acquire (grab) 3,300 acres in Halligudi village, Gadag District off National Highway 63, about 500km from Bangalore. The farmers obviously are very upset and they say 72% land is fertile, won’t give up

This news is making all the headlines.

I went to the KIADB webpage to see what they actually do. The home pages says"KIADB - The land provider" whose land does it provide ? KIADB owns no land it always seizes someone else, mostly farmers who are politically less powerful.

KIADB describers it self as "a statutory body, constituted under Sec.5 of Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Act, [KIAD Act] – 1966, which provides for expeditious acquisition of lands for industrial and infrastructure purposes. KIADB, besides forming layouts with all infrastructure facilities for promotion of industries, also acquires lands in favour of various State & Central Govt. Departments/Organizations and Single Unit Complexes, for setting up their projects on stand alone basis."

This is legal plunder, the rotten idea that government can anytime snatch private property and provide just compensation, is arrogant and the worst form of abuse.

Bastiat in the great essay "The Law" says the below on legal plunder.

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.

In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.

No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.

The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them."

This is not the first time government land grab is happening......it is doing it all the time in the name of industrial parks, SEZs, STPs, development corridors and other supposedly public goods and development projects.

There are many who view it as OK for government to acquire land  for development purposes, what these people do not understand is once you give such power to the government, it is bound to abuse it. Friedman says "Power to do good is also power to do harm". As in this case and many other before..... the government purposely abuses property rights.We should be very skeptical of power and anything that takes away decision making from the individual.

We indians urgently need to learn the importance of property rights and the significance in preventing power abuses besides promoting peace and prosperity.

An excellent post by Amit Verma

Author, blogger Amit Verma in this post calls for India’s Second Freedom Struggle.

It is a must read, he lists about 8 things to be accomplished. I also would like to see the Reserve Bank of India discharged of its evil duties of printing money (inflation) and debasement of our currency. This harmful institution is the source of all our inflation woes and is causing enormous damage to all of us by transferring wealth from poor to very rich, increasing poverty, making the old & weak suffer as they loose their purchasing power.

Dear Citizens.....Weep on our country's current state of affairs

I sulked as I opened today's TOI newspaper.....The headline goes "NAC sticks to its stand, finalizes draft food securitybill"

Some highlights of this food security bill

• Requires the government to cover 90% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population in its final phase  
• Requirement of food to rise to 63.59 million tonnes annually
• Needing a total subsidy of nearly Rs 80,000 crore, up from the subsidy this year of Rs 56,000 crore
• Each "poor" family will have right to 7 kg per person (equal to 35 kg per family) with rice at Rs 3 a kg, wheat at Rs 2 a kg and millets at Re 1 a kg.

Dear fellow citizens expect massive corruption, endless money printing (inflation), more dependent citizens, even more poor people, rotting food grains in govt. godowns, shortage in food grains, significant increase in food prices and violence on the streets. This bill will do nothing to decrease poverty, malnutrition or reduce hunger.

If poverty & hunger could be have been solved by giving out subsidized food financed by printing money. By now, India and the world would have already seen an end to these difficult problems.

After a few years anticipate a revised version of this bill with a new name and even more draconian measures and much larger spending. These economically ignorant elite civil society members of this evil institution called NAC will not be accountable they would be long gone or be in another government committee dreaming up some other "welfare" scheme.

We Indians have seen such ineffective schemes before…… alas…………. we have never learnt anything from them.  Friedman  advised us “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

Besides, I have serious issues with this illegitimate institution called NAC, a group of 14 people who have the wrongful right to come up with bills....... which they think are right for rest of us billion+ Indians...... arm twist the government into passing it as laws of the land.

I do not consider this freedom; we are a country ruled by elites who have their own visions, agendas and world views that they are forcing on rest of us using force. They are self serving and far removed from reality.

What Did You Learn In School Today

Depressing but honest

Silly obsession with democracy

Justice Santosh Hegde says "All are equal in democracy"

Democracy is how we elect our government. We Indians think that democracy is a great thing it is a national obsession, all the headlines read..... India the world's largest democracy...I say what rubbish. 

These "intellectuals" who shape the opinions of the masses are dangerous to our country. They give us all a false impression and sell us this illusion of democracy. 

As I said Democracy is just a method of electing government, it does not ensure liberty  (only form of real equality) and freedom .........we can have.....like we do in India a democratically elected but tyrannical government hijacked by thugs (politicians) and lazy bureaucrats.

Friedman says "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both"

We need to think about on the role, function and structure of government and then talk about how we put in place the government. India is a democracy and of course all are not treated equally.....people with power and money rule over the land. Everyone is equal when the role of the state is limited to protecting everyone's liberty.

In India we have a government with Unlimited powers...power to grab property, power to inflate, power to tax and the most evil power to kill. The government of India freely excises all this power and abuses the citizens every day.

Today's power of government of India is a legacy of the British rule, now the Indians are using the same power to rule over the rest. It’s always the congress rule, BJP rule or UPA rule etc.,

The day to celebrate will be a day when the massive powers of the sates are taken back the bureaucracy dismantled the Reserve Bank of India and Income Tax Department shut down. Liberties are restored to individual and private property protected. So the individual can lead a life of dignity without being abused by people with power.

Soulful...........Little gem from youtube

Mohandas and his good intentions

Mohandas Pai recently resigned from Infosys, and seems to be a victim of nepotism. In this interview post his resignation he talks about his interests in education. 

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-17/bangalore/29427564_1_higher-education-mohandas-pai-infosys-technologies/2
 
I agree with him, education is in crisis like many things in our country. Talking about challenges of education sector he says "Today, the space lacks autonomy, quality, faculty, good ideas and financial muscle."
 
Unfortunately his proposal is erroneous "I believe we can ask ten eminent people/ institutions in the country to invest Rs 1,000 crore each to start 10 institutions of higher learning with the mandate that they emerge as world-class institutions within 25 or 50 years. People like the Ambanis, Birlas, Mahindras, Tatas, Premjis, Shiv Nadars, Murthys, TVS and a conglomeration of PSUs like ONGC, IOC, etc. could be enthused about it."

This enthusing of the Tata's, Birlas, Ambanis to invest thousands of Crores could mean a huge land grabbing scheme. In the name of quality education system these people would want to create hundreds of acres of campuses and they will ask the government to acquire land at preferential rates. The state as usual will engage in predatory land grabbing, abuse of property rights and the farmer will be rendered landless and looses everything to the state and its cronies.   
 
BTW, Infosys his previous employer has a track record of grabbing land. Today it is a real-estate and an IT company. This news item is dated  but will give you some details http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/jul/25infy.htm
 
Again, a well intentioned but misguided approach to solving problems.

Today the entry barriers to start a school is very high requiring massive funds for infrastructure i.e. space, buildings  bribers for various licenses and permissions. This means that the the opportunity is only for the "big players" with big bucks and political influence and forcing the small players who are genuinely interested in education out of the scene.

Education cannot be that expensive an affair after all what is required to teach students especially the junior & middle schools are bunch of books, minimal teaching aids and good teachers. This can be done out of small facility.
 
India has a rich tradition of learning which was mostly "informal" never ran like an "industry" it was a system where the only stake holders where the Guru and the parents along with the student. This meant the schools remained very small with great attention to each student had full autonomy on what & how they taught. The result of this system was a thinking person with useful skills. 

Similarly may other useful skills such as carpentry, house construction etc., were also taught in an informal way without text books and focus was learning rather than a culture of passing examinations and getting certificates.
 
I’m not advocating a system of gurukul rather making a point for freeing the education so that the teachers and parents along with students can decide what is best for them.

Today that is not the case it is an "Industry", the schools in the city resemble office towers with Air conditioners, unnecessary and expensive teaching aids, useless curriculum (computer lab for Grade 1 students)  etc.,. 

The stakeholders have also changed, the government was the first to step in to issue licenses, to define standard curricula, to enforce compliance to varied number of silly rules (easily violated by paying bribes), to conduct exams, to grade etc.,, we also have  banks involved in
providing student loans, urban planners, industry "players" providing teach aids, teacher training schools etc., etc., 

This all means teachers and the parents have very little say and the quality suffers and the costs rise. 
 
We Indians have come to understand education & learning to be same as passing examinations. This change has its roots with the British meddling with our system of course they wanted to create more number of "administrators" so that they can rule the empire. It was the begnning of standardized curriculum, and educational bureaucracy in the form of various ministries/departments of education, national text book authority, a system of grading & examinations etc., 
 
Post independence we have continued to expand this system set-up by the British, we have huge  educational bureaucracy both at central and state level.

I pity today’s  students that they have to take so many examinations.


The output of such a system means poor quality and unemployable graduates, and business have to further invest to re-equip these students.

The solution to improve India's education is to dismantle the bureaucracy abolish the
ministries and departments let the schools and colleges be free. We don’t want government as partner they have nothing to offer nor do they have any business meddling in affairs between us, our kids and the teachers & schools.

We need separation of the Separation of School & State!
 
This article here makes a good argument, even though it is for an American reader it applies to us Indians  http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger86.html
 
And check out http://www.schoolandstate.org

I cannot disagree

Kiran Karnik said "The areas in which the country has done well are the areas where the government doesn't have its hand, which is information technology and beauty. We have had a whole string of Miss World contestants. We are known for our spirituality, because we don't have a ministry of religion"

Regulate Marriages ----------- What a lunacy of an Idea!!!

The other day I read this in Times of India.

Have been independently canvassing for checking wastages had a session with food and consumer affairs minister K V Thomas and his officials on Monday. On the menu at the meeting were proposals to restrict the number of dishes served at weddings. There were suggestions to draw lessons from Pakistan, where it appears there are restrictions on serving more than one dish at marriages and similar social gatherings. There was another suggestion: weddings should not be as event-filled as some have become. If the food and consumer affairs ministry were to accept the recommendations, mehndis, sangeet, cocktail parties and receptions could be crunched into one. A third suggestion at Monday's meeting was to limit the number of guests attending a wedding reception to 200.

Where do these people get their ideas from?

I think, I have heard all the stupid ideas to "regulate human behavior" to make people virtuous. This one is definitely on top of the list.

It is the same old mentality to make new rules (as if we do not have enough), create a new bureaucracy and use the threat of force and punishment.
 
This will not work; more bribes will be paid out and hence more ugly marriages.
 
How about the great Indian ideal of tolerance, if we do not like someone’s behavior …..….. stop attending these weddings.....set an example with simpler weddings....... rather than engage in the business of law making.


We should reflect on what Murry Rothbard said “It is not the business of the law to make anyone good or reverent or moral or clean or upright”

A beautiful poem by DVG and sung by the great MS

Right diagnosis but wrong prescriptions

I'm big believer in decentralization. It always works; decentralizing up to the individual level is the only true & effective decentralization. Let the individual decide what is best for him or her.
 

In this Times of India piece Anna is asking the right questions and advocating decentralization. He asks

"Why should all the power be concentrated with a few in Delhi This leads to leaders and bureaucrats calling the shots"

It seems that he wants to pass more laws, administer more oaths, have more policemen and prosecutors and achieve decentralization……. meaning…… less freedom for people. This will not work and in fact will lead to more authoritarian rule.
 
With years of state schooling and brainwashing there seems to be no place for alternative thinking, leading to different methods of solving problems. All the news papers and public opinion is filled with statist ways of dealing with problems.  It is sad to see all proposed solutions require the state to use force. Freedom and responsibility is never proposed.
 
It is the same thinking........ People are not capable of making their own decisions so we need government to be involved in all aspects of our lives……....to rule over us…. to protect us by telling us what to do……. this combination of burecrats and politicians….. carefully selecting the products we should be buying…… they can give out permits only to select good business men so that we are protected from the evil business men who are looking at every opportunity to cheat us…….. to give out licenses only to select companies and use that license money for the greater good of the society. This is rubbish and in fact we Indians have to come to believe that big government to be indispensible, we cannot comprehend a society full of free individuals.
 
This kind of thinking leads to tyrannical rule and corruption is a characteristic of a tyrannical government. Even though the likes of Anna have the best interests in mind they do not understand human nature and constantly fight it leading to all sorts of un-intended consequences. 
 
These bureaucrats and politicians are no saints and as David Boaz said "Bureaucrats and politicians are just as self-interested as the rest of us". They have their interests in mind rather than ordinary people in mind when the make decisions. They make decisions that suit them, their near and dear.
 
The problem is that they have the power to make decisions on our behalf and thru real decentralization --- meaning cutting the scope and size of government we can take away that power.
 
The best way to decentralize is to dismantle to bureaucracy, abolish too many of these un-necessary laws and remove powers from the state.
 
Individual freedom coupled with respect to property rights and sound money is a just society…….. a society that will see very less or no corruption, almost no poverty  but peace and prosperity for all.

The anti corruption vigilantes

I read this appalling news item today

Include private sector under Lokpal Bill: BKC

It is total nonsense and dangerous.

To suggest that we should create an all powerful committee with powers of god and purpose to investigate all vices is not only dangerous but also fool hardy.

I do not know what these people eat or drink bit it is clear that they have lost thier ability to think.

These people are clueless of the causes of corruption, which is caused by increased government control. Their diagnoses of the problem id wrong and the solutions they are coming up are also wrong.

Hoppe on Democracy and other things

This is what is the case with all democracies especially Indian democracy...too many people involved in plunder

As a hereditary monopolist, a king regards the territory and the people under his rule as his personal property and engages in the monopolistic exploitation of this "property." Under democracy, monopoly and monopolistic exploitation do not disappear. Rather, what happens is this: instead of a king and a nobility who regard the country as their private property, a temporary and interchangeable caretaker is put in monopolistic charge of the country. The caretaker does not own the country, but as long as he is in office he is permitted to use it to his and his protégés' advantage. He owns its current use — usufruct — but not its capital stock. This does not eliminate exploitation. To the contrary, it makes exploitation less calculating and carried out with little or no regard to the capital stock. Exploitation becomes shortsighted and capital consumption will be systematically promoted.

Read the rest here

http://mises.org/daily/5163/The-Mind-of-HansHermann-Hoppe

 

I found Bharath Reddy's art yesterday

Excellent work Bharat

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bharathbds/

Nit Khair Manga from the One and Only Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

My daughter loves this song

On Corruption

Anna has already moved on from page 1 to page 8 of Times of India and as the days pass space given to him is also reducing.

The media and the rest of us will soon forget about the drama. The probelm of corruption will continue to get worse. As this Yahoo article says we in India have no shortage of anti-corruption bills and required departments to investigate and prosecute.   http://in.news.yahoo.com/ready-reckoner-to-existing-anti-corruption-laws.html
All of them have rendered  to be ineffective.

The issue is to do with too much government control and we cannot solve the corruption problem with more rules, new committees and harsher punishments. Unfortunately no one in the "Civil Society" is advocating cutting the scope of government.

Anna and his supporters solution to the problem will only make things worst.

Melodious.......

Welcome to my blog

I am creating this blog to post my observations and activities. Feel free to comment !