Showing posts with label Silicon Valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silicon Valley. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Bobby Jindal 2024

photo of gurudwara ponta sahib
photo of gurudwara ponta sahib (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • You have to be yourself. If you talk fast, if that is you, don't slow down. You can be only one person, and that is you. Just be yourself. You slowed down artificially for that speech in 2009, and that was the beginning of your end. 
  • You became particularly shrill after that. Two reasons. One, the Great Recession hit you and your state. When that happens, people sometimes end up in dark corners. Two, that counter Obama speech in 2009 put you at the receiving end of racism. People who say they are only individuals, they don't have group identities are two dimensional creatures. And racism is a three dimensional reality. When 2D creatures get hit with a 3D reality, they don't know what hit them. You got infantilized. That was racist. But you will not understand if you keep claiming you are only an individual. 
  • I have had hundreds of meals at the local Gurudwara. India is sorry 1984 happened. Now own up to it. You are Indian. Like JFK was Irish. He wore it on his sleeve. You are Indian, your wife is Indian, your kids are Indian. Your Indian identity goes back thousands of years. America would not be great if it did not allow you room for your Indian identity. I mean, my favorite thing about America are inter-racial, cross-cultural kids. But that does not take away from heritage, mine, or yours, or anyone else's.
  • On social issues you may hold any view you want, that does not bother people. But to say the alternative view is not valid is Taliban, it is not America. So on the social issues, you have to be live and let live. And since America is a free country, and social views don't change fast, it is best to push the social views to the background. You know where you stand, you respect where others stand, and you make them feel like you respect them, and you are done. No one is convincing nobody. Everybody is too smart by one and a half. 
  • And focus hard core on the economic issues. This is where you will sink or swim. If you can show America you can help create the industries of tomorrow, you will regain your pre-2008 aura and seeming invincibility. Barack Obama is a tough guy to go against. Hillary knows. So do you. But she is running again. 
  • As for the industries of tomorrow, talk to Vivek Wadhwa, the smartest dude in Silicon Valley. He was your active supporter, before you became shrill. 


Friday, June 26, 2015

India: Is The Private Sector Being A Drag?

Share of financial sector in gross domestic pr...
Share of financial sector in gross domestic product 1860 to 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
मोदी तो अपना काम कर रहे हैं। ढेर सारा FDI देश में ला रहे हैं। Infrastructure का काम तेजी से हो रहा है। प्राइवेट सेक्टर को क्या चाहिए?
  • Simplified Land Acquisition बहुत जरुरी है। 
  • Hiring and Firing should be a simple process. Entrepreneurship is not a government job scheme. 
  • FDI चाहिए और बहुत चाहिए। 
  • भारत के financial markets में तो कोइ त्रुटि नहीं? मेरेको उतना knowledge नहीं। मैं सिर्फ पुछ रहा हुँ। 
  • You need a well educated and healthy population. वो प्राइवेट सेक्टर की जिम्मेवारी नहीं। 
तो लैंड acquisition के बात पर तो विपक्ष वाले टांग अड़ाए हुवे हैं। उसी तरह labor mobility पर भी तो। उसके अलावे मेरी instincts कह रही है कुछ fundamental financial sector reforms की जरुरत हो सकती है। Bad loans are a bad idea. Corrupt governments tend to accumulate a lot of them. Big banks with lots and lots of bad loans accumulated through crony capitalism tend to be a major drag on the economy overall. The policy framework should encourage the create of small, agile, numerous financial institutions. Maybe there are banks that are too big and should be broken up into smaller pieces through policy initiatives. Market competitiveness has to be maintained in the financial sector, and that is the government's responsibility. 

But I have been impressed with people like Adani and Ambani being able to tap into the global financial markets for some pretty large scale cheap loans. Bond markets में आप को ५% पर बिलियन के बिलियन डॉलर मिल जाते हैं। वो तो सस्ता हुवा। And unless you have a healthy company you can't get those loans. So they must be maintaining strong fundamentals inside their corporate environments. 

और कुछ फैक्टर्स हैं जो काबु के बाहर होते हैं ------ जैसे कि oil prices या फिर मॉनसून।

Bankruptcy laws भी कैसे हैं? It should be easy to launch companies, it should be easy to run companies, and it should be easy to bury companies. कि मैंने प्रयास किया लेकिन नहीं हुवा। When your company goes bankrupt, after that you don't owe anyone anything. And that is fundamental to capitalism. The number one aspect of the Silicon Valley culture is that there failure is celebrated.

Private sector को किस किस्मका policy reforms चाहिए ओ तो private sector को आगे आ के कहना होगा। किस किस्मका policy framework चाहिए। Entrepreneurs create jobs, they should be part of the policy making conversation. They should have a seat at the table. They should not have the only seat at the table. But their not having a seat at the table also is a problem.

Why Economists See PM Modi's Second Year as More Challenging
Domestic companies have posted disappointing earnings for the March quarter that does not match the upbeat headline GDP figure. Industrial production is at five-month low, exports are declining for five months in a row and bank credit offtake remains at two-decade lows.