Thoughts of the Week


While it is gratifying to see so many people risking their lives to live in Canada, the fact remains that the real refugees in Sri Lanka escape to India a few hours away on a rowing boat and merge with the fellow Tamils there. The shipload consists mostly of lower middle class farmers and tradesmen who were persuaded by crafty smugglers to part with all their worldly wealth in exchange for a promise of an easy life in the land of colour TV, free education for the kids, free medical care and hefty welfare cheques.

In ten months since last October TWX index has oscillated between 10,800 and 12,200 with 8 sharp drops and almost equally sharp pick ups of six to eight percent. In my forty years of investing I have never seen such volatility in the markets but then I have not seen so many economic and political factors behaving so strangely either. In current situation a small investor has only two options: either fold up or ride the waves. Those who do not have the stomach for choppy waters should follow the first option and enjoy their sleep. The few with strong nerves should ride the waves. They are likely to come out smiling in the end, whenever it is

While the big news is the great calamity due to the floods in Pakistan, India has also suffered severe damage due to heavy monsoon rains, overflowing rivers and mudslides. My hope now is that this shared misery in the two countries will bring the people closer together; they will work to resolve their past differences and learn how to live in peace and then enjoy the prosperity that will follow.

Does the crime of Stockwell Day become a 'reported' crime now that it has been reported it in the paper or it is still an 'unreported' crime because it has not reported to the police? Moreover, does Mr. Day have to be prosecuted and found guilty for it to be a crime? Not only that, would a suspended sentence exonerate Mr. Day of the crime? It seems to me that this crime business is more complicated than either Mr. Day or his fellow rightists think.

We can't fault Mr. Day of inconsistency. He, and presumably the government, do not believe the statistics on crime. Why would they believe any other inconvenient statistic? And if you are not going to believe in the statistical conclusions, why waste taxpayers' money on collecting the data and give pesky opponents and reporters ammunition. Bingo, we know the reasoning behind census decision.

The title, “Please remain calm. The Earth will heal itself,” is misleading. The panic is not about the survival of planet Earth but of the humans on it which Mr. Reynolds mentions in passing at the end. Unfortunately, all we are offered to soothe us are band aid solutions, nothing to solve the key element: balancing human population with resources available on the planet. Till we begin to tackle this imbalance I for one will make no apologies for being in panic,

While most people would agree that the growth oriented economic model is perhaps outdated, the new model will have to answer two questions. First, the number of poor in the world compared to those who are comfortable is so large that sharing equitably what we now have and produce will not reduce misery; it will only make every one miserable. To put it starkly: how do you bring the population of humans (and their pets) down to the level where every human being can avail the minimum necessities of daily life. Second issue is: how do you make the people who are comfortable give up what they consider essentials, given the human nature as it is?
I don’t believe humans are capable of resolving these problems. They will be solved either by a natural calamity or a major war, neither all that unlikely.


I wonder why it is the followers of Religeous Right who demand stiffer sentences for crimes, whether reported or not. What happened to the commandment in Bible about turning the other cheek? Or the teachers in my mission school were reading the wrong version in a different language.

Britain’s Bill of Rights, like all similar bills, was a reaction to the long entrenched bills of responsibilities in communist and dictatorial regimes. It made the same mistake – it did not balance rights and responsibilities. Bills of rights with no responsibilities make as little sense as those unwritten but widely understood bills of responsibilities without rights and they cause similar problems for the citizens while becoming goldmines for some lawyers,

If the goal in Afghanistan is only to contain El Qaeda, why is the administration supporting the government, army and intelligence unit of Pakistan where all the leadership of Taliban and El Qaeda is located? Surely, the terrorists could not have been operating from Pakistan‘s territory for last ten years without the complicity of their defence forces presumably under the control of the government.

No human organization is perfect because humans are not perfect. All their actions ‘could be better’ performed with the advantage of hindsight. Considered in this light, the public apology by Vancouver Police is unwarranted. All it would do is that it will open the floodgates of expensive law suits from the families of the victims. Irony is that if these families had stayed in close touch with their strayed relatives they would have reported their disappearance promptly; before the trail left by Mr. Pickton had gone cold, and the case may have been resolved before so many lives were lost.

At this stage very few doubt the warming of the Earth over last few decades. However, the key question is, Why? On the answer depends our response. If the warming is due to carbon and other emissions into atmosphere the trend will continue with serious consequences unless we reverse the emissions soon, albeit at great cost. On the other hand, if the warming is due to sunspot activity and other reasons beyond human control as in the geological past, it may continue or it may not but not much can be done about it. What we can do in either case is to prepare ourselves to cope with the consequences of continued warming if it does occur. Unfortunately, there is not much evidence of such action, only mudslinging by competing camps.

Will Palin run in 2012? Good question and Democrats pray that she will. If she loses the primary battle she will pull the winner towards the right in primaries, more right than most Americans can stomach. If she becomes the Republican candidate, remember what happened to Goldwater in 1964. That will happen in 2012, 2016 and even in 2060. Palin has the mouth but not much to back it up. If she ever becomes the President it will only be because either the U.S. is near the death’s door or it has an extreme case of death wish.