Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) was a British science fiction author, inventor, futurist, and undersea explorer. His science fiction naturally appealed to my cohort and me as engineering students. In the 70s in India, we had access to only a few books and the occasional sci-fi movie.

His Rendezvous with Rama (1973) was my introduction to hard science fiction. The novel explores the arrival of an enigmatic cylindrical alien megastructure which enters the solar system in 2131. Scientists name it Rama, the 7th avatar of Vishnu. [Notes 1]

I later read Clarke’s 1953 novel Childhood’s End. It’s a philosophical exploration of humanity’s peaceful subjugation by the mysterious “Overlords” and subsequent transcendence. Overlords end war and poverty; the real purpose is a leap in human evolution. Often called his masterpiece.

Alongside Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, he was celebrated as one of the “Big Three” of 20th-century science fiction. Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are brilliant. Continue reading “Arthur C. Clarke, Visionary Extraordinaire”

Just because someone is rich does not imply that he is wise, or even knowledgeable or intelligent. They could have become wealthy by stealing or through other nefarious tactics such as most politicians and their cronies do. But extreme wealth in a well-functioning free market economy signals extreme capability.

Simply because someone is rich does not mean that you should heed their advice. The converse does not hold either. Wisdom and wealthy are not correlated.

We can learn a lot from the successful. But we have to be smart enough to heed their advice. This is so in the case of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. As genius investors in the market, they became wealthy. Charlie Munger was the more plain-spoken of the duo. Thousands of smart people have learned a lot from Charlie.

I have an affinity for Charlie Munger. He was the greatest fan of Costco, and I was the second biggest fan. After Charlie’s passing, I claim that now I’m the biggest fan of Costco.

I’d like to share a bit of Charlie’s wisdom, for the record. Continue reading “Charlie Munger’s Wisdom”

If you know anything about me at all, you’d know that I have an uncommon attachment to music. My taste in music ranges all across the spectrum: from classical to pop, Western and Indian, vocal, instrumental, trance, electronic, world music, and everything in between.

I have a good ear for music, and I like to think that my musical taste is sophisticated. I can reliably tell if a note is wrong, but I cannot for the life of me produce any music. I am glad that I’m alive at a time when an infinite quantity and variety of great music is available whenever and whenever I want.

We all are amazingly lucky.

One of my favorite composers is the late Ennio Morricone (1928–2020). He was one of the most versatile, prolific, and influential composers in cinema history. In a career spanning more than six decades, he composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, and more than 100 classical works. (See note [1].)

I first encountered Morricone’s music thanks to the spaghetti Westerns that showed up in Indian movie theaters when I was growing up. Those Westerns were directed by another Italian, Sergio Leone. As it happens, Sergio and Ennio grew up in Rome, and were classmates in elementary school in the 1930s. How great is it that one gets to professionally collaborate with a childhood friend! Continue reading “Nella Fantasia”

James M. Buchanan was awarded the 1986 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, aka the economics Nobel prize “for his development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision-making.”

The primary reason for the award was his foundational role in pioneering public choice theory—applying the tools and behavioral assumptions of economics to politics and the public sector.

James Buchanan held that the solution to better governance did not consist in somehow electing better people. The better path is to find better “rules of the game.”

(It’s getting better all the time. Better, better, better.) Continue reading “Public Choice Theory – again”

Trump recently signed the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which grants the US statutory authority to levy tariffs of up to 100% on goods imported from the top international buyers of Russian oil and gas. In the 2022-2026 period, China imported around 50% of Russia’s crude exports, and India imported around 37%. China and India are Moscow’s energy lifelines and therefore they are the main targets.

Certainly, Trump’s move is bad news for India. The US is India’s single largest merchandise export market of over $90 billion annually. A punitive tariff would devastate the export sectors and skew the bilateral trade balance.

What should be India’s response? Should India respond by raising tariffs on US imports? That would be a stupid response. Regardless of what the trading partner does, allowing free import of goods and services is the best policy. Continue reading “Trump’s Trade Wars”

Instances of mass hysteria, herd behavior, and financial bubbles may seem to be modern afflictions though actually they have been around for hundreds of years. In 1841, Scottish journalist Charles Mackay investigated them and published his findings in his 1841 book “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”

His conclusion: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

MacKay wrote about sociological and psychological panics such as witch hunts across Europe that led to the horrifying deaths of thousands. His book has important lessons for economists and psychologists. It provided the early framework for understanding irrational exuberance, cognitive bias, and speculative contagion. Continue reading “Mass Hysteria and Popular Delusions”

We can date the beginning of the death of Islam at a specific date. This is unusual. The end of no other ideology can be so precisely dated. September 11th, 2001 is that date. That’s the date that Islam took on the Western world. And it is guaranteed to lose.  It signed it’s death certificate.

Western world did encounter Islam centuries before September 2001, and resisted it. September 11th attack should have woken the West to the danger. But it did not.

But now the West is ready. Islam will die. Islam will die in the next decade or so.

Islam will die soon. It’s true that there are two billion Muslims. But the moment they realize that it’s Islam that is imprisoning them into poverty, they too will reject Islam.

For now, I pay homage to those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. I was in Berkeley, San Francisco Bay area that morning, on the other side of the continent from NY city. I realized the implications of Islamic terrorism. Terrorism is almost entirely Islamic. Therefore the adjective Islamic is superfluous: no other ideology promotes terrorism; only Islam does. If you see terrorism, you can safely assume that it is Islamic. It’s not likely that Buddhists or Hindus or Jains have anything do do with the death and destruction. Only Islam motivates people to kill. Continue reading “Sept 11, 2001: the Death of Islam”