Miswin's sirius

What if Adam Smith was wrong? The problem is not with capitalism being better or worser than socialism. The problem is with the science of economics.

For what its worth: What is worth?
Wealth builds nations. Nations build wealth. A palindrome that sums up the 1208 pages that make the greatest book written on economics. The four factors, land, labor, capital and the entrepreneur get returns as we carry out economic activities in the name of living. What about earth. What is its return? Surely this is an unsustainable model that we expect every country to develop. Of course its a dream. To see the whole world developed. But we need to redefine development. Development is not getting a bigger GDP. For that is converting natural resources into monetary wealth. And the faster you can do that the better acccording to the economy that we have learnt about and lived in. Convert trees into wood. Water into Juice. Just sell, sell and sell. In the name of making jobs. The argument is, people wont have jobs if companies didnt make money. And companies wont make money if they didnt sell. Dont people get this crazy chain of events that we are indulging in in order to carry forward our nation. But is there an alternative. Should we still have a 'Zombie Economy' that will only work if people buy things.

Of course there is. We need to collaborate upon it. Not debate on wealth distribution. But debate on wealth. Or more importantly 'worth'? Can we keep printing money from thin air. Can we still have millionaires who can afford anything they want in any number. The answer probably lies in the animal kingdom. Or maybe in myth. Or maybe going back to barter, a place where people wont inherit wealth. Where wealth cannot be stored as money. Where people would share things for things. Or wealth itself never existed and worth never needed to be paid for. Yes we can still think of an alternative system.

I would like to imagine a model where the ignored factor of production: EARTH. Gets a return. Yes! Just like labour gets wage, capital gets interest and the risk taker gets profit. Well economists may argue; land gets rent. But who is land. Some guy who owns a paper saying he owns that place because his father did or because he got it using his purchasing power. Either way. The land as in earth doesnot get benefitted. Whether people are going deeper on it to get a mineral, or building houses to create an asset bubble like we saw recently.

And yes about the asset bubble. Everyones blaming the bankers arent they. What about the marketers. Those men and women who sit in their offices and think of an ad campaign. Those men and women who call you up and ask you if you need something you never want. Yes, the marketers, the mascot of corporations. Who have managed to induce consumerism as a fad. And the economists like I said earlier support them by saying. Well if General Motors doesnot sell another car then they wont be able to make money. And when they dont make money they will have to lay off people. I think we need more of Joseph Schumpters Creative Destruction. If GM thinks it can keep selling cars to people. Its wrong! And if neo-economics tells us that corporations must keep selling or else we wont have jobs. Then they are wrong too. And maybe profit is wrong. Why do developing nations need capital from developed nations. Since they have the labour why dont they themselves start organising and using their resources. Why Capital? Can we make incentives internally?

Since my idea is in its chaotic form, I have put an analogy below for better understanding.
You find a mango tree. You get a mango from the tree. You eat the mango. The seed from the mango? Respect it. Dont throw it in the bin. Dig it in your backyard. Or throw it on a piece of land where you know there is atleast a small possibility for it to grow up. The throwing the seed in the bin approach is what the world is doing in the name of development. Same applies if you've bought grapes from the market. Throw the seeds onto your yard! Thats the concept of this fancy sounding greedy word''quid pro quo'' isnt it. Why do you think fruits were designed to be delicious. So that we would use our intelligence in picking it from the tallest trees. And once we eat it, we would show the same intelligence by giving the seed a chance. I think even monkeys throw the seeds on a good patch of land once their done. Give a return for nature. This is just a small example of how individual people can help make an economy that respects nature rather than exploits it.

Heres a great deed on the same lines that is popularly done by environmentalists.  For every tree cut, a sapling is grown. Can such ideas be applied. For every fish fished? Or For every home built, shirt stitched or train gone? Carbon trading also if its done is a neat step forward.

Lets understand worth or forget all about it; but in the end lets make this world a better place.
Where trade would be called share
Where nations would rise and the earth shall be!

Ive always wanted to know why America is what it is. In my analysis of nations, i couldnt quite figure out how it all began. A big piece of land(kind of looks like an island, wonder why people dont call it one). Columbus finds it. Colonization starts. The Britishers arrive. Natives dont feel like natives. George is not from washington, but washington became the name of the place. And then the hub of innovation. The nation embraces capitalism. Open to immigration. Magnet for the best from every part of the world. The chain. Once the hub is set. More and more of the best minds flock. Innovation breeds. Standard of living improves and abracadabra.. The United states of America. with the USP of the American Dream is real.

The missing piece of my dilemma is what happened in the three weeks of a June in a place called Bretton Woods. A league of gentlemen changed the way the world would trade money...  (more on this once im done with all the papers on bretton)

If I was the Prime Minister of India. I would have looked straight at the camera and said these words.

''We donot want to know who you are. We are a nation of a billion names and faces. And eventhough we see your face we will not recognize your race. Today. You sprayed bullets in our city. But you can never tear our hearts. You ripped the love of families. But the whole nation shares their grief. Today, you put tears in our eyes. But we will not fear you.

You should know that you can never paralyse this nation with bullets. You have lost.

You should know that you cannot poison the minds of our citizens. Hindus, Christians, Muslims , Sikhs will embrace each other today. Though you may have a Muslim name. Our people donot recognize your affiliation to the religion of Islam. We understand that no religion on earth defines your action. The brotherhood of this nation is far greater than the pettiness of your hatred and anger. We will not fight each other. You have lost.

Though you may bear passports of our neighbours. We the citizens of India know that no nation shall breed you. You do not belong to anywhere. We will not point our fingers today and make a script of blame frames. Instead we will remember today as a testament to our resilience as a nation. You have lost.

However, you made us realise that we have failed. Not as people but as government.Today,  We the government have failed to protect our citizens. We failed to recognize your existence. Our thoughts were on foreign trade and nuclear deals. Our thoughts were on numbers and zeroes that made this economy. We undermined our domestic security. And, my government will take measures to correct this. Domestic security will and should be the priority of any government. And I would like to apologize to my people for failing to understand this earlier.

Our heroes are braving their lives to capture you today. And I am sure that this collective thought and spirit of my country will kill the rest of you. Your purpose will always be defeated in this country and in any country in the world.

  Today we will support our heroes

Today we will embrace ourselves..

Today we will sing our national anthem

Today we will pray, in the unity of the hymns of all religions that make this nation. For the souls that have departed.

We are one.'' Jai Hind.

Miswin

I am twenty. Exactly in between the tug of war between fifteen and twenty five. From the dreamer of fifteen to the anybody of twenty five, its not at all just numbers that become years that become ages. It is about the I in the me. On the day the date became the tangent of my life I exclaimed casually to a dear friend that i didnt feel the enormity of the number that has just become my age. I was told to wait.

I didnt have to wait too long. Different was on its way. My handwriting has changed. Its become more horizontally illegible rather than the previous vertically hyper sharpened lines that looked like some egyptian script which was really beautiful to see from far, but from near could only be comprehended by moi. Next, i suddenly find the color orange very attractive. No more purple or violet. hmm. what was the difference, one is light one is dark..blah..ive been told again and again.ok then where does indigo fit in to all of this. someone needs to stop calling colors by its name, and just describe how the color makes you feel. and not only the favourites. everything. Maybe there are still a lot of colors that i havent seen to truly have a favourite. But in total accordance to who i know i am, i will never have a favourite color. All colors make the world i know. And i love the world i know.

And then the shocker. We've got to choose our area of specialization next semester. And i have decided to choose marketing. No more finance. Well heres the reasoning, on turning twenty i realised what i would be doing if i were in the field of finance. probably become an investment banker like id wanted to become and then what... Ive only got less than a hundred years to live and I AM NOT going to spend that crunching numbers for some rich guy.. yes thats what investment bankers do.. they can never sleep.. they make bets on other peoples money.. they have to make money from money.. and if they dont they are fired.. no wonder they get paid really high.. its not that i no longer love risk... I will risk only for myself. eg. if i still get a chance to become a sailor. i would. Even if the risk element in the form of the somalian pirates are there, that would be classified as a challenge and not a rrrrrrisk..Simple point.. i wont waste my emotions... for someone else.. ive only got a hundred years to live.. repeatez.. But this doesnt mean i dont want to become the finance minister of this country.  and not its not the 15 year old winning the tug. If qualified in public policy and given a chance. I would certainly accept the post, the only caveat being that the communists must come back  to power.

I am going to choose something that ive always loved. Advertising. And it is my conviction that given the economic conditions at the time I graduate , marketers will be the ones that will be needed to pull the economy from the abyss, not people who can cuddle numbers. They are for the times of prosperity. And that is when?

My thanksgiving day is today. To the heroes who made my performance possible. My dream team of mentors.

Mum, Dad : The true masters of my endeavour.

Mr. Gautam Puri: For teaching us to solve geometry using the admit card as a scale and coins of 50 paise and 1 rupee for circles.

Mr. Chandramoli, for helping us build the thought algorithms needed to think logically. Sir, you puzzled us as much as you taught us.

Ms. Geeta, for the endless gyaan on the language. Who told us not to learn the rules of grammar, but to read so much that you would become a grammar auditor and discover the audacity of words when they become sentences.

Mr. Govinda, The gardener in our college: for letting me sleep on the grass and study, especially when he does such a hard job everyday tending it so that beautiful species of butterflies and squirrels can be invited.

Mr. Victor, for all the times he slapped my wrist and took the fiddle from me. Who kept telling me that I am no good with the instrument. Who was never satisfied with what i played(rather how I played). Telling me that my notes were never close to perfect and when i somehow managed to get the notes right tell me that i had no emotion in it. paradox of perfection. Notwithstanding you never tuned my ears only to play another bach or another mozart. You tuned me to play my own song.

My coach on the field, you taught us more than football. You taught us to face our deepest fears. uncensored performance. to compete without recognizing the enemy. win without knowing you are winning.

Friends: the champions of my life.. who inspire me to inspire myself.

The list is endless.... i could go on and on from the ice cream factory that made the ice creams that i ate to hike my emotions when i was feeling low, the artists who sung the wonderful songs outlandish 'walou". david cook ''time of my life'.. switchfoot 'dare you to move'''. paulo coelho for producing an amazing book that never ceases to inspire. I would like to end with a quote from his book that helped me cool my nerves today:
"The warrior smiles because nothing frightens him and nothing holds him. With the confidence of one who knows what he wants, he opens the door''                                                                                                                                   

THANKYOU! THIS DAY WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT YOU ALL!