But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Positive Returns on Investment
Education has positive returns. That claim is certainly not the most extravagant generalization about education that one can make. It is true unless of course hundreds of millions of people over centuries have been systematically paying for education and not fully recovering their investment.

Character and culture determine destiny. Every time our great “democracy” throws up corrupt immoral shortsighted asinine “leaders” — which is happening with sickening regularity — it is important to remind ourselves that it is the “will of the people” expressed unambiguously through the political process. The nature of the leaders and their policies bear a direct relationship to the basic nature of the people. This is my theory and I continually seek facts to support an alternate not so cynical theory. So far I am unsuccessful.
I was …

So last week a producer from BBC World called to say that they are doing a series on India for India’s 60th Independence Day and they would like to interview me. They did not have to twist my arm. I am always willing to express my opinion, as most of you know. Therefore those of you who missed me the last time I was on BBC World (June 2006 when they were doing a special on “China and India: Emerging Giants”), this is your chance once again.

At first it was a good idea. About seven years ago, I had been persuaded to join Ryze, a professional networking site. All fine and dandy. Then like poison weeds these networking sites started blooming. Now there’s Linkedin and Facebook. The evil spreads. I am getting a tad tired of dealing with the invitations to confirm so-and-so as my friend. So I have decided to pull the plug on these networking sites and delete my membership.

Expectation Matters
George Akerlof’s seminal contribution to economic theory is in the area of information imperfection and how it affects markets. Information asymmetry between the buyers and sellers of used cars (very poor quality used cars are the lemons that Akerlof talks about) leads to that specific market failure. The role of expectations is critical in that specific case. In fact, I am persuaded that expectations play a very important role in how human systems behave dynamically.

Pet Peeve #284.

Just another laughing buddha.

I am a big fan of using technology in education. Information and communications technology (ICT) is tailor-made for application in education. What I don’t understand is why some people are going on about the use of “wireless, low-orbiting satellite, fiber-optic” communications in the context of education. Those hi-tech channels are clearly required when the information is dynamic and real-time, such as in the case of market information and sports events. But what does one gain by beaming down static information — say, history or physics content — as opposed to …

I have been shopping at warehouse retail stores for over 20 years, starting at the Price Club in Sunnyvale. In those days, you had to have some union membership to have access to those stores. I was a member of the HP Credit Union and felt privileged to shop at Price Club. Costco later entered the market as a competitor to Price Club and as it happened Costco bought Price Club to become Price-Costo and then it was simply Costco. I have had a Costco membership since forever.

Dr James Reese informs me that he has republished his interview of Jeffrey Sachs.
“Recorded November 2005: Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, listed as one of “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” “the world’s best known economist,” and “among the 100 most influential people in the world,” was interviewed by Dr. James Reese.” (43 mins.)
Right-click and save-as on this link to download the mp3.

The Lumpy Universe
One of the puzzles that cosmologists grapple with is the question of why the universe is lumpy. The universe has structure today – from super clusters of galaxies to galaxies and stars and all sorts of other objects down to planets and asteroids. But it was much simpler earlier in its history. How did all these clumps of matter evolve from an undifferentiated soup of elementary particles and forces that existed in the early universe following the Big Bang?
A lot of very clever people have been doing …

The British steal everything from India, don’t they? Clearly, this is a ripoff of what actually happened in a meeting with Lalu Prasad Yadav.

It’s true.

A cyber-friend wrote to me asking what was “the rationale behind giving monopoly rights to big-global-drug-companies in India (by the way of patent protection).” He said that this was “leading to prohibitively expensive life saving cancer drugs (Rituximab at 1.3 lakhs/dose is actually daylight robbery and murder) … India is an insignificantly small (revenue % wise) part of global drug market … the unrealistic pricing shows that drug firms are not even bothered about us. India would be much better off if it produces (at fair prices) some of the …

Such a Pity
It is easy to slip into self-pity when battling what appears to be a nasty ‘flu. One’s view of the world is jaundiced and it all appears rather pointless. Events appear a grimmer shade of black when viewed from the context of physical illness. Yet, to put it in perspective, one should not complain about a temporary illness when others go through real ordeals. It is exactly one year ago that nearly 200 people lost their lives and several hundreds horribly injured just going about their daily business …

Desiderata, the plural for “desideratum” which means “something to be desired or wanted.” Years ago I came across a piece by Max Ehrman titled “Desiderata.” There is a perfection about that piece. Brief and yet packs in a tremendous amount of practical wisdom. Its simple words have the depth to provide perspective to life’s joys, sorrows, trials and tribulations. I have yet to come across any situation that could not have been referred to the piece without insight.
My favorite lines from it: “You are a child of the universe, …

I wrote about Thomas Schelling’s book in my last post. Here’s an account of a reporter’s lunch with him that is worth a quick read: The Game of Life.
Let me highlight a sentence fragment from that piece: ” . . . his work treats human frailties as something to be analysed and worked with, rather than denounced or denied.” That lies at the crux of a multitude of failures. People don’t fully appreciate the fact that what we have is frail human nature and if we refuse to confront …

Rules can be considered the secret sauce in the recipe for a successful society. The biological equivalent to a rule set is the DNA which encodes genes. Like good genes confer reproductive success and ensure the perpetuation of the species, good rules allow societies to succeed in the great game of economic survival. Two societies with equivalent endowments of natural and human resources can end up with different levels of prosperity if their rule sets are not equally good.
The question naturally arises: why do different societies end up with …