Hi from Edison NJ. Got here from Mumbai on Wednesday morning at 4:40 AM, nearly an hour ahead of schedule. Too damn early. I suppose if the flight was arriving at 11 PM, then it would have arrived an hour late. Natural perversity of the universe. OK, I am done with the complaining bits. Now for the good bits.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva’s recent accusation that the financial crisis was caused by “white people with blue eyes” at a joint press conference with UK Prime Minister Brown is illuminating if not entirely accurate. [1] Everyone involved in the financial crisis certainly does not have blue eyes, although they may all be uniformly white. Da Silva claimed that he had never met a black banker.

There can be no doubt that Australia is looming larger and larger on the Indian horizon. Speaking personally, thanks to my participation with the LAFIA2008 — Leading Australia’s Future in Asia-Pacific — delegation in July, I have gained an increased appreciation of the issues that will draw Australia and India into a deeper strategic and economic relationship.

A NY Times report by Neela Banerjee refers to a new survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The report shows, for example, that every religion is losing and gaining members, but that the Roman Catholic Church “has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes.” The survey also indicates that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. More than 16 percent of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which makes the unaffiliated …

Pranab Bardhan, a professor of mine at UC Berkeley, whom we have met before here (see Crouching Tiger, Lumbering Elephant, and Pranab Bardhan on the Indian Economy, for instance) has an excellent article in the Boston Review titled “What Makes a Miracle: Some myths about the Rise of China and India.” (Hat tip: Yuvaraj Galada.)
He states the standard view explaining the rapid growth of the two countries:
What explains this strikingly rapid growth? The answer that continues to dominate public discussion in the United States runs along the following lines: …

Alan Blinder claims that “Free Trade’s Great, but Offshoring Rattles Me” in a Washintonpost.com article. He has dug up an old 2004 US election issue. He begins with
I’m a free trader down to my toes. Always have been. Yet lately, I’m being treated as a heretic by many of my fellow economists. Why? Because I have stuck my neck out and predicted that the offshoring of service jobs from rich countries such as the United States to poor countries such as India may pose major problems for tens of …

SaaS: How About a Middle Ground?
Guest post by Sramana Mitra
Last Fall, I wrote a widely read piece called Venture Capital in India, in which I pegged the Indian venture boom to be largely in Real Estate, Retail, and to an extent in Consumer Internet, not much in actual technology.

I think that globalization could as well be called “Americanization.” Too many components that go to make up the modern globalized world are labeled “Invented in America,” from the Internet to the shipping container. Chances are that you have not heard of Malcolm McLean. Yet, his innovation has profoundly shaped the globalized world we live in. A trucker by profession, his insight was that the truck trailer is a container that would reduce the cost of shipping. That was more than 50 years ago.

Bestsellers touting the benefits of globalization are a regular feature of our times. Case in point: Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat. The title is supposed to shock the reader. “Damn! I thought the world was round. Thanks Tom, you are a bloody genius.”

What is globalization? My definition of globalization is this: the web of material and informational connections that spans the globe and includes within it about 20 percent of the world population held together through socio-economic, political, military, and religious links.

Thomas Friedman is a one-man factory churning out outsourcing stories by the dozens. He asks and answers the question below in his latest column.

How did India, in 15 years, go from being a synonym for massive poverty to the brainy country that is going to
take all our best jobs? Answer: good timing, hard work, talent and luck.

I would have asked a slightly different question:
How did India, in 15 years, go from being perceived as a country of massive poverty to being perceived as the brainy country that …

Yesterday, it felt as if everyone and his mother was emailing me an op-ed in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman titled
What Goes Around …. I am sure that you have read it.

A nice chatty piece as usual from Tom. He argues against putting up protectionist walls with folk wisdom as his major tool. The bit of folk wisdom which goes what goes around, comes around. It boils down to argument by anecdotes, really.

Argument by anecdotes is great expect for the fact that your adversary could …