Category: arbit

Libertarianism and rejection of authority

Ok so this is yet another of those self-reflective posts, where I try and rationalize why I’m the way I am. And in the process concoct a fancy theory.

I’m part of this secret society most of whose members are libertarian. I must in fact credit this society from changing my ideology from one that was broadly conservative to broadly libertarian (notice that my economic ideology hasn’t changed, only the social bit has). One thing common among most members of this society is that they are the kind of people who don’t bow to authority. They can be described as confrontationalist, or maverick,  or non-conformist. And most of them are libertarian.

I must mention that for purposes of this post, I define libertarianism as a “belief in free markets and free minds”.

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins writes that one of the things that makes people religious is the tendency to listen to “superiors”, “elders”, etc. He argues that this is consistent with natural selection – that back in those days where we were a “hunting ape”, if we were the type that didn’t listen to our parents, there was a greater danger that we’d fall off trees or got eaten up by lions. So us human beings are “naturally conditioned” to listen to “elders”, “superiors”, etc. Effectively, we are conditioned to take orders. Dawkins talks about how this makes us religious, but that is not relevant here.

So we grow up having this “elderly authority” at home. The “elderly authority” commands us and guides us and gives instructions, and in return provides us protection from the outside world. Soon we grow up, and don’t need that protection any more, so we don’t need to take instructions any more (if you look at taking instructions from parents as the “cost” of the protection they offer you). But then we are conditioned to taking instructions, and being controlled, and it is tough for most of us to outgrow this conditioning.

And so some people look to “society” to provide the instructions, and control you, and tell you what to do and what not to do. They end up as conservatives. Some other people, look to the government (remember that today’s “government” is a replacement for yesterday’s “king”, who was supposed to be “divine”) for instructions and control. They end up being “liberals” (quotes because traditionally liberals supported free markets; it’s only recently they’ve taken a socialist turn). It is quite interesting that a lot of “liberal” people, who profess their rejection of authority, think it is ok for the government to tell them who to do business with, and at what price.

And then there are these really masochistic people who look to both “society” and “government” to put controls on you. Think Swadeshi Jagran Manch and similar institutions.

And so what about people who actually reject the need to have a “protector” once they grow up? They don’t want to take instructions from anyone, and in return they are willing to forego protection – apart from asking from the government protection in terms of defence, foreign policy and upholding of law. Given that very few people reject authority (Dawkins’ concept), it’s very few people that end up as libertarians.

PS: Is it a coincidence that so many very good libertarian bloggers (Caplan, Tabarrok, Hanson, Cowen) are at the little-known George Mason University, and not at one of the “top-ranked” universities?

PS2: I think large corporations are not free-market in any sense. Leave aside crony capitalism. Corporations, by definition, are internally deeply socialist. I guess I’ll save that for another post.

 

The Problem with Resorts

A part of our honeymoon not so long ago was spent at the Taj Exotica in Bentota, Sri Lanka. We stayed there for a bit over a day and a half, and that was supposed to be the most “honeymoony” part of our honeymoon, with the rest of the time being spent essentially roaming and seeing different things in different parts of Sri Lanka. Before we went, I thought I’d set aside very little time for this “honeymoony place” but in the final analysis it turned out I’d allocated the optimum time for it.

So as we sit down to plan for a mid-year vacation, here are some of the problems that we found with resorts – which make us skeptical about spending an entire vacation in a resort kind of place. All this is based on a single data point – our recent visit to Bentota:

  • Food: We got bored of the food in less than a day. I’m vegetarian, which ruled out the seafood restaurants at the resort. Room service menu was extremely limited and one meal bored us of the buffet. We ended up eating consecutive dinners at the same Chinese restaurant at the resort which shows how bored we were of the food
  • Lack of buzz: We went to the bar to grab a quick drink on the way to dinner, and there were hardly any people there. There was no life there and it was too quiet for our liking. Then, on the way back from dinner we thought we’ll hit the disc, and found we were the only people there. A complete put off
  • On the other hand, when we went to the pool for a swim, it turned out there were way too many people there. There were some large gangs of tourists, and they made quite a noise, which wasn’t all that fun. Yeah, I know I’m cribbing about two contradictory things here, but that’s the way it is.
  • Adding to the contradiction, a private beach and all is  quite fine but again it’s boring to go there when there is little activity there. Yeah there were a few people there but there was something about the place which bored us quickly enough for us to return.
  • General lack of activity: Yeah, I know that the purpose of going to a resort is to just chill but after a while the lack of activity can get a bit disconcerting, and makes you want to get away.

But in general, the biggest problem was the food. If you aren’t really fond of buffets, and there are no good options near the resort, you are likely to tire of the food quite quickly, which can be a big pain. At least if you were to get authentic local food you could manage. But sanitized 5-star buffets for over a day? Thanks

Rajat Gupta’s affiliations

Why the fuck does every single article that talks about this describe insider trader Rajat Gupta as a “former Goldman director”? Why not ex-McKinsey CEO? Or current P&G Board Member? And especially given that his insider trading was partly at Goldman’s expense?

Media is crazy

Punjabi Muslims

So earlier today I was reading this profile of a Harvard professor that Chan had shared on Google Reader, and I came across this name called Iqbal Dhaliwal. The name immediately rang a bell, and I realized I’d come across this name long long ago in the Competition Success Review (yes, I admit I used to read that ) when he topped the civil services exam.

So one of my hobbies is to try find out about a person’s origins and ethnicity given his/her name. Like I once figured that this colleague is of Danish descent because his surname ends with -sen while the more common spelling of that name is -son. And so I was trying to figure out where  Iqbal Dhaliwal came from. It was clear from the first name that he’s Muslim. And the last name, I thought, sounded Punjabi.

And then my thought process went something like this:

First name Muslim, last name Punjabi-sounding… So is he a Punjabi Muslim? But then, I don’t know any Punjabi Muslims. Do there exist any Punjabi Muslims at all? Hey, wait a minute, I remember reading somewhere that the majority of people in Pakistan speak Punjabi. So there must exist Punjabi Muslims. But I don’t know any.. I don’t know any Punjabi Muslims but there are lots of them in Pakistan. Yeah, I don’t know any because all of them are in Pakistan. Yes, all of them are in Pakistan, most of them at least!

I know Kannadiga Muslims, Bengali Muslims, Gujarati Muslims, Kashmiri Muslims and Muslims from UP. But I don’t know any Punjabi Muslims. Because there are no Punjabi Muslims in India. Because ALL of them went to Pakistan. Tells you how much of an impact partition had in the Punjab,  compared to anywhere else in India.

Niche

I always thought it is a good thing to do something niche – like having a set of skills/capabilities which few other people have. However, the problem with that, I have come to believe, is that it can be too niche. In which case, you tend to suffer from lack of liquidity in the market.

Lack of liquidity can mean one of two things – it can be good in a way that it ensures wide spreads, so you get to charge much more than the “fair mid price”. On the other hand (maybe in very extreme cases) it can also mean that there is no deal, and you don’t even make the fair price, leave alone a spread.

I think creating liquidity in the market that you want to place your product in is an art.

Budget Analysis

So I finally finished going through today’s Mint and noticed that most of it was filled with analysis of the budget. I tried reading most of them, and didn’t manage to finish any of them (save Anil Padmanabhan’s I think). Most of them were full of globe, each had an idea that could have been expressed in a few tweets, rather than a full column.

Thinking about it, I guess I was expecting too much. After all, if you are calling captains of the industry and sundry bankers and consultants to write about the budget, I don’t think you can expect them to come out with much honest analysis. Think about their incentives.

As for corporate guys, you will expect them to make the usual noises and perhaps be partisan in their judgment. You can expect them to crib about those parts of the budget that shortchanged their company or industry or sector or whatever. But you don’t need them in an op-ed to tell you that – it is obvious to you if you read the highlights, or some rudimentary analysis that the paper anyway provides.

However, these guys won’t want to rub the ruling party the wrong way, so they fill up the rest of their essays with some globe about how it is a “progressive” budget or a “pro-poor” budget or some such shyte. So far so good.

The think tank guys are probably better. At least they don’t have any constituency to pander to, and they can give a good critical analysis. However, as academics (and most likely, not being bloggers) what they write is usually not very easy to read, and so what they say (which might actually contain something useful) can be lost to the reader.

The worst of all are the fat-cat consultants and bankers. The reason they write is primarily to gain visibility for themselves and for their firm, and given how lucrative government business is for these guys (look at the ridiculously low fees these guys charge for government IPOs, and you’ll know) they have absolutely no incentive to tell something useful, or honest. Again these guys aren’t used to writing for a general audience. So you can expect more globe.

All that I needed to learn about the budget I learnt by way of a brief unopinionated summary sent in an internal email at work yesterday (it took me 2 mins to read it on my blackberry). And also Anil Padmanabhan’s cover page article in today’s Mint.

update:

I must mention I wrote this post after I’d read the main segment of today’s Mint. Starting to read the “opinion” supplement now, and it looks more promising

Expense Troubles

Sometimes corporate expense accounts work in strange ways. For example, there is a clause in our policy that for a trip of over a week, you are permitted to get your clothes laundered at the hotel “within reasonable limits”.

Given that this is a long trip and that I ran out of jocks, I got some laundered here, paying six dollars to launder each jock (on company expense, of course).

Noble policy; this is all good. There is only one issue here. The jocks that I spent six dollars for getting laundered cost me about three dollars each. Actually for six dollars, I can get pretty good quality jocks at the Century 21 store nearby.

And if it were my six dollars (rather than the firm’s) I would rather spend it on buying new jocks than getting old depreciated jocks laundered. But alas, company policy doesn’t let me expense the purchase of new jocks.

Sometimes corporate expense accounts work in strange ways.

Baklava

So for dinner yesterday, among other things, I bought a Baklava. It’s the first time I’m having it and I wonder if I’d be wrong if I were to call it the king of sweets.

Thinking about it, calling the Baklava king may not be all that inaccurate – given that I now think that the Indian sweet Badusha is derived from the Baklava. I haven’t checked anywhere but my guess is that “Badusha” comes from “Badshah” or king, and refers to the Mughal emperors who came from Central Asia.

And the Baklava, we know, comes from the region that broadly includes Turkey and Central Asia.

And I think the reason the Badusha, unlike the Baklava, lacks dry fruits is that it’s usually mass-produced – it’s a common sight at wedding receptions, and costs cannot be allowed to soar. Maybe, you might have South Indian Sweet Shops selling Baklava soon. You never know.

On a side-note I wonder why the Jahangir (Jangri in Tamil – clearly a derivative of Jahangir; imarti in Hindi) is called Jahangir. Wonder if it came to Karnataka in Emperor Jehangir’s time.

Uniform

So it seems like my school uniform has changed, and I don’t like it. I happened to notice this a long time ago, actually, when I saw this boy standing close to my apartment wearing a shirt that was mostly blue, and trousers that were mostly grey.

The thing that bothered me was the mostly part. Back in our times (1986-98) there was no mostly business. We wore simple plain blue shirts and simple plain blue trousers. No frills, no extra fittings. No uniform belts or ties or uniform sweater or leather shoes or any other such inconveniences.

So I see this boy quite regularly nowadays. He is there, in front of the gate of my apartment that faces the main road, waiting for the school bus. He lives somewhere close by I think, for I’ve seen him walk to his spot. I was somehow hoping he was living in my apartment building, so I could get to know him.

So there are lots of weird fittings on the uniform now. School emblem near the chest (I must mention I didn’t even know about the existence of one such emblem), borders for the shirt sleeves and trouser pockets, and so on. Even on thursdays, there are lots of extra fittings to the white uniform. Some craziness seems to be happening.

The only heartening thing is that one day I saw this boy, in blue and grey with all the extra fittings, wearing sneakers. Some things, I realized, never change. And how much ever people try to change things, some awesome things remain.

Handling Jesus

A few months back, perhaps during the football world cup, I had talked about the role of Jesus Navas in the Spanish attack. He would mostly be brought on as a “plan B”, mostly when the Spanish tiki-taka failed to break down the opposition defence.

And by hogging the right touchline, he would single-handedly offer a new line of attack, without taking too much away from the existing tiki-taka attack down the middle. Though quite under-rated, I think he had valuable contributions in the Spanish victory.

So I was thinking about the conditions that are essential for the success of Jesus Navas. And the primary condition, I thought, was the support of his team-mates. For example, when Xavi passed the ball right to Navas, he recognized fully well that there was little chance Navas would give it back to him. Xavi would recognize that Navas would play his own game, and all he had to do would be to perhaps send Sergio Ramos to support and get players in the box waiting for the cross.

It is to the credit of Xavi and the other members of Spanish “Plan A attack” that they recognized this and allowed Navas to play his own game whenever he came on. If they hadn’t, Navas would surely have never been as effective. In fact, he would have been a complete misfit and failure.

You might want to draw your own analogies from this but what I want to say is that when you have a guy in your team who does things differently, who is there to “provide a different angle to the attack”, you need to create conditions to facilitate his work. At the very least, you need to ensure that all members of the team recognize that this guy is different, and what they need to do to enable his success.

Talking about diversity and diversity policies is all fine, but to get the best out of the diversity policy, you need to create conditions to extract the best out of the “diversity hire”, in whatever context you choose to view this.