Did India lose golden oppurtinity in getting rich for good?

India waited more than decade after china entered globalized markets. This made Chinese people richer and bettered their living standards. There is growing sense of "protectionism" in richer countries and that free markets don't have right solutions for "manipulation" of currencies by countries with trade surpluses.

However, protectionism would not even work for rich countries. Just like how Britain's economy collapsed after second world war when they turned protectionist. There will probably be a reversal of protectionism in a decade from now. Unlike the impression being portrayed by media, US has by no means turned protectionist under Obama administration.

Printing of more dollars might not make it a cheaper currency

As US prints trillions of dollars to fix the credit and housing crisis, one would expect dollar to become cheaper compared to other currencies. The countries with huge loads of currencies and countries which depend heavily on US trade have incentive to keep US dollar strong. Those governments (not just China) will keep buying US dollars for a long time to come.

This might not even create hyper-inflation in US because the demand for US dollar goes up as it loses more value. Unless, the currency used in international trade (especially oil) and currency used for savings does not change, we don't have anything to worry about...Let federal reserve print even more money. Also let's keep controlling the governments which supply oil.

More f-16s and drones are what we need!

User generated content helps media to be biased without accountability

We all know most media portals and TV channels are biased. Traditionally, they brought speakers from their group to project biased opinions, while having a bunch of their employees doing the so-called moderator job.

With user generated content like Youtube and I-Report by CNN, they can safely just show popular videos containing false or biased content without any accountability whatsoever. So, CNN can have a user generated video titled "Republicans' link with Saudi Arabia unearthed" in their home page and spread their liberal bias without owning up for the accountability..

Eventually, People will learn to filter this content when they read the news.

Need cash for my clunker TV and clunker mobile phone

Why just cars? I need my TV and mobile phones to be upgraded. As a matter of fact, the TVs and phones today are much greener (less energy consumption) than the ones I bought couple of years back.

This would also have cascading effect of helping job losses in electronic and semi-conductor industries..

Why not have the clunker program for TVs and mobile phones?
OOPS.. I almost forgot.. US Govt, led by Obama, invested in GM. Now, they need justification for the investment.

Democrats are consistently inconsistent on immigration

(1) Liberals don't want jobs to go offshore

(2) Liberals don't want people coming in here on H1B visas and compete with you on 100k+ jobs

(3) But, they do want to offer citizenship for illegal mexicans who don't compete with rich people, but compete with people with lower income

(4) Liberals want tax-paying H1B citizens to go through 10-year process to get a green card, where as they would like to see non--tax-paying illegals to get a citizenship right away.

(5) Then Liberals want to raise taxes to support healthcare for the illegal aliens.

Stop kidding yourselves.. Obama is not your champion as well. Obama fixed the immigration loopholes in H1B system, where many Indians were just getting the visas, but were not using them. By doing that, he ensured all 65000 visas get used. There are going to more people to compete with you..Ha ha

Medicare, medicaid, social security and other Government social programs should be opt-ins

Govt should have a seperate body where people can buy these services from. Only people who buy into those services should be taxed. If Govt wants to tax people on a sliding scale for those services, it can.

The fact is many people are going to object.. Why not all government services, including defense, military spending. Defense and military are absolutely essential for everyone. People don't have a consensus on if they want medical care from Government. A Govt hospital is going to be managed no differently than DMV. I , for sure, don't want to go to such a hospital.

Make all these social programs opt-in. If you opt-out even once in your life, you don't get the benefits. I think that's a fair model.

Power saving remote strips need to get smarter

I recently bought a Belkin power strip which helps save power by switching off power supply to all electronic devices (TV, VCR, PS3, Wii, DVD player, Bose audio system, cable receiver). The power strip comes with a remote. Instead of 10 devices listening for remotes, I just have one.

But, most electronic devices were never made to work very well with this kind of model. Here are some problems I have with this device

(1) My PS3 is a full fledged computer, which works better if I don't cut-off power supply regularly. PS3 would like me to shut it down before i cut off the power supply

(2) Bose does not have hard-state memory..So,i have to reconfigure it every time i restart it

(3) My Direct-tv cable receiver box has a 10-minute startup time if i reboot it.

Tickers which guage economy

• BDIY:IND (Baltic dry index... Indication of international shipping rates.. hence in turn is an indication how well international trade is doing) - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=BDIY%3AIND
  
• TEDSP:IND (ted spread - inter-bank lending spread.. indication of lending between banks)
• Yields on US treasury bonds
• Gold and Crude Oil Prices ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=GLD%3AUS)
  
• S&P 500 Index (and it's P/E, Price to Book)
  

Delayed news = Less speculation

The faster the unofficial financial news you get, more is the speculation built into it. However, this is not necessarily always true.

For example, here are different forms of financial news sources in the order of speculation, from highest to lowest
(0) Word of mouth
(1) Wall street floor
(2) Online discussion boards (Like Y! finance)
(3) Stupid Stock alert services
(4) Mainstream news
(5) Analysts announcement of financial status of company

Playing on speculation is not necessarily bad.. As efficient market theory says "Once the news is out, the news is already factored into the stock price."

My favourite TEA-party pictures

Who's really affected by higher taxes on higher income?

Many people often commit blunder in judgment on who's affected by higher taxes on higher income group.

Rich people are rich by what they have earned already. They are not rich because of what they are about to earn. The only way poor people can get richer is by earning higher income. If Govt taxes higher income at higher rates, it robs poor people of opportunity to get rich. Not to mention, higher tax rates invariables affects businesses, which would hire fewer people.

If Govt really wants to transfer money from rich people to the poor, tax people on what they have already earned, not on what they are about to earn..

This probably explains why rich Democrats want to tax higher income group people. Higher taxes on higher income people ensure poor people remain poor.

Never beleive the rich crooks who only pay capital gains on their income and come out in support of higher income taxes for the rich.

Capitalism and wars

In a capitalist country where defense equipment manufacturing and innovation are privatized, we need periodic wars to keep those companies afloat. For example, in US, Raytheon, Lockhead_martin and other defense manufactures rely heavily on Govt's consumption of military equipment for survival.

Periodic wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan(1980), Gulf war, Sep_11 response and Iraq war were essential in keeping these companies afloat.

Capitalism buys us freedom and "wars" is the cost of it. I am willing to pay taxes for my freedom.

No risk = No return holds for 401(k)s as well

People are feeling the pain that their 401(k)s have lost a ton of money in last year. Some are questioning if 401(k) plans with privately managed funds is even a good idea.

There are certain types of funds in 401(k) that never (almost never) lose money. They are called money market funds. They are no different than your savings accounts. But, who wants them? No one.. Everyone wants to invest in stocks (or) bonds..

In the long run, holding on your mutual funds, which probably lost more than 30% value in last year, is still a good idea.

Were banks really selfish?

In past year, dozens of banks became extinct and few others were acquired by larger banks. CDOs were largely the reason for that. Biased radio programs and political newstalk blame that CDOs were by-product of selfishness of bank management. I beg to differ. Think for a second... Do you really beleive dozens of banks which existed for a long time suddenly started becoming selfish ? And that too, all at the same time?.. That just can't be true and is not true at all. What really happened was that new financial products fundamentally changed the way banks lend money. Free market proved that sometimes they don't work.

People these days look at big banks like Bank of America, Citigroup and other financial companies like AIG and Lehman brothers as evil entities. Reality is that it's only remote divisions in these banks which were involved in subprime lending. However, these small divisions burned down the whole companies.

Bail the banks out and we'll all be better off. (or) At least keep the banks afloat for a long time to come. I don't want to go to a Govt office to collect my check. Do you remember the last time you went to a Driver's license office... Did u like that experience?

Irrationalism all over

Some say that roots of current recession have to do with the fact that banks and other financial institutions acted against their own self-interest. That definetely seems to be the case. Either knowingly (or) unknowingly (or) yieding to the pressure of stockholders to provide quick short-term returns, companies did behave irrationally against their own interest.

However, when Govt institutions have been proven to be corrupt over and over again, people still look up to the Govt and are even willing to give them more money to solve their problems. Isn't that irrational? When Govt keeps increasing their expenses, which is the root cause of deficits, people still are willing to give them more money over and over again. It is in people's best interest to ask Govt (no matter who is in power) to cut down costs instead of asking them to balance the budget. It's not a question of belief in individual or collective responsibility. It's a question of accountability and fiscal discipline. People are willing to pour their hard earned money over and over again in something that costs them more and more.

Yes, I agree. Sometimes, people behave irrationally.