Finally, Why Indians Have Reason To Hope

Hat tip to Ajay Shah for saying:

"I am extremely uncomfortable with the fact that the government has appointed a board of directors [for Satyam]. Let’s think deeply about this. The company is owned by shareholders, the government is an interloper; the government has no business in getting involved in the governance of the company.

"What the government should have done is to collect the institutional shareholders 50% shares are held by institutional shareholders which can be easily put together in a meeting with a five days notice period. So, the government should have put institutional shareholders of the company into a room and told them you pick. The institutional shareholders should have put together a board of directors and that board should go around recruiting a management team. I think we are doing damage to the fundamental concepts of private property and the corporation by putting government into companies in this fashion."

You can read the full interview here. (Thanks to Chandra.)

I also found two videos featuring Ron Paul on the LRC blog. The first is on “the death of the dollar.” Here, he says that we are being misled to believe that inflation rate (rate of price increase) is down when the real rate of inflation, the rate at which the money supply is increasing, is going up. In the US, the money supply has gone up by 70 per cent since October!

He adds that all this is pyramided on debt. At the root of all this debt lies the great con game of creating “property titles without property.”

And I liked the interviewer: He knows his stuff. Hope we get such guys on Indian television.

The other video is of Ron Paul reacting to Obama’s address. Here, he takes on the position of a principled libertarian-constitutionalist and goes on argue that Obama’s nationalism is “scary.” For it is also an “ideological position”: only, this time it is an ideology that governments must do many things; that governments work; that the economy must be “run” by central bankers; that there can be international policing; and social welfare; and so on.

Ron Paul sounds and looks so much like a real person – no great oratory, no drama. An open sincerity. And an abiding faith in Liberty. (The sound is a bit low on this one.)

How could Obama win and Ron Paul lose? The answer is simple: In the US, the government does its basic jobs right – in the sense that at least there aren’t 1,00,000 pedestrian deaths every year, the supply of water and electricity is not erratic, the roads are very good, and the democratic politics gives their government an air of openness and, especially after Obama, inclusion. They foolishly believe that their society is successful because of their government, the central State. A State that is full of pomp and pageantry, from grand inaugurals to shooting off space shuttles. Here, most people will believe that government works. And they will support a man who claims he will make it work even better.

We are very lucky that here in India everyone and his uncle has lost all faith in government and bureaucracy, and politicians and political parties. Here, there is widespread unrest; an open disaffection. Nothing works. “Bijli, sadak aur paani,” the people cry out – and all three are State monopolies. The people, all the people, from rich to poor, are suffering. And they say that “where the people suffer, they change things.”

There is Hope here in India.

Someday we will change things.