Break Every Silly Rule

A news report says that a local politician from Nagpur is leading a “break rule agitation” – and the rule they want to break is the helmet law for motorcyclists.

Heck! Even I like the wind in my hair, but on our unsafe roads – especially unsafe for motorcyclists and scooterists – maybe voluntary helmet wearing is not a bad idea. If not for the driver, then at least for the pillion-rider, whose risks are greater.

And there are so many better rules to break:

Like the ganja rules
Or the alcohol rules
Or the customs rules
Or the dance bar rules

Or the rules against gambling

So how about a real “break rule agitation”?

That is, breaking significant rules that affect our lives.

Gandhi, of course, showed the way by making salt.

I prefer to break the rule against ganja – by making a nice chillum and smoking it, in public, every day.

So excuse me, for I have a rule to break right now.

Leave It To Edupreneurs

Gurcharan Das’ column in the Sunday ToI makes for good reading. He raises a toast to Mayawati for the fact that 8,600,000 children in class I have just begun to learn English in the government schools of Uttar Pradesh.

He adds that this has “fulfilled a longstanding demand of parents who believe that they have lost two generations to Hindi chauvinists. They know that a child who learns English by age 10 has a natural advantage for the rest of its life.”

Yet, as Das notes and as we all know, government schools are not the answer. There will never be enough good teachers of English for all government schools.

Das proposes vouchers – but here too, the question of cost-efficiency comes in. If we are to collectively fund schooling for all poor children, the costs of even private sector delivery will be astronomical – and inefficient, in terms of both money as well as time.

The only efficient way, then, is to allow competing for-profit firms to develop packages that teach children English using television or Internet for a fee.

I recently saw an ad on a Delhi street: “Learn English in 6 months”. Formal schooling cannot do this job so fast.

Efficiency also refers to Time. Poor children cannot afford to spend years and years in school. They must be out in the market fast. Competing for-profit private edupreneurs can easily teach poor children some basic things like English and how to operate a calculator – essential life skills – real fast. That is the only practicable way forward.

As an aside, this Dalit preference for English also indicates that Dalits are pro-globalization and pro-liberalization.

Poor people are not stupid.

They are hugely aware that their economic and social betterment lies in markets, cities and a world language.

They are a good constituency for Libertarianism.

Production, Peace And Prosperity

Time magazine notes how Libertarianism is gaining ground rapidly in America.

The article notes that libertarians believe in freedom and private property.

But there is more to it than that.

We believe in production and exchange.

We abhor war and plunder – although we champion the right to bear arms for individual self-defense.

That is the choice before mankind: Production or Plunder.

This is the choice between Peace and War.

Americans, above all, need to make this choice.

To help them in this, here are some of my favourite anti-war songs.

Donovan’s “Universal Soldier”.
Country Joe McDonald (from Woodstock) and his “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die”.
Bob Dylan’s “John Brown” (this is a cover version).
Pink Floyd’s “When The Tigers Broke Free”.

Libertarianism is not just about Freedom.

It is about the only way to achieve lasting co-operation among all the people of this huge planet.

Co-operation is what markets achieve. And prosperity too.

Governments cause conflicts – and profit from them.

Americans have installed a “welfare-warfare state”.

Libertarians in America therefore have their work cut out for them.

It's Teflon Versus Gold

In recessionary times, the economics pundits have all but disappeared from the same TV screens they used to hog all along.

Simon Jenkins lambastes this “Teflon Profession”:

“Controlling the agencies of credit has proved beyond the finest professional minds in the game. Where now are the effortless pundits of the Treasury and the Bank? Where now the gilded ones of Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, credit raters to the mightiest in the land? They should have stuck to goose entrails... “

Read excerpts from this article here.

Indeed, our very own Teflon-coated economist PM is going gung-ho on various fronts – from the nuclear deal to the opportunistic “vote trading” with the Samajwadi (Congresswadi?) party – but is totally quiet on all economic matters.

On this economist the pronouncement from London reported today is that he has been a “crashing disappointment”. I could not agree more.

In the meantime, the simple-minded common people of Vietnam have found the way out: conduct all deals in GOLD.

That is, of course, what all the good economists have been saying all along – only they are never seen on TV.

So out with the Teflon-coated economists, and let’s bring on the gold-plated ones.

Manmohan Should Quit

The prime minister has concluded his meeting with the G-8. There, he talked some climate change stuff and some nuclear deal stuff.

Both these are stuff-and-nonsense.

In India we waste fossil fuels – on bad roads.

Read this lament on Mumbai’s roads – India’s wealthiest city.

Then think of how much fuel we waste throughout India.

The waste is surely enormous.

If our planners did some “cost-benefit analysis” they would definitely find that good roads would deliver far more benefits than they would cost.

But they want to teach!

(They want to teach “cost-benefit analysis”!)

They think they are smart – and that the people are stupid: that these stupid people need some “knowledge” from them.

Actually, as our cities, towns and roads prove, the planners are the ones whose brains need medical examination.

The people are smart: they can sing and dance (just watch TV) but nightlife is banned throughout India.

They can make exotic alcoholic drinks like feni, urak, mahua, handia, apong, toddy and so many more – but these are banned.

These smart people of India need Liberty, not State education – all ugly propaganda, harmful for the mind.

While Manmohan pyarey, the Greatest Planner of All Time, jets about meeting foreign politicians, talking about lowering emissions and generating nuclear fuel, our embassy gets bombed in Kabul.

This is the condition of our “foreign policy”.

But what about conditions at home?

Should the government try and fix the godalmightymesscalledindia or what?

There is a news report today from the capital of socialist India, New Delhi, the capital city of Manmohan’s government: An incense seller’s little son is mowed down on the road. He doesn’t get justice for over 9 months. The cops want money; he is poor. He and his family therefore start begging outside the courts and then send this money to the police commissioner!

I am therefore inclined to accept the crux of Harsh V Pant’s column: “Dr. Singh, Lead or Leave”.

Indeed, every idea of this man has been wrong-headed – from the “education cess” to the “rural employment scheme” to everything else.

In reality, the man just sat back and let Indian crumble.

He should quit.

War Footing Required On Roads

The news today is that the Karnataka government has finally given the nod for the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway – the famous infrastructure corridor being built by a private firm, NICE.

I recall the day in early 1998, when this project was much in the news, that the British transport economist, author of Street Smart (see my review of this important book here), Gabriel Roth, visited India as a consultant to the project. I had my first occasion to meet him then.

10 years have gone by.

The road is still being ‘cleared’ by the government.

Actually, even the prestigious Golden Quadrilateral government project is heavily delayed. It will take many more years to be completed. Read the disappointing report on its progress here.

In my book, roads in India should be built on a WAR FOOTING.

Vital urgency must be injected into road construction all over India because the automobile revolution is already upon us.

If India does not build roads and attend to matters like traffic management, she will suffer greatly.

Every one of India’s cities (including Bangalore) is experiencing traffic grid-lock on the streets.

Yet, there is abundant land.

The shortage is not of land, the excess is not of population – the only real shortage is of roads, a government monopoly.

Something must be done – and fast.

To My Funny Valentine

Happy Birthday, my little Yeda,

And I'm a Yeda too!