Fareed Zakaria on the current era of Globalization

Fareed Zakaria is an editor at Newsweek International magazine, he writes on Foreign Affairs. Some time ago I read a very nice article by him on the India Rising story.

He wrote in the article:

India's growth is messy, chaotic and largely unplanned. It is not top-down but bottom-up. It is happening not because of the government, but largely despite it. India does not have Beijing and Shanghai's gleaming infrastructure, and it does not have a government that rolls out the red carpet for foreign investment—no government in democratic India would have those kinds of powers anyway. But it has vast and growing numbers of entrepreneurs who want to make money. And somehow they find a way to do it, overcoming the obstacles, bypassing the bureaucracy. "The government sleeps at night and the economy grows," says Gurcharan Das, former CEO of Procter Gamble in India.

I feel the problem with the government is that there is no competition. Anyways I digress....

The reason for the post is yet another article I read today and this time Fareed talks about how despite of the current wars fought by the US and Israel, the world economy is still growing and how Bush is pre-occupied by Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Israel, Lebanon...... and what are the problems ahead.

The highlight of the article is where he explains how the Markets are smart:

Markets are supposed to be smart. What are they telling us? That the current era of globalization is more powerful, widespread and resilient than many people realize. Today we are living through something practically unique—simultaneous growth worldwide. The United States, Europe and Japan are all doing well, but so are China, India, Brazil, Turkey and a whole slew of former Third World countries. Their rise is powering the new global order. Emerging markets now account for 30 percent of the world economy and for 50 percent of global growth last year. One important benefit has been that advanced industrial nations have maintained extremely low interest rates for almost two decades, enabling some countries—such as the United States—to grow faster than many experts predicted. This could not have happened without two global deflation machines, China and India, which keep prices low in goods and services, respectively.

Quite true, as the world is flattening and globalization will become a norm, the competition and inequalities in the world become will also become more prominent yet some countries/economies will continue to thrive irrespective of the neighborhood bombs and border wars. As Fareed writes in his article "There is no way to turn off this global economy, nor should one try."

Whatever you want it to be ..... - PJP

I thought of doing something different for this post. I invited one of my FOB buddy to write a post on my blog. (will invite some more friends over time). I want all my friends to start and maintain their blog. So this exercise will give them some food for thought. I follow some of my friend's blog and it gives me a chance to see a different side of all them which I don't see while we're together hanging out. So without further adu, I introduce my good friend PJP (a.k.a Smiley baba, Hrithik) who has written this post after lot of coaxing. He's one of the people who has a profound impact on me and I'm sure on many others, he always does the right thing at the right time and I admire it. Be generous in your comments and encouarge him to start writing regularly. So here is Mr. PJP......

Well my very dear friend invited me to write an article in his blog space. For some reason he has a misconception and thinks I have good writing skills (or maybe he was just pulling my leg which I didn’t realize ....until now) In any case I thought of writing something but then the difficult part was to come up with a topic. Should I write about the Indo-US nuke bill (which by the way passed with a whooping 85-12 in the senate) or should I write about my reaction after reading a blog of an Iraqi girl (articles that makes you realize and appreciate how fortunate you are). Should I write about my conversation with an old college friend which refreshed my college days or should I write about semiconductor and technology which I work on. So as creative as I am, I thought of writing on the topic of the topic itself.

I think the topic of the blog tells the kind of person the writer is in great detail. Is he emotional? Is he a person with political views? Is he very observant? Is he a tech savvy? Usually you would find a same kind of theme in different blogs written by the same writer. It’s more like all the Karan Johar movies (infact now even the songs in his movies confuse the hell out of me.) I find it interesting to understand the psychology of the writer. Some bloggers have money as their motivation; some are just pouring their heart out hoping someone is reading it. For some writing is just a passion. Some are writing to enlighten the world (or atleast that’s what I think they think). Of course then there are people like me who don’t know why and what they are writing. My friend told me that he does not care who reads his blogs, he just writes it and feels satisfied. I was impressed by that thought.

I guess you can write about anything and everything, share it with the world and still have more to talk about. Recently, researchers have analyzed the dynamics of how blogs become popular. There are essentially two measures of this: popularity through citations, as well as popularity through affiliation. In anycase I am not looking for popularity but just wanted to write something down. A question before I sign off : Reading my blog what kind of person am I ?

Don't forget to answer his question....

Here's a pic from our Chicago trip in Dec 2004 after both of us sailed through some tough times.

Life without Experience is no fun Life

My colleague recently received an e-mail from a young English woman who has 19 million in her name (in some will or trust) which she can receive only after she gets married. So apparently she's looking for someone to marry her and she'll give 30% of the money she'll receive to the person who marries her, so my colleague asked me if I'm available (he was joking)..... I was like yaa yaa sure, I wont have to work for the rest of my life, I'll retire .....

But than as I was thinking about this, I don't think I want to get/earn money like this, what's the use of getting money this way, what's my experience in this. I want to work to earn and I don't ever want to retire. I want to have the satisfying experience of working and want a fulfilling life which I feel I'll be missing without life's experiences. The more I understand about life and see people around me, I see we all have different backgrounds, different upbringings, different thoughts about pursuing life and we each carry our unique experiences on our shoulder each day and share with others in different breadths. We all talk to each other about our positive and negative experiences, may be however simple they are like dining at a new restaurant, or visiting some cool place in Italy or Hampton's, or your experience of visiting a particular lawyer or accountant. And we always see famous actor/director/artist/politician giving interviews about their life experiences. There are so many websites which are dedicated for product reviews and user forums where unknown people discuss their ideas and experiences.

However, there are somethings in life which I feel have to be experienced personally, you cannot take someone else's word for it.
- Experience like travelling through a foreign country where you don't know a single soul.
- Experience like coming to a new country for studies
- Experience like doing something really noble alone, where you're touching people's lives who cannot do things for themselves.
- Experience of sailing through the rough waters of entrepreneurship.
- Experience of fighting for something you feel is right (Y4E, Save Darfur, etc)
- Experience of falling in and falling out of love (both are important)

I do not like to form my opinion based on someones experience, but it's always good to listen to what they've to say even if you do not entirely agree. It's always prudent to listen to what your elders/parents have to say even when you feel there is a generation gap or difference in circumstances, because although the young person has never been old, the old person once was young.

Some mistakes that can be avoided after listening to others experiences:
- Watching a bad movie or eating at a restaurant your friend has told you to avoid.
- Avoid visiting a bad business/accountant/lawyer/doctor about whom you've read or heard. (I recently visited a very bad/rude Rental office when I was looking for a new apt, have been kicking myself ever since, because I had read/heard about their bad behavior)
- Making the same mistakes over and over again.
- Avoid consulting/listening to pessimist people because it's remarkable how "happy people" just seem to find the bright side of a new situation.
- Living an unhealthy life by either smoking/eating junk/no exercise and than living on medicines.
- Rash/Stupid/drunk driving and than sitting in the hospital with broken bones with pain and anguish for yourself and others (Read: I'm not against people drinking, I'm against drinking and driving).

I read a very nice quote "Although the young person has never been old, the old person once was young. When you look up the age ladder, you look at strangers; when you look down the age ladder, you are always looking at versions of yourself. As an adult, those fantastic younger incarnations can seem either long left behind or all too continuous with who you are now."

Peace & Love always.........

Where am I ?

This was between 12am - 12:30am on a Friday night (early Sat morning) in the city, I had missed the last bus from Port Authority to NJ. So had to come to the PATH train station at WTC to travel back home.

I had already forgotten/dropped my monkey cap in the SUBWAY train as I was sleep deprived and also had a full stomach (had Indian Chinese at Tangra Masala which was deliciooouuussss). Arriving at the PATH station I was a little surprised to see so many people at that time of the night. But than it's the CITY, the scene at the station ........

There was a bench under a big flood-light where some people were having a nap after a long week or may be after the Friday night revelry; some people were reading and some were just observing (like me). Lots of other people were standing under the light so that they can get little bit of warmth from the light on a cold night.

- Chinese/korean/japanese girl was sleeping and resting her head on her boyfriend's shoulder.
- A bald guy was enjoying this time with his wife/girl-friend as they were almost making out.
- 3 South-Indian guys were standing and discussing something really intellectual and fundamental.
- A lean guy had just got off his 12:00 am shift (probably a Doorman or a security guard) was observing everything.
- African-American teenagers (guy and a girl) were practicing/discussing some of the cool dance steps, may be they were part of a dance troupe.
- A middle-aged man was deeply engrossed in his news paper and was reading the market trends and graphs.
- Another Indian guy was just wandering aimlessly on the train station thinking something deep (atleast it looked that way)
- Another couple away from the bench and light were showing their affections to each other as they waited for the train.
- Couple of old Hispanic ladies (who again may have just got off their work) were wearing jackets, gloves were fully prepared for the cold weather and looked like frequent travellers on the train were talking animatedly.
- A tall woman (may be in her late 30's) was elegantly dressed with the NY style overcoat and was carrying the typical travel-bag with wheels was reading a novel as she waited.
- Another American (financial types) was busy doing some work on his black-berry.
Some others were either on the phone or were seeing everything around as they were waiting.

But there was this calm on the station which is so ephemeral and uncharacteristic of the city which is usually a circus, chaotic and a toal frenzy during the day. I guess people were a little detached as they were welcoming the weekend and getting ready to spend time with their family/friends.

On my earlier visits to the city, I came home motivated, energized, lively, spirited, zealous. But this time I brought home collected, restful, patience and relaxed feelings.

A different experience!

Quote of the day

Dr. Muhammad Yunus is the developer and founder of the concept of microcredit. He's a Bangladeshi banker and an economist who founded Grameen Bank.
Grameen Bank and Dr. Yunus were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year (2006) for advancing economic and social opportunities for the poor, especially women, through their pioneering microcredit work.

On winning this prize in an interview he said "One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long."

I was moved by reading this. Hope he achieves this goal. The world would be a much better place.

There was a lot of debate when he won the Nobel prize for Peace and not the Nobel prize in economics, but I feel the Peace prize is apt because by solving poverty he's fighting on two fronts. Not only is he solving the BIG economic problem but once this people who get economic freedom are less likely to get involved in terrorist activity, or other disturbances. They've something to look forward to in life, will work doubly hard to remain clean and will motivate their children and others in their society for a purposeful life.