This blog has been corrected on the advice of my friend Jerry Rothstein who sent me the NYT's coverage, so the sentence below has been changed to 'The Times barely covered India's budget' from The Times did not cover India's budget'.
The Times carries on about how net journalists are not enough and a newspaper has to have the dough to pay for a staff to properly report what is of importance.
The Times carries on about how they have a global reach.
The Times carries on about how developing countries are key to the US and Europe.
The Times did not cover India's budget.
The WSJ did and the FT did.
NYT RIP.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Taxes 1
I was speaking to a German expatriate friend who was bemoaning high Indian income taxes. At 33% I reckoned that those were pretty low compared to Anglo Saxon countries. This surprised me, since the editorial writers of the Angles and Saxons (though barbarians is too kind a description of those with the WSJ) are forever telling us how continental Europeans are very highly taxed compared with those of us blessed by the English language.
It turns out that having kids is a tax break in Germany, but anyway the effective income tax rate is about 30% and a bit.
I checked with people in my French office; it is the same there.
Perhaps the Angles and Saxons should check their facts before they bray.
It turns out that having kids is a tax break in Germany, but anyway the effective income tax rate is about 30% and a bit.
I checked with people in my French office; it is the same there.
Perhaps the Angles and Saxons should check their facts before they bray.
Labour Laws 3 - Why India is not China and why the memory of Jean Dreze will forever be hated by the commies.
Bihar is growing, that is why. Our growth is not confined to the coasts, and not as dependent on migrant workers as that of the coastal regions of China in their growth heyday. And anyway, where are the damn migrant workers anymore? Gone to NREGA every one.
The knock on effect of fewer migrant workers will also revolutionize agriculture, particularly in Punjab, where the fellows have become used to paying a few pfennigs a day to get their work done and make up for their abysmal farming practices that have ruined the soil and depleted the water table.
The reason is economics. If they do no longer have cheap labour farmers will have to find a way to sustainably increase yields to pay for the required mechanization.
By freeing people from slavery Mr Dreze has robbed his own revolution of needed revolutionaries and instead handed them over to the super middle class vision of Mr Singh and Mrs Gandhi.
The knock on effect of fewer migrant workers will also revolutionize agriculture, particularly in Punjab, where the fellows have become used to paying a few pfennigs a day to get their work done and make up for their abysmal farming practices that have ruined the soil and depleted the water table.
The reason is economics. If they do no longer have cheap labour farmers will have to find a way to sustainably increase yields to pay for the required mechanization.
By freeing people from slavery Mr Dreze has robbed his own revolution of needed revolutionaries and instead handed them over to the super middle class vision of Mr Singh and Mrs Gandhi.
Labour Laws 2 - Jean Dreze will go down as the father of automation and labour productivity in India
First, I think NREGA is fabulous because its about time the poor bastards in the fields got something from the government, instead of always having their land and lives taken away by politicians.
Second, I love NREGA because it is going to usher in a manufacturing productivity revolution such as has never seen before. NREGA has made labour scarce in India before, during and after the harvest seasons because buzzing off to 'the native', as we Indians call it, at harvest time means paid for work during the harvest, and NREGA on the shoulders of that time.
Factories cannot deal with a fluctuating labour force so they will have to find ways to automate jobs done by coolies earning 3,000 to 5,000 rupees per day. Its tough to do because it means re-engineering (and not reverse engineering) machines that can be bought in Europe for EUR 90,000 for less than EUR 10,000. Can it be done? Yes.
When that happens you are going to see a boost to TFP that should throw manufacturing into a different orbit, make us more than competitive with China, Vietam et al and see the industrial workforce take on a totally different hue in terns of education, productivity and wages.
Private factory jobs will pay more than government factory jobs and that will weaken the hold that unions and their political masters have on asset divestment by the government because all the fellows currently at state owned firms will decamp to the private sector.
We have seen that before. Remember the start of private banks and the end of bank strikes?
Poor Jean. The man who destroyed the labour unions by freeing its members from overpaid jobs.
Now all we need is the electricity to power all those machines.
Second, I love NREGA because it is going to usher in a manufacturing productivity revolution such as has never seen before. NREGA has made labour scarce in India before, during and after the harvest seasons because buzzing off to 'the native', as we Indians call it, at harvest time means paid for work during the harvest, and NREGA on the shoulders of that time.
Factories cannot deal with a fluctuating labour force so they will have to find ways to automate jobs done by coolies earning 3,000 to 5,000 rupees per day. Its tough to do because it means re-engineering (and not reverse engineering) machines that can be bought in Europe for EUR 90,000 for less than EUR 10,000. Can it be done? Yes.
When that happens you are going to see a boost to TFP that should throw manufacturing into a different orbit, make us more than competitive with China, Vietam et al and see the industrial workforce take on a totally different hue in terns of education, productivity and wages.
Private factory jobs will pay more than government factory jobs and that will weaken the hold that unions and their political masters have on asset divestment by the government because all the fellows currently at state owned firms will decamp to the private sector.
We have seen that before. Remember the start of private banks and the end of bank strikes?
Poor Jean. The man who destroyed the labour unions by freeing its members from overpaid jobs.
Now all we need is the electricity to power all those machines.
Labour Laws 1 - Proof positive because its endorsed by the commies
Those who follow this blog know that I rant on about how we do not need low value added jobs in this economy, nor do we need to gut our labour laws to make Walmart happy.
Yesterday's economic times carried an op ed by a JNU professor (therefore my characterization of her as a commie, but I may be wrong) carrying on about how we needed more jobs making T shirts. She said it, and since all such JNU prescriptions are wrong, I must be right and we should not encourage T shirt making.
Yesterday's economic times carried an op ed by a JNU professor (therefore my characterization of her as a commie, but I may be wrong) carrying on about how we needed more jobs making T shirts. She said it, and since all such JNU prescriptions are wrong, I must be right and we should not encourage T shirt making.
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