India to topple Japan as world's 3rd-largest economy

India might become the world's third largest economy in 2011 by overtaking Japan in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) measured according to the domestic purchasing power of the rupee, otherwise called purchasing power parity.

India is now the fourth-largest economy behind the US, China and Japan. Numbers from 2010 show that the Japanese economy was worth $4.31 trillion, with India snapping at its heels at $4.06 trillion. But after March's devastating tsunami and earthquakes, Japan's economy is widely expected to contract while India's economy will grow between 7% and 8% this fiscal. "India should overtake Japan in 2011 to become the third-largest economy in the world at purchasing power parity," said Sunil Sinha, head of research and senior economist at Crisil.

IMF forecasts show India and Japan neck-to-neck in 2011, but the disaster in Japan has brought the event forward. "Were it not for the earthquake and tsunami, India would have overtaken Japan in around 2013-14," said Sinha.

The purchasing power parity (PPP) method measures the size of an economy by levelling price differences between countries that occur in the process of conversion to a single currency.

Under this method, a dollar should be able to buy the same amount of goods anywhere in the world and exchange rates should adjust accordingly.

The Economist's Big Mac Index, which takes the price of a Big Mac burger across 120 countries to calculate the 'real' price of its currency, is a crude way to measure PPP. India was included in the index recently. It showed that the Indian rupee was undervalued by 53% against the US dollar in August.

Earlier, a report by consultant PwC suggested that the Indian economy would surpass the Japanese economy in 2012. The IMF expects the Japanese economy to contract 0.7% this year while India is expected to grow 8.2%. A bigger economy could also give the government additional clout and bargaining power overseas.

"A bigger economy would also mean more clout in international forums," said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at ratings firm Care.

Rich getting Richer,Poor getting Poorer and the middle classe? - disappearing

How is the middle class is faltering in the US - from howtheworldworks :

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that big American consumer product companies are beginning to split their product offerings between retail lines aimed either at the low end or the high end.


For generations, Procter & Gamble Co.'s growth strategy was focused on developing household staples for the vast American middle class.

Now, P&G executives say many of its former middle-market shoppers are trading down to lower-priced goods -- widening the pools of have and have-not consumers at the expense of the middle....

A wide swath of American companies is convinced that the consumer market is bifurcating into high and low ends and eroding in the middle. They have begun to alter the way they research, develop and market their products.

Food giant H.J. Heinz Co., for example, is developing more products at lower price ranges. Luxury retailer Saks Inc. is bolstering its high-end apparel and accessories because its wealthiest customers -- not those drawn to entry-level items -- are driving the chain's growth.


But here's the kicker:


To monitor the evolving American consumer market, P&G executives study the Gini index, a widely accepted measure of income inequality that ranges from zero, when everyone earns the same amount, to one, when all income goes to only one person. In 2009, the most recent calculation available, the Gini coefficient totaled 0.468, a 20 percent rise in income disparity over the past 40 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"We now have a Gini index similar to the Philippines and Mexico -- you'd never have imagined that," says Phyllis Jackson, P&G's vice president of consumer market knowledge for North America. "I don't think we've typically thought about America as a country with big income gaps to this extent."

The new numbers from the Census Bureau peg 2010's Gini coefficient at 0.469, which, statistically speaking, doesn't represent a significant change in income inequality as compared to 2009. However, the Bureau notes, "changes in shares of aggregate household income by quintiles showed a slight shift to more inequality." So the basic trend is still depressingly in place.

It's not hard to understand what is happening here. The middle class, squeezed by globalization and advances in technology, is sinking backward, while the rich benefit disproportionately from gains in trade and excessively accommodative tax policy.


My Take: With Oil Price and Interest Rates hikes happening every month, it is soon going to be Indians turn.

Reverse Colonialism - Turn of the tide in globalization?

What a twist of fate and churn in the globalization's history.. Snippets from an interesting article by Charles Payne..

Europe's drama has taken center stage as we wait for the next round of fireworks from the Fed, the Super Committee, White House (big refinance deal on drawing board) and the update on jobs data (shouldn't be hard to be zero). I find it amazing that markets settled down as rumors of a China bailout persisted. One Chinese official called it absurd since it would mean a country with per capita income of $4,000 is bailing out nations with per capita incomes of $40,000.

It goes to show just what can be done when people buckled down for decades and do with less, save half the money they make even when it's pennies, and wait until they have trillions in the bank to make their move. It also goes to show just what can be done when people feel entitled and spend like crazy for decades because they would never do with less or save any money they make or receive even when it's billions, so they gorge until there's nothing and then make their move. These moves seem to be colliding. As those decadent European nations that squandered greatness and fortunes are now sniffing around up and coming nations are being looked to for bailouts.


But, there is also a lesson about hunger. Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal have glorious histories of global domination, but as their dominance faded they lived a lie through political systems designed to make everyone feel a sense of power when in fact all the real power of free markets, entrepreneurship, and ambition was being snuffed out. Who's going to make up the collision that bails America out twenty years from now? Mexico, Turkey, Singapore, and Indonesia are on the right track to be our BRICS rescue team by then. The headlines will read: "MITS Bailout USA!"

Reportcard From them Master of Globalization Theory himself : All Together Now By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

HOLD onto your hats and your wallets. Since the end of the cold war, the global system has been held together to a large degree by four critical ruling bargains. Today all four are coming unstuck at once and will need to be rebuilt. Whether and how that rebuilding happens — beginning in the U.S. — will determine a lot about what’s in your wallet and whether your hat flies off.

Now let me say that in English: the European Union is cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model has suffered a warning heart attack and needs a total rethink. Recasting any one of these alone would be huge. Doing all four at once — when the world has never been more interconnected — is mind-boggling. We are again “present at the creation” — but of what?

Let’s start with the Middle East, the world’s oil tap. Libyans just joined Tunisians, Egyptians and Yemenis in ousting their dictator, while Syrians and Iranians hope to soon follow suit. In time, virtually every Middle East autocrat will be deposed or forced to share power. The old model can’t hold. That model was based on kings and military dictators capturing the oil revenue, ensconcing themselves in power — protected by well-financed armies and security services — and buying off key segments of their populations. That lid has been blown off by an Arab youth bulge that today can see just how everyone else is living and is no longer ready to accept being behind, undereducated, unemployed, humiliated and powerless. But while this old Middle East system — based on an iron fist and a fistful of petro-dollars holding together multiethnic/multireligious societies — has broken down, it will take time for these societies to write their own social contracts for how to live together without an iron fist from above. Hope for the best, prepare for anything.

Farther north, it was a nice idea, this European Union and euro-zone: Let’s have a monetary union and a common currency but let everyone run their own fiscal policy, as long as they swear to work and save like Germans. Alas, it was too good to be true. Large government welfare programs in some European countries, without the revenue to finance them from local production, eventually led to a piling up of sovereign debt — mostly owed to European banks — and then a lender revolt. The producer-savers in northern Europe are now drawing up a new deal with the overspenders — the PIIGS: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. It is unlikely that the Germans would just break out of the European Union, since a good chunk of their exports go to those overspending, uncompetitive countries. Instead, the northern Europeans are trying to force stronger, rule-based discipline on the PIIGS. But how much more austerity can these countries absorb, especially if there are further social stresses from deeper recessions? More than Londoners will take to the streets. One way or another, the European Union is going to get smaller or tighter, but in the process it could go through a chaotic, world-shaking transition that is not priced into the market yet.

Going East, China has been relying on a model built on a deliberately undervalued currency and export-led growth, with low domestic consumption and high savings. This has allowed the Communist Party to sustain a unique bargain with its people: We give you jobs and rising standards of living, and you give us power. This bargain is now under threat. Persistent unemployment in China’s American and European markets is making Beijing’s undervalued-currency/low-consumption/high-export model less sustainable for the world. China also has to get rich before it gets old. It has to move from two parents saving for one kid, to one kid paying for the retirement of two parents. To do that, it has to move from an assembly-copying-manufacturing economy to a knowledge-services-innovation economy. This requires more freedom and rule of law, and you can already see mounting demands for it. Something has to give there.

As for America, we’ve thrived in recent decades with a credit-consumption-led economy, whereby we maintained a middle class by using more steroids (easy credit, subprime mortgages and construction work) and less muscle-building (education, skill-building and innovation). It’s put us in a deep hole, and the only way to dig out now is a new, hybrid politics that mixes spending cuts, tax increases, tax reform and investments in infrastructure, education, research and production. But that mix is not the agenda of either party. Either our two parties find a way to collaborate in the center around this new hybrid politics, or a third party is going to emerge — or we’re stuck and the pain will just get worse.

When the world is experiencing so many wrenching changes at once — with already high unemployment and weak economies — the need for America, the most important pillar of all, to be rock solid is greater than ever. If we don’t get our act together — which will require collective action normally reserved for wartime — we are not going to just be prolonging an American crisis, but feeding a global one.

annarchy : when graft hit the top in India

The Economic Clash of the Civilizations - Why the US debt crisis will hit us all

This is an excellent article by the noted Chennaite Economist M R Venkatesh in Rediff.com

The government is on daily wages.

No. That is not a cynical comment by a political commentator on the Indian government. It is a factual interpretation of the state of affairs about the United States government.

The reason for the same is benumbing as much as baffling -- we are actually facing the once unthinkable prospect of the US defaulting on its debt obligations.

Naturally, this prospect raises fundamental questions. How could the world's sole superpower run the risk of defaulting on its debt obligations?

Is the US government heavily dependent on debt to fund its deficits? Why? And if so, what is its external component?

Crucially what happened to the economic theories developed by Nobel laureates -- no less -- and marketed with missionary zeal by various multilateral institutions led by the US Treasury?

Or does the malaise run far deeper that it seems on superficial examination. After all, the current imbroglio in the US is a constitutional issue -- apparently a legal bar limits the US government from contracting further debt (which already stands at a gargantuan $14.29 trillion).

And if the US lawmakers agree to raise the borrowing limit will it be business as usual, till the new limit is reached. At least this is what the world of finance hopes and prays. (Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said late on Sunday that top lawmakers have reached an agreement to reduce the budgetary deficit and avert a debt default that would have had a 'devastating' effect on American economy.)

Honestly, the issue is not as simple as it seems on first blush. Definitely, it is not a pure legal issue as the political fraternity in the US would like us to believe. Nor is it merely political or ideological as most economists would like us to believe.

And definitely it is not simple economics as most believe and would like us to believe. It is legal, political, economics and possibly much more.

Distanced, discredited, disowned

To appreciate what is stated above it is important to visit the root assumptions that govern modern economics in the three-decade period beginning the early eighties.

In fact, this is a subject of great debate amongst macroeconomists in recent times. According to one economist from Harvard, the past 30 years of macroeconomics training at American and British universities were a 'costly waste of time'. Yes, a costly waste of time!

The Economist, in an article titled The State of Economics (July 16, 2009) put the entire issue in proper perspective when it stated that ' . . . the macroeconomic crisis of the past two years is also provoking a crisis of confidence in macroeconomics.'


The article goes on to add, 'These internal critics argue that economists missed the origins of the crisis; failed to appreciate its worst symptoms; and cannot now agree about the cure. In other words, economists misread the economy on the way up, misread it on the way down and now mistake the right way out.'

At the core of the present conundrum are certain fundamental theories of macroeconomics -- much of which was debated, celebrated and even imposed on others -- without even considering the possibility that such ideas could be plainly wrong or unworkable in entirely different circumstances, countries or cultures.

Call it confidence or blame it on arrogance. Call it economic fundamentalism, or blame it on some conspiracy. The fact remains that most of the macroeconomic theories of the past three decades ensured cannibalisation of alternative ideas in the discipline of macroeconomics.

In the process any contrary economic ideas were put down ruthlessly all over the world.


It all began in the early eighties with the advent of Ronald Regan as the President of the US that spawned a new brand of economics -- Reagonomics -- which placed supply at the centre of economics.

And to effectuate this idea, tax cuts (so that an individual could have more money in his hands) and tariff cuts were carried out (which allowed globally access to goods at competitive rates).

Finally, interest rates were lowered to provide the last mile connectivity.

All this is good economics, except for the fact that this was overdone. And that can be simply explained. We need to produce to keep the wheels of economics moving.


Out of the production that is generated we need to consume a portion and leave the balance as savings. Savings are for investment. And investment is for production.

All this was turned on its head during that past 30 years or so by mainstream economists. Consumption was by design turned into a virtue.

In the process, explained through models, economics became extremely complex, complicated and jargonised.

In a remarkable coincidence, Reaganomics coincided with the rise of East Asia. Several East Asian countries had over the eighties and nineties, thanks to their economic policies, became huge suppliers of cheap yet quality goods to the global -- read the US markets.


Further, in the aftermath of Asian currency crisis, many Asian countries discovered the virtues of a weak currency and engaged in 'competitive devaluation'.

Under this scenario, many countries simply leveraged their weak currency vis-a-vis the US dollar to gain access to global markets.

While Asian countries continue to export, the US continues to import. Obviously, the current account deficit of the US becomes the current account surplus of other exporting countries, viz. China, Japan, as well as other oil producing and exporting countries.

Naturally, this arrangement -- where some countries continue to export and a few who continuously import and consume -- has created serious imbalances within the global economy.


Commenting on this paradigm, Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao stated in a lecture in New Delhi on July 31, 2009: 'Global macro imbalances got built up because of the large savings and current account surpluses in China and much of Asia in the wake of the East Asian crisis a decade ago. These were mirrored by large increases in leveraged consumption and current account deficits in the US.'

'In short, Asia produced and America consumed. There is a raging debate on what was the cause, and what the effect -- the US consumption boom or the Asian savings glut?, he said.

'Regardless, the bottomline is that one was simply the mirror of the other and the two share a symbiotic relationship,' he concluded.

The key words here are 'symbiotic relationship'. It is to be noted that this symbiotic relationship also goes by the sexed-up appellation of globalisation -- a mechanism that translates national imbalances into global imbalances, national problems into global ones.


It is therefore a matter of time that the US debt crisis spirals into a global one.

Sensing that this macroeconomic model has run its full course, the Chinese in their approach to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (which more or less coincide with our Five-Year Plans) have sought to rebalance their economy by increasing domestic consumption and simultaneously placing less reliance on exports.

Crucially, they plan to revalue their Yuan to more realistic levels. In short, they seem to distance themselves from what are the main causes for their spectacular growth over the past three decades.

The curse of excessive savings or consumption

In this scenario, economists have now sought to blame Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, for the economic crisis.


According to many, the 'irrational exuberance' exhibited by the US financial markets during the period leading to the 2008 financial crisis was an outcome of a lax monetary policy and extremely low interest rates.

Greenspan in turn seeks to defend himself. In a paper, titled The Crisis and presented in April 2010, Greenspan states: 'A large segment of the erstwhile Third World nations, especially China, replicated the successful economic export-oriented model of the so-called Asian Tigers: fairly well-educated, low-cost workforces joined with developed-world technology, protected by an increasing rule of law, unleashed explosive economic growth.'

Further, Greenspan says, 'In the developing world, consumption restrained by culture and inadequate consumer finance could not keep up with the surge of income and, as a consequence, the savings rate of the developing world soared from 24% of nominal GDP in 1999 to 34% by 2007, far outstripping its investment rate.'

But the moot point is if the culture in developing countries is the cause of excessive savings, as Greenspan argues, then should not culture be the cause of excessive consumption in the West too? Strangely Greenspan is silent on this issue.


This is where the Chinese are facing significant difficulties in rebalancing their economy. Used as they are to excessive savings (due to cultural factors) it is as difficult to make the Chinese spend as much as it is difficult to get an American not to spend!

Now the world of macroeconomists would see for itself that excessive spending is as much a challenge as excessive savings.

Macroeconomists who had marketed economic theories as models and models as gospel are loathe to realise this fundamental truth.

Naturally they stand discredited, even in their own eyes. The US debt crisis is merely an extension of the crisis of modern economics -- a discipline that seems to have lost respect for discipline.


Certainly, the US will shortly face the music on account of its excessive debt. So will those countries that saved excessively.

The world is divided even to this day over the role of Greenspan in triggering the economic crisis of 2008.

Nevertheless, he needs to be congratulated, atleast for one issue: he has linked economics to culture for the first time in 30 years.

Will it trigger a rewriting of economics all over once again?

My Comment : or, Can the economic clash of the civilizations spilover to political domain too?

U.S. AAA downgrade could accelerate dollar decline

In a Huge Reversal of Fortunes, The US has lost its AAA rating.

Already reeling from low interest rates, slow economic growth, and foreign investors eager to diversify away from U.S. assets, the loss of AAA status could cement the view the dollar is no longer the safest harbor in a troubled world.

The risk of a downgrade remains real even after Washington's $2.1 trillion budget savings deal, since it fell well short of the $4 trillion Standard & Poor's said would be enough to support the AAA rating with a stable outlook.

The S&P 500 absorbed its worst one week decline since November 2008 as concerns grew about the inability of world political leaders to deal with the European debt crisis or the faltering U.S. economic recovery.

And even though the S&P and other U.S. stock indices closed Friday either modestly higher or lower, the flight to safety in the form of cold hard cash is one that seems unlikely to end anytime soon.

For years, the dollar has acted as the world's reserve currency, an international store of value for central banks.

However, the fact the other safe-haven currencies are gaining at the expense of the dollar suggests investors' views may already be changing, perhaps in anticipation of a downgrade or at least a tough fight to hang on to AAA.

THE JAPAN EXPERIENCE

The fact that the yen has retained much of its value in the face of a Japanese downgrade over the past decade, including the most recent action by S&P earlier this year, does not suggest the dollar would be similarly immune, analysts said.

The yen is not the world's primary reserve currency, representing just under 4 percent of global reserves. The dollar is, with its share of global reserves at 60.7 percent.

Is Gold  set for another steep rise?

The Rise of Contract Farming

Wallstreet Journal India report : major revolution brewing in Indian Agriculture ?

Keypoints in the report:

Contract farming — businesses signing contracts with farmers to grow a specific crop, even a specific seed variety, and guaranteeing buy-back of the produce at an agreed price or price range — holds the promise that the next generation of yield improvements could come through efforts from the private sector.

PepsiCo was one of the earliest promoters of the contract-farming model in India. In 1997, it set up a tomato processing plant in Punjab, not a traditional tomato growing area, and started tying up with local farmers to grow tomato varieties needed for ketchup.

Although PepsiCo has since exited tomato processing, it still works with 12,000 farmers, primarily to procure potatoes for potato chips.

SAB Miller India — an Indian subsidiary of the global beer group — required 75,000 tons of barley last year for its brewing operations. But, in India, barley is mainly grown as animal feed and the local variety is not suited for extracting malt, a key intermediate step in brewing beer.

While procuring from local mandis in the main barley producing regions — Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand — SAB Miller found that a lack of uniformity in grain size and mixing of different varieties of barley increased processing costs and resulted in lower quality beer.

In response, SAB Miller launched an initiative to provide higher-quality certified seeds, training and extension services to teach farmers best practices in growing barley.

However, it should not be thought of as a panacea to the web of problems facing the Indian agricultural sector. Private initiative cannot be expected to fix basic, widespread problems including groundwater depletion, excessive fertilizer use and farmer suicides due to indebtedness; those still require policy reforms and concerted public interventions. Perhaps most importantly, in the context of declining public investments, the government needs to speed up liberalization measures to attract greater private investment into the agricultural sector.

It's the economy stupid - or It's the Political/Military Power?

Michael Snyde of the business insider's blog on the economic collapse of  the US is providing a wealth of information on the economic undercurrents of the global economy.Snyde's arguments are from "It's the economy stupid" standpoint.

Even the well meaning Obama has resorted to political gimmicks like killing Osama bin Laden to sustain himself. He seems to tell everyone that "It's the political/military showmanship, stupid".

The military and political might of the US is what sustaining the US's global standing today. Technological leadership is also a crucial factor. "It's the economy, stupid"  argument seems to be valid only during the elections in the US.

Can the US reshape its economy just by its political power just like it is imposing its will on other countries.
or, the next country to be invaded by the US military would the USA itself.

If Anna Hazare is the new Gandhi, who is the new Nehru?

Sonia Gandhi had finally blinked and accepted for a joint committee for drafting the Lok Pal Bill. With this win, everyone accepts that Anna Hazare is the new Gandhi. I happenned to see an excellent comments from the public on the television. Here are some:

If Anna Hazare is the new Gandhi, who is the new Nehru?

Kapil Sibal had told that Large Heartedness of Sonia and Manmohansingh had made the Government accept Anna Hazare's demands. Is it reallyLarge Heartedness of Sonia and Manmohansingh or Large heartedness of the People?

Ministers are like hired drivers for a Car. If the driver thinks that he is the master of the car and is driving recklessly, can the owners/people tolerate that?
- Chetan Bhagat.

Anna Hazare - Ray of Hope

Anna Hazare's Hunger Strike is one of the rarest of the rare moments in Indian Political History. The spontaneous show of support across the country is really a revelation to all the Indians. Anna Hazare has the moral strength to mobilize  Indians.

My Comments on this movement : Manmohan Singh's True Colors is now in full view for all the Indians to see.  His rejection of the Lok Pal Bill reveals his real self. People like him who wear the deer's skin are more dangerous than the overtly carnivorous A.Rajas of the world.

Twitter, Facebook and all of social media are now in action in India too. Is this India's Moment of Social Reform ?

How will America handle the fall of its Middle East empire?

Highlights from Telegraph Blog article:

1. Empires can collapse in the course of a generation. At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish looked dominant. Twenty-five years later, they were on their knees, over-extended, bankrupt, and incapable of coping with the emergent maritime powers of Britain and Holland. The British empire reached its fullest extent in 1930. Twenty years later, it was all over.

Today, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States, seemingly invincible a decade ago, will follow the same trajectory. America has suffered two convulsive blows in the last three years. The first was the financial crisis of 2008, whose consequences are yet to be properly felt. Although the immediate cause was the debacle in the mortgage market, the underlying problem was chronic imbalance in the economy.

2. Just as 1989 saw the collapse of the Russian empire in Eastern Europe, so it now looks as if 2011 will mark the removal of many of America’s client regimes in the Arab world. It is highly unlikely, however, that events will thereafter take the tidy path the White House would prefer. Far from being inspired by Twitter, a great many of Arab people who have driven the sensational events of recent weeks are illiterate. They have been impelled into action by mass poverty and unemployment, allied to a sense of disgust at vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption. It is too early to chart the future course of events with confidence, but it seems unlikely that these liberated peoples will look to Washington and New York as their political or economic model.

3. the world is changing faster than we know.

US and Europe doing damage control?

Suddenly the US and Europe have become pro-democratic and are opposing the Gaddafis and Mubaraks of the world. This reminds me of Sonia Gandhi & Rahul Gandhi's comments on how corruption is a big threat for India.

All the politicians, all over the world are same.

Ha, I have now become middle aged guy.

Carry Trades Running Away (with the money)

When the markets tanked (Sensex at 17,000 )sometime back ,Carry Traders came in and pushed it up to (Sensex - 21,000). They also pushed up the inflation in entire Asia. Now after Eyptian Crisis (fueled by inflation), the Carry Traders are now back to home. Thanks to them, the Sensex has tanked again to 17,000 levels.

Who is to pay for the difference of (21,000 - 17,000)? Poor Middle Class Indians, mainly due to inflation.

This brings me to remember the monkey story about the stock markets. Have you heard it?

Egyptian Mummy is back in Action

As US has successfully exported its economic problem to other countries, it is now coming back to it
in politically. It seems that the first of the countries that are feeling the heat of the inflation are its key allies, like Egypt. Now in many of the countries inflation is spilling into political turmoil, so intensive that even 30-40 year old regimes are threatened.

Back in India, We are having the most cynical of political situations. Rahul Gandhi, member of the political family in power, is calling on people to change the System instead of keep on shouting..

Mubarak, don't call Obama on how to manage the situation.. Call Rahul Gandhi for some real advise..

Emerging economies caught in inflation dilemma

Analysis : Emerging economies, seen as the big hope for global growth this year, are caught in a tricky dilemma: let inflation rip and hurt stability or raise rates and risk stalling their economies.

Ladies and Gentleman, this is the way through which America has once again escaped its problems. Now it has outsourced the Inflation threat to other countries and is cooling off happily as usual.

When will Indians and Chinese stand up to this?

Inflation as a ploy : No tax worse than inflation: Chidambaram

Read the comment by Chidambaram about Inflation:
Concerned over high inflation, Union Home Minister P Chidamabaram on Wednesday expressed doubt on whether the government had all instruments to check price rise. " inflation is high, food inflation is very high... we are not sure whether we have all the tools in hands to control food inflation," Chidambaram said at a function organised by Skoch consultancy.


I think that Congress is using Inflation as a ploy to divert public attention from 2G scam. I should concede that this ploy has worked wonderfully. Is the public punished for talking too much?

WikiLeaks' Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much US Government Lies to its own citizens

Try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them."

-- Julian Assange, 2007 blog entry

Do you believe that it is in Americans' interest to allow a small group of U.S. leaders to unilaterally murder, maim, imprison and/or torture anyone they choose anywhere in the world, without the knowledge let alone oversight of their citizens or the international community? And, despite their proven record of failure to protect America -- from Indochina to Iran to Iraq -- do you believe they should be permitted to clandestinely expand their war-making without informed public debate? If so, you are betraying the principles upon which America was founded, endangering your nation, and displaying a distinctly "unamerican" subservience to unaccountable authority. But if you oppose autocratic power, you are called to support Wikileaks and others trying to limit U.S. Executive Branch mass murder abroad and failure to protect Americans at home.

These two issues became officially linked for the first time when former U.S. Afghan commander General Stanley McChrystal explicitly stated that the murder of civilians increases rather than decreases the numbers of those committed to killing Americans, and actually implemented policies -- since reversed by General Petraeus -- to reduce U.S. murder of civilians. McChrystal said that “for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies." By so doing he made it clear that killing civilians is not only a moral and war crimes issue, but -- in today's interdependent world -- also threatens U.S. national security.

Source : Alternet.org