There are two things that come to mind about the current situation.

1. Personally, the player selection decision lies solely in the hands of the IPL franchise-owners and their technical personnel. It is a commercial venture and they can do as they deem right. So no matter how much begging and childish tantrums thrown by the current Twenty20 World Champions, it means squat.

2. The decision, if politically motivated, is disappointing but justified. After the Mumbai attacks, anything is fair. Here is an internationally accepted rogue nation that refuses to accept responsibility. And mixing politics with sports is common to all nations and there are so many examples. Didn’t most of the world (spearheaded by India) refuse to allow Israel into the sports arena? Did not India refuse to accept an apartheid-ridden South Africa? Then aren’t they justified in not accepting a nation like Pakistan, where institutional terrorism is a way of life?

3. What are the chances of contract money paid to members of the current T20 champs not adding to the kitty of “charitable organizations” like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa – a pseudonym for Jaish-e-Mohammed, a godfather of the Lashkar-e-Tayaba?

4. This is the bigger picture I think. And not that far-fetched as it may sound. The cash-strapped Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) – a cabal of cigar smoking elites – had begged the Indian cricket board (BCCI) for scheduling an India-Pakistan test series to help refresh funds into their dried up well. The cricketing suits meet. They have a cunning plan. The IPL makes a statement. The PCB cries discrimination. The Indian government intervenes and takes steps to “redress this wrong”. An India-Pak test series is scheduled. Everyone makes money (including bookies). Allizwell! Is that a possibility or what?

Pakistan players hurt and angered by snub

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Let’s Give Visas to Startup Founders
Instead of encouraging the first brain drain in U.S. history, the country should create a program to welcome funded startup entrepreneurs By Vivek Wadhwa

Aside from enterprise that may still come with no guarantees of prosperity, when one keeps in mind the pace of innovation today, I personally think the USA could also do well by encouraging immigration of skilled and semi-skilled professionals in emerging fields that form crucial social pillars I can think of medicine, environmental sciences, information systems, accountancy as some of them. The world is increasingly becoming a service economy. This means labour – aside from oil – becomes a crucial resource.

The solid rationale on which globalization was built was essentially to remove inefficiencies and inequities in factors of capital and establish a (fluid) point where supply meets demand. There are clear imbalances in the labour market today. We can find countries that have an excess supply of skilled labour, who are alarmingly underemployed or unemployed. On the other hand there are pricing imbalances as well.
Encouraging the immigration of health care professionals, educators and technology professionals will go a long way in reducing price inequities and on the other hand increase affordability spurring consumer demand.

The strongest asset the USA has today is its brand equity. To an outsider it still remains a fair and just place where the rule of law still prevails and hard work pays. The election of Barack Obama is testimony to that. While opinion polls indicate that the USA is a country people love to hate, the same people – at least a majority – would still be open to living there. This is an advantage that could reap big rewards just as it did – I am told – when doctors from India – formed a beeline to enter the states to plug the shortfall of skilled medical professionals caused by the Vietnam conflict.

The tacit acceptance of the government, who held absolute legislative power is quite clear from a statement like that. Around 2000 Sikhs were killed in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Areas like Trilokpuri turned into Auschwitz with systematic genocide being conducted, led by Jagdish Tytler, HKL Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar. Sitting cabinet minister and “FDI Magazine Personality of the Year 2007″, Kamal Nath was also another of this tribe. Diabolical men who turned ordinary, unemployed, uneducated men into savages. Not that it takes much to do that. Without education, there is seldom any reasoning. India has produced countless such examples.

While the MGR-lookalike Bhagat is dead and most likely condemned to being sodomized in hell for every drop of innocent blood shed at his behest, Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler have been approved by Sonia Gandhi and a very Sikh prime minister to fight the parliamentary elections next month on their behalf. Sheila Dixit, a very competent chief minister of New Delhi went on record to say that since the terrible two have been acquitted by the courts, they are eligible to stand for elections. And…..they are the most winnable of candidates. Are we that dead and soulless?

Can we then castigate people who take up arms to bring about change?

Another interesting thing I must mention here was the extent cover ups going on currently. I discovered that lots of web links to news reports that carried the story about Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) submitting their final report on the 1984 Hindu-Sikh pogrom in New Delhi were being blocked. Hey but weren’t they acquitted by the courts, Mrs. Dixit?

Someone was trying to block out the news. Why? It is election season after all. Before the horses are traded, they need to be washed and bathed.

When the winds of change began blowing heavily, and legislative administrators of these cash-strapped nations began deregulating their creaking economies, an army of ‘experts’ emerged – usually greenhorns with fresh MBA degrees under their belt, who presented cash flow forecasts to their bosses. Graying bosses who had probably witnessed unprecedented destruction in the world wars, and had since developed an innate revulsion towards socialist dogma. These white-haired, golf-playing signatories subsequently approved the given expert-advice under the expectation that fortunes lay in wait for them. They probably also dismissed conservatives who thought the forecasts to be too optimistic.

Fundamental Causes
Essentially the youngish forecasters of the developed world thought then that the rest of the world was malleable enough to accept and imbibe American culture. After all, they were opening up. Their societies could now experience things that they had never experienced before. Cars with attitude. Aphrodisiac deodorant sprays. This is not a bad thing. American culture has distinctive qualities such as independence and enterprise. The rest of the world actually did accept those qualities, as soon as their markets opened up. But what they did not accept was the “buy now, pay later” maxim. Or the value of intellectual property.

One could attempt to jot down the following underestimations in the forecasted models.

a. Extent of IP piracy and leakages
b. Tenacity and ingenuity of local competition
c. Natural inefficiencies resulting from crumbling infrastructure
d. The callous, street-legal acceptance and apathy towards corruption at all levels of authority
e. “Hardwired” conservative, insular cultural values
f. The democratization of information due to developments in open communications

The Central Hypothesis

I think that the recession today can be simplified as the result of (1) incorrect projections (as argued earlier) resulting in (2) increased number of competitors vying for a share of the consumer wallet resulting in (3) overcapacity resulting in a (4) supply glut resulting in (5) increasing cost of sales resulting in (6) lower earnings margins resulting in (7) longer than earlier-estimated breakeven points on projects/businesses resulting in (8) commercial credit expansion resulting in (9) more nervous banks resulting in (10) desperate measures to make bigger, riskier bets to please shareholders.

The final result: A deeper, prolonged recession causing structural changes in certain markets.
But, all is not lost.

A final word: Don’t believe what you read. Newspapers play the ratings game too.

Oil prices, a key barometer that has an equivocal impact across all sectors and regions of the global economy, has come down to realistic levels. Why?

I personally believe that the fresh-dapper-MBA-led investment banks of the world also tried to speculate their way out of the US sub-prime crisis by betting on oil prices. Think about it. How did oil prices soar 250% in less than a year when we witnessed no big ‘events’ like an embargo or sorts? On the contrary, even Iraq was seeing steady recovery indicating more taps were ready to be piped into the market.

Some folks working in classy office buildings with scenic views around Canary Wharf and Wall Street realized that they were in trouble. Their bets on the US housing market and the cushion of an omnipresent, ravenous credit-reliant American consumer providing much needed steam to the US economy was not going according to plan. Points a-f above, actually let’s say points a, b and f were still decimating the competitiveness of US industry, thanks to freer markets and trade agreements. On the other hand, the same factors along with point e poured cold water all over their dreams on the demand side.

Anyways, thankfully, this club of “finance professionals” is now on Dump Street. Assuming that these gentlemen don’t follow the FILTH doctrine (Failed in London Try Hong Kong), other markets should be safe. The more populous, self-sufficient markets with a bounty of natural resources need not worry. As long as oil prices are in check (and they possibly will be due to an expected slow-moving restoration of international order), subsidies-led budget deficits will be in check and as a result inflation will remain muted. As a hip-hop artist might remark, “it’s all good!”

For the developed markets, I think Barack Obama is taking the right step. He’s moving in the right direction by working on creating a Quality of Life 2.0 for his constituents. A cleaner, safer environment for the average citizen. A higher ideal or an upgraded version of life that the nouveau riche people in the underdeveloped world are only now beginning to aspire towards slowly and steadily. A simple example of the motivation towards this higher ideal would be the spike in traffic congestion witnessed in almost every metropolis in Asia as a result of cheaper cars, and non-existent road upgrades. The cost of progress is slowly being realized in emerging countries in the form of pollution, spatial shortages and contamination etc.

Once the developed economies led by USA gain expertise in Quality of Life 2.0 competences in the form of cost-efficient, scalable, and transferable solutions to these issues, they are open again for business. Richer Asian countries will be making a bee line for that.

Until then, they better hold on to their dollars, discipline their younger generation and curb their excessive ways. Much to the consternation of Asia, who now train their eyes towards consumers in their own backyard, freer markets and infrastructural rejuvenation.

The games political and corporate crooks play

Tulsi Tanti and Amar Singh contributed a total of 8 crore rupees to The Clinton foundation. That money could have generated jobs and possibly saved lives in India. It could have financed a year of supplies to every rural school in India. How can we, as a poor nation that we really are make an example of these illiterate self-proclaimed overlords of the masses? And I don’t think a mobile phone poll is enough.