min-myinnersoul

I don't know what to make of this story. An economics soap opera ? How the most unexpected things can happen  ? How sometimes prosperity can hit you from the strangest of directions ? Read on - judge for yourself. The story starts in a very boring manner. Everybody knows Americans guzzle gas. With the Sheikhs turning the screws, Americans are feeling the pinch. Ouch - the price of oil is hurting. Drill baby drill , is fine, but oil is, alas, not to be found. Need new forms of cheap energy so that Americans can continue to guzzle away. Suddenly they discovered a new "source" - Shale gas .  Apparently natural gas is  found in rocks called shales. And apparently shale gas is rather plentiful in the US. Wonder of wonders, use of shale gas even releases lower greenhouse gases than evil Oil.. Voila, the new gold rush is on.  All very good. What's new. This sort of thing happens all the time. The real interesting bit is that, in order to extract this gas, you have to do ...

Alas, Ramamritham is alive , well and strong and he rules upon all that he surveys (pun intended).  The Indian Government will announce today in parliament that it would open up the retail sector to foreign investment. No doubt the Left will organise some bandhs, yell at 10,000 decibels in the Lok Sabha, and then this law will be passed while the opposition will walk out en masse. Ostensibly, this is economic reform. Its a pathetic, 15cms of reform after a decade of nothing happening, but we'll reserve that criticism for another day. What has got my goat is Ramamritham's dirty footprint all across this move. Firstly foreign investment of 100% will be allowed in Single Brand Retail, but only 51% in multi brand retail. Therefore a Marks & Spencer store can be 100% foreign owned, but Carrefour can't. Even though they may both sell precisely the same things (M&S does sell a lot of food). Pray why ?? Secondly Ramamritham has excelled himself in drafting a series of condi...

“This house believes that making trade fairer is more important than making it freer” – this is the current live debate hosted by The Economist here . This blogger is a complete and unabashed fan of The Economist and subscribes to the view that it is the best publication in the world. The Economist debates are a fascinating discussion of very relevant issues and it would be difficult to find as interesting a debate on economics as between fair trade and free trade. The context must be clearly understood. Despite all the tall claims made, the world is nowhere close to free trade of an acceptable sort. The bastions of free trade are all fiercely protectionists in their own areas – agriculture in both Europe and the US, and pretty much everywhere else in the developing world. Everybody wants free trade in other’s homes, but not in their own backyard. Tariff and non tariff barriers abound. The crawling pace of the WTO talks, which go on for decades is testimony to this, although it has to ...