India returns to Hindu growth rate talk: The Indian Express

We should be thankful to The Indian Express for pointing out the blatantly obvious truth in its article titled: India returns to Hindu growth rate talk. The so-called government of “aam-admi” has failed to come up with any policy that can bring some respite to the people. Instead of unleashing India’s spirit of free enterprise through much needed economic reform, the govt. has created unwieldy schemes that put even more discretionary power into the hands of ministers.

Inflation is being fuelled primarily by rampant govt. expenditure. But the leaders refuse to cut spending. They demand more revenue.

Today we have a situation where all kinds of Catch-22 type of regulations are ravaging the nation's savings, suffocating ambition, undermining free enterprise, and penalising the hardworking and the efficient while rewarding the corrupt and foolish. Instead of maintaining law and order, the entire focus of the govt. is on distributing money to people who have not earned it in hope of creating new vote banks.

India once again faces the danger of reverting back to the situation when we were plagued by the so-called Hindu rate of growth. I find it insulting when anyone calls the low rates of economic growth as the Hindu rate of growth. Hinduism has nothing to do with it. Socialism, communism are European concepts. These ideologies have been imposed on our country by vested interests. The country cannot be really free until we get rid of these European ideologies.

Here is an interesting excerpt from The Indian Express article:

India has quickly come to regret Manmohan Singh’s second term as prime minister. The country’s most respected bureaucrat was handed a powerful mandate by his country’s voters two years ago and had a magnificent opportunity to modernise the economy. How distant that dream now seems.

Far from being in pole position among emerging markets, as it deserves, India trails in terms of attracting foreign capital and beating inflation. Some economists and industrialists fear India’s economy could shrink back towards what was derisively called the “Hindu rate of growth” from initial projections of 9 to 7 per cent this year. There is even speculation that the Singh government may not last the distance until elections in 2014 — though those who predict this may not appreciate that India’s electorate has nowhere else to go.

Senior executives complain bitterly about New Delhi’s painfully slow or inconsistent decision-making. Many local companies are focusing their investments on Africa or Latin America. Mr Singh’s administration will totter “on its last legs for the next three years”, says one executive. A more profound question is being posed: does India, with its 1.2 billion people, suffer such a lack of vision and accountability that those apparently bright prospects of two years ago can never be achieved.

Click here to read more.

It is the marketplace that creates jobs and not the politicians

Political parties claim that they create jobs for the entire country, but they don’t. The few jobs that they create are hardly productive. The govt. does not have any money of its own. So all it does is take money from one group of people and pass it on to another group.

The socialist thinkers in the UPA might claim that they have offered employment to many people through their rural job guarantee schemes. But try to think how much richer, freer and happier people in our rural areas would have been if they had been allowed to pursue their self-interests.

Instead of having these so-called rural job guarantee schemes, which are plagued by even more corruption than the ministries in Delhi, the govt. should have enacted reform measures that would have made it possible for private individuals to invest in building roads, schools and power stations in rural areas.

It is the individuals working in a free and fair marketplace, who create real jobs. Real jobs are not possible in a society where life and property are not safe. Economic freedom is the key. The truth is that we have so few real jobs today because govt. stands in the way of private investments.

Failure to understand gold

As the video below shows people are simply failing to understand gold. Gold does not need to be backed by anything, it is a value by itself.

It is of course one thing to ignore gold and silver and quite another to imply that investors are nervous about gold (which is up near tenfold from its lowest-low about a decade ago) because the yellow metal isn't "backed by anything."



I got the video from The Daily Bell. Here is a link to the complete article.

War on drugs violates civil liberties: The Daily Show

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul called the war on drugs “ridiculous” on a visit to “The Daily Show” last night. “I fear the war on drugs a lot more than I fear the drugs themselves,” Paul said. “And I think drugs are horrible.” Paul argued that the war on drugs was too costly and posed a threat to civil liberties. Watch the video.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Minimum Wage -- Another Example of Good Intentions Gone Wrong

Medieval doctors treated patients with leeches. Their intentions were good. They believed bloodletting removed poisons from the body. Unfortunately, the treatment actually made their patients worse. The same holds true for many modern economic remedies, like the minimum wage.

People of good will want to help low-income workers earn more. So why not just require employers to pay them more? This would give them more money which, when spent, would boost demand. What’s not to like?

Click here to read more.

Top hedge fund mixes Ayn Rand, behavioral psych

 Click here to discover Bridgewater’s secrets of success, power, big returns.

Snooki Socialism

India  under UPA seems so similiar to Greece.

Greece owes its creditors a half trillion dollars. Its debt exceeds a year-and-a-half of its gross domestic product. Unfortunately for Greece, the GDP keeps shrinking. The debt keeps growing.

But who is counting when it’s someone else’s money? Party on party people.

A system based on giving out that which the duty-bound provide for themselves has resulted in a dearth of money and responsibility. Greece is imploding because a government that promises to take care of its people as though the state were parent and citizens its children soon discovers that it can’t take care of itself. Coddling governments produce irresponsible people. Coddled people elect irresponsible governments.

Click here to read more.

The Psychology of Alienating Employers

The truth is that Atlas has shrugged in America and elsewhere in the world and that is why we are having this economic mess.

Click here to read this excellent article by Victor Davis Hanson.

Without freedom of speech, rational ideas cannot be spread

Without freedom of speech, rational ideas cannot be spread. Without freedom of speech, irrational ideas cannot be undercut, as eventually they always are (even if it takes decades). Preserving freedom of speech is the best way to prevent plunder and oppression! How do you think slavery was conquered? It went away in America, even though it took decades. In societies without free speech, it took centuries at best, and usually never even happened at all.

Click  here to read more.

Success Should Not Be a Dirty Word

Newsmax has an excellent article titled - Success Should Not Be a Dirty Word. What is right for USA is also right for India and any other  country in the world. 

The Psychology of Forcing Others

What's "internal noise"? This refers to the self-talk a person wants to stop. For example, let's say a person feels guilty for what he has. "I'm a terrible person for having all these nice things when others, through no fault of their own, don't have these things." Now, he could give most of his things away. But clearly he doesn't want to do that. Instead, he pressures his legislators to pass laws requiring higher taxes, government subsidies, social welfare programs, and the like. This helps him quiet his internal noise. He can now say, "I’m a good person. I voted for that wonderful politician who cares, and who will make sure the needy are protected. That makes me a good person."

The same applies to the government interventionist on the religious right. "I have sexual impulses and I'm ashamed of them. I don't know how to stop them. Something has got to be done!" So she goes out in the world and preaches against other people's sexual impulses which she finds offensive, or against the right of women to have abortions or even practice birth control. This helps quiet her own internal noise. "There, now I've done something," she says to herself with great satisfaction.

Quieting one's internal noise doesn't only apply to guilt over being well off, or having sexual desires. Those are only two of the more common examples. Also, the attempt to quiet one's internal noise is not only limited to government intervention. Instead of government intervention, some people opt for interfering in the lives of their family, friends and even coworkers. This can take the form of being bossy, nosy, imposing one's personal opinions where they're not needed or welcome, or even outright manipulating events the way one thinks they should turn out, failing to get the consent of affected parties.

Click  here to read more.  

What Is Money?

We will make fictitious money, nothing is more easy, and then every citizen will have his pocketbook full of it, and they will all be rich!

Click here to read Frederic Bastiat.

Rationality is the hallmark of good politics

“I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it.” — Milton Friedman

Friedman is correct. Case in point is the Indian collectivists, who tend to pass a new law whenever a problem presents itself. In most cases these laws are not fully thought through and they cause more damage to the lives of the people than good.

The UPA has given us so many new rights - right to education, right to food, right to employment, right to information, etc. But these rights are completely meaningless. Perhaps the real purpose of the plethora of meaningless rights is to deny us the right to exercise our most important franchise: rationality.

What Indians need is the right to work for their own rational self-interest, with the achievement of their own happiness as the highest moral purpose of life.

The leaders have only themselves to blame, for the unpopularity of their govt. If they had concentrated on giving more freedom to ordinary Indians, if they had brought about economic reform, then they would have been universally liked.

They forgot the important fact that the so-called pro-poor governments always end up creating more poverty and corruption and they eventually fade into the dustbin of history. We need a political movement based on rationality and consistency.

What Would Ayn Rand Do?

Debate Thoughts

I got  this while browsing The LRC Blog.

"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses."
—H. L. Mencken

Nowhere is this more  true than in India.

A new documentary on Atlas Shrugged

"I am challenging the moral code of altruism. The precept that man must sacrifice himself to others, which is the present day morality." -- Ayn Rand

http://AtlasShruggedDocumentary.com/

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 21, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mad Universe announces the release of a new feature length documentary film, Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged. The DVD and companion book will be available November 1st, 2011 via the website, Amazon.Com and select film streaming sites. The film examines the resurging interest in Ayn Rand's epic and controversial 1957 novel and the validity of its dire prediction for America. The documentary provides "a biography of a book and an idea" and an opportunity for Atlas readers and Rand fans to identify with the experience of reading it for the first time. To that end, producers are providing a forum for those interested, to engage in the provocative topic, by attending one of the Q&A screenings in key cities throughout October and November -- dates to be announced shortly. To coincide with the screening events, there will be a robust on-line campaign with an opportunity to debate, discuss and connect via Facebook and Twitter.

During the financial crisis of 2008, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Chris Mortensen became curious about the resurgence in popularity of Atlas Shrugged and started reconnecting with his fascination for the book, which he recalled from his college days. That same year Atlas Shrugged sold over two hundred thousand copies -- more than in any single year since publication. And -- more surprisingly -- in the media and public discourse, he was hearing people talk about Rand and Atlas again. "Because people saw events from the novel happening in real life," says Mortensen. "Housing bubble, stock market crash, Mississippi River bridge collapses, banks collapse, bailouts, nationalizing auto companies -- all that happened in the book. And how spooky is that? Suddenly Rand's 'unlikely' plot didn't seem so far-fetched."

Then, beginning in 2009, amid what appeared to be a Tea-Party-fueled 'Rand Renaissance,' Mortensen began thinking seriously about a film that looked at the phenomenon of Atlas and the polarizing effect it had on people. He was particularly interested in the social dynamics that had prompted Rand to write the novel at that particular time in history, in the postwar late 40's and mid-50's. "We usually think of that period as one of the most benign and prosperous eras in American history -- certainly in the 20th century," Mortensen says. "Yet that's when Rand decided that we were on a slippery slope to dystopia. What did she see?" 'What did Ayn Rand know and how did she know it?' became the director's personal logline for the film.

Mortensen says his film is not intended to be a defense of Ayn Rand or the ideas contained in her epic novel. One of his primary goals was to separate the author's ideas from the rancor and ad hominem attacks in order to be heard, understood and then considered in context.

The film features exclusive footage of Ayn Rand and draws on key interviews including: John Allison, former CEO of BB&T; Al Ruddy, Academy Awards Winning producer of The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby; Harry Binswanger, philosopher and friend of Ayn Rand; Michael Berliner, author of The Letters of Ayn Rand; Michael Walsh, writer for the National Review; Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market -- Ayn Rand & the American Right; Anne C. Heller, author of Ayn Rand and the World She Made; John Kilts, former CEO of the Gillette Company; Ed Snider, owner of the Philadelphia Fliers and Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Government as a Venture Capitalist

Click here to read Ron Paul's article.

The Entitlement State Is Morally Bankrupt

Click here to read this wonderful article  on Forbes.

Warren Buffet is infected by disease of altruism

Warren Buffet claims that it would be a good thing to give more money to the government as taxes. If that were true than every socialist country would have been a paradise. But that is not so. In any case, if Warren Buffet thinks that he should pay more money to the government, then he should go ahead and write a cheque in name of Uncle Sam.

He has no right to ask the government in USA to pass a law that would raise everyone’s taxes. If he thinks that the government can use money more wisely than individuals can, then there must be something wrong with his mind. In his old age Warren Buffet seems to have turned into a demagogue and is now engage in pandering to the mob.

The worse thing is that the “Warren Buffet disease” has started spreading around the globe. Instead of making proper investments that can create new products and services at lower prices, other super-rich industrialists and investors have joined the “tax me to death bandwagon.” No wonder the state of the world economy is so bad. The world economy is suffering from the Warren Buffet disease of altruism.

President Obama has already fired the first salvo. He is calling for the introduction of a “Buffet Rule,” named in honour of Warren Buffet’s call for higher taxes on the very wealthy. Once Buffet Rule is in place, there will be less money for proper investments and the state of the economy in USA will become worse. Countries like India, Brazil and Africa might also have copycat laws and this will lead to further decline in the standard of life in third world countries.

The Tea Party and the Atlas Shrugged App

Interesting.

The farce of political compassion

The road to hell is always paved with good intentions. It is the so-called compassionate leaders and intellectuals who come up with policies that cause maximum amount of suffering to the ordinary people. Every dictator in the world claims that his murderous policies are motivated by feelings of compassion.

These dictators have a perfectly compassionate society in mind, to be reached through the mass starvation, corruption, denial of freedom and the torture chambers. If you see a compassionate soul coming in your direction, the best thing to do would be to run for your life.

Click here to read this wonderful article on The Daily Bell.

Shekhar Gupta's new article - Unfair India

In today’s edition of The Indian Express Shekhar Gupta has written an excellent article about how certain sections of bureaucracy are using the so-called fight against corruption to stall the process of economic reforms in the country. The focus of the article is the latest report on the ministry of civil aviation (MoCA), which the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has presented.

Instead of confining itself to the role of the auditor, the CAG report has resorted to giving all kinds of “unsolicited” economic, political and cultural advise. Why is this organisation insisting that Indian Airlines should be treated as a National Carrier? Airlines like Jet, Kingfisher, Spice, Indigo are much more national than IA. This is because vast majority of Indians prefer to fly in these well-managed privately run airlines.

The report goes on to suggest that reforms in the airlines sector should have been delayed in order to give Indian Airlines the time to revamp its operations. So the interests of millions of Indians should have been sacrificed for a single government owned airline, whose services people in this country don’t want to use. Nothing can be more ridiculous than this.

Here is a small excerpt from Shekhar Gupta’s article:

You have to say the auditor has done a decent job of ferreting out the facts on what ails the state carrier. Except, he has gone on to state his preconceived conclusions even if facts point to the contrary. He blames reforms for everything. Oh, reform is fine, he says, but it was “untimely”. So what should have been done? Delay it all, not even until the state carrier acquired its new planes and modern new airport hubs were built in Mumbai and Delhi, but not until the carrier had got a headstart of “two to three years” to settle its operations. That means all reform and opening up should have been delayed by a decade. And all of it to save a PSU that is “rude, apathetic, callous” and so on.

Read also their prescription now. Effectively, stop all reform and opening up. Not only that, “roll-backs” where foreign carriers have been given “too liberal” rights to fly out of India. So burn up your Emirates, Gulf Air and Singapore frequent-flier miles. Because Stalinists are coming. This CAG report is not about corruption. It tells you what happens when the sarkari empire strikes back to protect its own at the cost of you and me, the paying passenger and tax-payer.

Click here to read rest of the article.

Dear Government, Business Doesn’t Need You

Why does anyone think that business needs government help? If assistance from a large central government were really necessary for economic growth and job creation, the U.S. could never have blossomed from an agrarian economy into an industrial giant. Yet that 19th century growth miracle (the population alone soared from 5 million to 76 million) happened without "help" from Washington.

Many people think business needs Uncle Sam’s help to get out of the current economic mess. But wait, that mess was caused by government intervention in the first place. The solution, therefore, cannot be more of the same poison that sickened the economy—whether it comes in the form of runaway spending, mortgage promotion, import quotas, tax favors, or other forms of "welfare for business."

Click here to  read more. 

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming

The so-called Global Warming theory has now been completely exposed as a hoax. Public perception of climate change has steadily fallen since late 2009.

Click here

Ending doles from the government is a moral imperative

The ideas of personal responsibility are most relevant to today’s politics. Why should there be absurd rights like – “right to education”, “right to job”, “right to information”, “right to food,” etc? These senseless rights have devalued the importance of real rights like “right to freedom”, “right to life”, and “right to freedom of speech.”

Someone has to produce food, before others can consume it. So how can there be right to food? You have pay for what you eat. Quality education or jobs do not grow naturally, so how can anyone claim an entitlement to such services. Right to information will only lead to Indian becoming a peeping Tom society where no one can have any privacy.

People have to work hard to make whatever they make out of their lives. If everything becomes available through laws passed by a supreme government then what that will destroy the network of inter-personal relationships through which a society functions.

In a free society people will save more and help each other through friends and family or through social systems of mutual aid. Even if such natural systems fail, there would be abundant amount of “private” charities to take care of those who are in need of help. Government sponsored socialism creates distortions in the society by promoting a collectivist mentality - meaning others have a claim on your wealth and resources.

Socialism leads to an Orwellian situation where – all men are equal but the pigs (the politically connected elite) are more equal than the others. If we could get rid of socialism, everyone in this country would automatically start earning more money. Socialism always leads to surrender to the unproductive and the irrational. 

Who is John Galt?

Try this app to find out.

Lack of economic growth is bad for us, but good for those who are in the business of “distributing poverty”

Recent data shows that economic growth in the country is stagnating. This should be like a dream come true for the powerful socialist elite. They have achieved what is socialism’s main objective – bad economy. A lower growth means actualisation of two things that the socialists cherish above anything else: more poverty and dependence on government handouts.

The entire politics of the India’s political elite is based on the deification of poverty. Our top leaders have been so cut off from real life for generations that they have no idea how dehumanising and evil poverty can be. These political types love poverty, because it is the poor whom they expect to vote for them. The middle class is always disliked.

The less the economy grows, the poorer everyone becomes. Once everyone is equally poor, then socialism has finally achieved its real goal of economic equality for all, or spreading poverty around. Now everyone is equally poor and hence is a part of the same vote bank. It is lot easier to con a poor-hungry person to cast a vote along expected lines.

As the economy keeps declining, more people become unemployed. This gives a chance to those in power (the bleeding heart limousine liberals) to con the “aam admi” by launching all kinds of subsidies and pro-poor schemes, which are always mired in corruption and wastage. Now everyone has the right to toil uselessly in the sun and earn a pittance at the end of the day.

We always hear on TV, powerful politicians and economists claiming that the subsidies and the rural sector schemes such as NREGA are driving economic growth in the country. This is totally incorrect, but this is what the socialists in the country like to believe. They would like everyone in the country to be employed in such schemes only.

Jobs cannot be created by government owned public sector units. Government can’t bring down the prices. The maximum the government can do is create worthless, unproductive ditch digging jobs like those in NREGA, which are funded by tax payers money and do not lead to the creation of any valuable asset. The inflation, corruption and lack of growth that we have in the country are results of a deliberate govt. policy.

13 X 7 is 28

The ease with which this video proves that 13 multiplied by 7 equals 28 is amazing. Perhaps these two comical accountants have the experience of working in a govt. department...

Ayn Rand gets an iPhone-iPad app

The international publisher, Penguin is all set to launch a new iPhone & iPad app of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” combining the unabridged text and rarely seen photos from Ayn Rand’s archives.

From tomorrow the app will become available for download on the iTunes store. It will also include videos and audio lectures given by Rand, original manuscript notes, an illustrated timeline of Rand’s life, and other features.

Here is a link to the slideshow that offers a peek into the app.

The invisible hand is not the hand of God

I heard on TV someone say that the invisible hand Adam Smith talked about is the hand of God. That is not the case. The invisible hand is the hand of free people motivated by feelings of rational self interest.

Here’s what Adam Smith actually said in his Theory of Moral Sentiments:

"The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition."

Elsewhere he has  written:

"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention… By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it."

A Stale Speech

Been there, done that.

What honeymoon!

Click here to read this excellent article titled "Is the honeymoon with the Crown Prince over?" by Swapan Das Gupta. Anyone who aspires to rule this country must first of all demonstrate that he is capable of taking charge. He must feel genuine concern for the people. But why are presuming that there was a honeymoon in the first place! The so-called honeymoon was only a figment of imagination of the sycophantic Indian media.

People are only concerned about their own well-being. They will elect a government that is capable of delivering. Indian democracy has now matured to the extent that now people are voting on basis of personal and selfish reasons. They vote out of their wallets. This is a good thing.

The main problem with the present government is that it has outsourced its economic policy making department to a bunch of Jholawala economists (NGO types) who dream of an India where vast majority of Indians have no alternative expect earning doles after doing back breaking labour on useless NREGA type projects. Thanks to such faulty policies, the size of govt. has bloated into monstrous proportions and there is surfeit of wastage, price rise and corruption.

Perhaps it is time for us to remember this quote attributed to the 6th century Chinese sage, Lao Tzu:

Why are people starving?
Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.
Therefore the people are starving.

Why are the people rebellious?
Because the rulers interfere too much.
Therefore they are rebellious....

Why do people think so little of death?
Because the rulers demand too much of life.
Therefore the people take life lightly…

Having to live on, one knows better than to value life too much.

Government can't create jobs; government can only make things worse

Government doesn't create anything of value. It merely taxes and spends. It is impossible for the government to "create" jobs – and the Keynesian nostrums claiming that government can "stimulate" the economy by creating make-work employment are not feasible – and never really were.

Click here to read  more.

A great empire and little minds go ill together

What 9/11 Wrought: The Bush Legacy by Patrick J. Buchanan

The Absurdity of Homeopathy and the Danger of Too Much Skepticism

Forbes has published a wonderful article on absurd ideas like homeopathy, crystal healing, chakras, etc.

Click here.

Here is a YouTube video on the same subject.

“But I don’t think of you.”

There is an excellent scene in The Fountainhead - After Ellsworth Toohey has ruined Howard Roark’s career, he taunts him by asking, “Why don’t you tell me what you think of me?” Roark replies serenely, “But I don’t think of you.”

For a rugged individualist like Howard Roark, the views of critics, or of anyone else in the world were meaningless. Truth for him was not a matter of public opinion. We can't even imagine Howard Roark whining for a referendum to be conducted to find out if his buildings were good enough or not. He was so sure of himself that he did not need any assurance from public opinion.

Roark's attitude is so different from that of the modern day crusaders in India who tend to think that public opinion is everything. They even want to have a referendum on what kind of laws the country should have. How is the public expected to know about legal theories? Legislation is the job of experts.

In her personal life Ayn Rand was like Roark. In a letter to fans, she declared starkly, “My own character is in the pages of The Fountainhead.” She added: “I have no hobbies. I have few friends. I do not like to ‘go out.’ I am unbearable — to myself and to others — when I stay too long away from my work.”

Is it possible to build super fast Quantum Computers!

In theory, a computer working on highly complex principles of Quantum Mechanics would be capable of performing calculations faster than the most advanced supercomputer. A Quantum computer could factor a 300-digit number in seconds, compared to the years required by any conventional computer. Such Quantum computers could change the way we interact with our devices. Much more advanced, and super-intelligent robots and devices would become possible. It might even be possible to build humanoids, whose intelligence is at par with the human brain.

With the super fast processing speeds of Quantum computers, scientist would be able to study the biological phenomenon at a molecular level. Physicists could unravel the biggest mysteries of the universe. As quantum particles can exist in multiple states at the same time, computers based on it can theoretically process calculations much faster than traditional bits, which can only exhibit one state at a time. Now scientists at University of British Columbia (UBC) and University of California Santa Barbara have announced a major breakthrough in the science of Quantum computing.

According to the paper published in Nature, the researchers have managed to predict and suppress environmental decoherence, a phenomenon that has been described as a “quantum bug” that destroys fundamental properties that quantum computers would necessarily rely upon. Quantum Mechanics can be understood as the study of the behaviour of matter and energy at the molecular, atomic, nuclear, and even smaller microscopic levels. The sub-atomic particles do not seem to observe Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation that governs macroscopic objects. 

An electron, for instance, is a Quantum particle. It obeys the laws of quantum physics and can exist at two states at the same time. You can imagine an electron as a coin that is lying in your wallet and in someone else’s wallet simultaneously. Scientists call this state of being at two places at once “superposition”. However, the complex matter made out of many atoms can only be at one place at any point of time. The complex objects cannot be present at different places, because, they tend to interact and “entangle” with other objects in the environment and then decay into a single state.

The science of Quantum computing makes use of quantum bits, or qubits, to encode information in the form of ones and zeros. The traditional computer that we use today, are based on traditional bits, which can only exist at one place at one time. Whereas a quantum computer takes advantage of the fact seemingly impossible fact that qubits can exist in multiple states at the same time, in accordance with the theory of "superposition."

The tendency of atomic-scale particles to get tangled with the larger objects in the physical world is called “Decoherence.” You can think of Decoherence as a noise or interference that knocks the quantum particle, in this case the electron, out of its superposition. So for Quantum computing to be realised it is necessary to find a way of suppressing Decoherence. This is the breakthrough that scientists at University of British Columbia and University of California Santa Barbara have been able to achieve. Using high magnetic fields, the scientists managed to suppress decoherence, one of the key stumbling blocks in quantum computing.

Phil Stamp, UBC professor of physics and astronomy and director of the Pacific Institute of Theoretical Physics, says, “For the first time we’ve been able to predict and control all the environmental decoherence mechanisms in a very complex system, in this case a large magnetic molecule called the ‘Iron-8 molecule’. Our theory also predicted that we could suppress the decoherence, and push the decoherence rate in the experiment to levels far below the threshold necessary for quantum information processing, by applying high magnetic fields.”

These new findings could, in a matter of a decade, pave way for us to build Quantum computers, which are light years ahead by the standards of today’s computers.

India Says No to $80 Toilet Paper

Click here.

Reforms to the rescue

Click here to read Arvind Panagariya's article - Reforms to the rescue - in today's Times of India.

UFO Aliens May Attack Earth Due To Carbon Emissions

Amazing video

The Antitrust Luddites

The "Luddites" were early 19th-century British textile workers who protested the introduction of mechanized looms by destroying them and issuing proclamations denouncing the new technology in the name of the mythical "King Ludd" of Sherwood Forest. What the Luddites failed to understand — and what many neo-Luddites today fail to understand — is that "labor-saving" technology that reduces production costs causes prices to fall, which in turn increases consumer purchases and generates more jobs. For example, when direct-dialing telephone service was invented, the communication workers' union initially protested the supposed loss of jobs, but reversed its position in a few years once it realized how thousands of additional jobs were created by making telephone services so much cheaper.

The latest example of neo-Luddite thinking is the Obama administration's recent decision to attempt to block a proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile USA. According to an August 31 New York Times article, stopping the merger will supposedly "help save jobs of American workers." "The view that this administration has is that through innovation and through competition, we create jobs," said James M. Cole, a deputy attorney general for antitrust. Mergers usually reduce jobs "through the elimination of redundancies," said Cole, "so we see this as a move that will help protect jobs in the economy."

Click here to read more on the Mises website.

There is no Indian "economic miracle," only a false euphoria based on monetary stimulation.

I came to know about this really interesting article titled “Corruption of India's Economic Miracle?” published by The Daily Bell after reading the Antidote blog. The article is mainly focussed on refuting the theory that there is any kind of economic miracle happening in India, but it also sheds pertinent light on the character of the top leader of the much-hyped anti-corruption crusade. Really worth reading.

Here is an interesting excerpt:

India has not necessarily experienced a resurgence of business and market creativity. It is simply going through the same cycle of monetary stimulation that the European PIGS and America went through recently.

Such monetary stimulation inevitably leaves behind ruined and fractured societies. In the case of India, the anti-corruption movement will likely make things worse, as it is in no way an expression of ancient Indian culture, which was decentralized and extraordinarily tolerant.

The India of today, based on reports having to do with the anti-corruption movement, would seem to be inheriting the worst parts of Western socioeconomic systems. India's decentralized principalities have been merged into one bureaucratic morass.

Money printing, in fact, is fooling the Indians into believing their economy is far stronger than it is – and also increasing the corruption of the bureaucracy. The anti-corruption movement is providing the Indian middle class with a simplistic approach to dealing with such problems.

The real issue of the way the West has organized Indian society from the top down, starting with central banking stimulation, are not being addressed. The solution is seen as one of authoritarianism rather than a reconfiguration of India's basic institutions.

The waves of authoritarianism sweeping through the world today are the direct result of the failed economic systems that the great banking families of the West have worked assiduously to put into place. India is not immune to such "austerity" and to a kind of neo-fascism that is taking place as leaders attempt to offer solutions that have little to do with the actual problems caused by monetary inflation, taxation and over-regulation.

India suffers from all these problems today.

Click here to go directly to The Daily Bell article.

Believing Bullshit

Just got hold of this book - Believing Bullshit: How Not To Get Sucked Into An Intellectual Black Hole by Stephen Law

Have turned about 20 pages. Turns out to be quite Interesting, as of  now. There is  no dearth of cultists, religious and political zealots, conspiracy theorists, crusaders, and various other nutcases who want our money, our mind and our souls.

Indians, who tend to believe in what ever crap they hear, ought to read this book. 

Time's up for dynastic democracy

Exactly my feelings - Click here to read the article by Tavleen Singh. 

Patriotism is an obsolete concept

In a globalised world, patriotism is an obsolete concept. The country is like a housing society, built on a much larger scale.  It is in the interest of all inhabitants to ensure that their housing society, or the country, is governed in an orderly manner and is safe from external and internal threats. But to say that the individual must exist only for the sake of the country is equivalent to saying that the individual should enslave himself to the housing society in which he lives. This is complete nonsense. The country exists for the individual; the individual does not exist for the country.

The patriotic fervour that emanates from the anti-corruption crusade is worrying. What has fight against corruption to do with patriotism? Fight against corruption has nothing to do with loyalty to one’s country. I mean, a person might not even be a citizen of this country and he may still be completely honest in his dealings within the country. In the article titled Annationalism, published in today’s The Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta dwells on how certain forces in the country are trying to equate patriotism with fight against corruption.

Almost each day a new super-patriotic metaphor was rolled out. My favourites: Anna kissing a vessel containing soil from Jallianwala Bagh, and even more dramatic, Kiran Bedi, while being taken in the bus following her arrest on August 16, waving both arms out of the window and shouting: ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyo. Of course, I haven’t been able to check with her if her inspiration was the more recent Akshay Kumar-Sunny Deol starrer on the “rescue” of Indian POWs in Pakistan. But given her vintage — and mine — I would suspect it was the original, Kaifi Azmi’s song in the gut-wrenching last moments of Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat (1964) when the last Indian soldier fighting the Chinese on that Ladakh outpost — of course, Sunny Deol’s father Dharmendra — lies dying, still clutching his rifle. Now, the language and style of popular protest are driven by their own heady mix of hormones, but really, to borrow words from a dying Indian soldier in such an unequal war while merely courting “preventive” arrest for a day is a bit touching.

Click here to read Shekhar Gupta’s ‘Annationalism’ on IE website. 

When Is Your Society Doomed?

"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who -produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but -protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and -honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."

The Great English Language Scam

I find it rather strange to see that the leftist intellectuals have cornered some of the best words and phrases in the English dictionary. Whenever you hear lofty sounding words or phrases like “progressive”, “liberal”, “eminent intellectual”, “human rights activist”, “anti-war”, “anti-corruption”, “advocate of non-violence”, “a true genius,” “servant of the poor and downtrodden,” “environmental activist”, “campaigner for world peace,” etc. you can bet your last rupee that a diehard Stalinist or Leninist type is being referred to.

Whereas the guys who are in favour of free markets, small governments, and reforms have picked up the worst possible words to describe themselves. I mean, why should the advocates of free market be calling themselves “conservatives”? The word "conservative" conjures the image of someone who is narrow-minded  and traditional. Such choice of words makes no sense. The free market advocates are the real “liberals”, because a liberal society, where people can live without any interference from govt. is only possible when people have the freedom to make a living in a free market.

The title of “progressives” should also go to the free market advocates, because progress is only possible in a capitalist economy. Why do the leftists keep calling themselves “eminent intellectuals”? It does not take any intellect at all to remember those stale theories. Any parrot can do that. “Human-rights” are worst in countries where dictators have come to power. They don’t even deserve the title of being “anti-war”, because totalitarian dictators, who did not allow any economic freedom to their people, have started some of the biggest wars in history.

Anti-corruption activists! By what criteria are they calling themselves anti-corruption. The socialist, communist and religious fundamentalist nations are the most corrupt. The degree of corruption in society is directly proportional to the degree of control that the government enjoys on the economy. Corruption can go down only when there is economic reform. But these so-called intellectuals do not favour any reform at all. They want every citizen in the country to be a slave of a totalitarian govt.

Finally here is an article that has been published today by an outlet that pretends to be “progressive.” This article is on Ayn Rand, and it carries the title, “America’s Wicked Witch.” In the eyes of the so-called progressives, Ayn Rand was a wicked witch.  Well, at least they have started believing in witches and warlocks. The kind of malice and hatred that drips out of this article is simply unbelievable. If you hear the word  “progressive” run for your life. Click here to read this article.