Gold - value or drain?

Warren Buffet said it best. You spend large amounts of money, digging a hole in the ground to take out the gold. Then you spend large amounts of money, digging another hole in the ground (large vaults under Manhattan) to keep it safe.  Indians have an attraction to gold that rivals the rest of the world.   It is the singularly worst 'investment' you can make.  There is nothing productive coming from gold. It cannot be used for any purpose. Its value is purely in the eyes of the seller and purchaser. In many ways, Bitcoins are very similar.  The sooner Indians understand and realise this, the better use their money can be put to. The Indian government is trying its best to drill common sense into the public. But alas, 000's of years of foolhardy 'investments' into Gold cannot be forgotten in a few years. ----- Watch as the Federal Reserve starts to taper, raise interest rates in fairly rapid order as soon as the first whiff of inflation is sighted. The price of Gold is headed downward. ----- Buyer beware.  The BEST way to stop this gold attraction is as follows: Gold's main attraction is that it is perceived as a store of value. How do we remove this per reduce the value of gold. 1) International prices of gold when they fall will reduce this attraction. ii) Another thing that people hate is the loss of purchasing power of Rupee due to inflation. The way around this is to make the RBI's goal inflation reduction to < 2%. Over many years of controlling inflation, people will realise that Rupee is a strong currency. They will stop worrying about loss of value. An indirect result will be reduction in attractiveness of gold. iii) Increase the attractiveness of other investments by a) ensuring that scams are caught and prosecuted immediately b) promoting equity ownership c) promoting fixed-income (bonds) with safety in value of principal. A combination of the above steps will reduce the attraction of gold and promote use of people's savings in more productive investments.

After over a decade of silence ...

I had never thought that I would be so silent for so long. Yet here we are. Regardless, I'll try to catch us up on what has been transpiring in my life. 

 

First off, I am still alive - thank God - when I should have, by rights, been gone 7 years ago. Both my father and my grandfather passed on at that age. I am living my bonus years, thanks to medicine and a newfound awareness that fitness is not just a nice-to-be-seen activity, but actually something that gives tangible returns. It helps this body, mind complex to continue existing in 'living' form more effectively and efficiently. 

 

We owe it to our co-live'rs (to coin a word for those who are living with us - whether other halves, children or other forms of caretakers) to keep the mechanical parts working as efficiently as possible. 

 

We also owe it to them that we make wills - living wills as they are known - to clarify HOW we want to keep the mechanics functioning, as they (inevitably) deteriorate over time. 

 

Make sure that we gather them all into a single room and convey what it is that we need done, in case the functioning of the brain behind all the mechanics, decides to stop functioning. Debilitating diseases like Parkinson's (as afflicted my mother), Dementia, Alzheimer's or a stroke that causes the brain to stop functioning can make it well nigh impossible to convey what one wants done AFTER the debilitating event. 

I cannot stress the above paragraph enough, because these events can (and do) happen without warning, or with a deliberate slowness that makes it impossible to determine a good time to convey your wishes.

Rapists and pedophiles - what punishment is reasonable?

From the side that says
'no death penalty under any circumstances' and
'people should be imprisoned only if their crimes are egregious' and
'prisoners can always be retrained and should be integrated into society'
TO
'death penalty whenever possible - an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth is the way it should be' and
'three strikes and you're in jail for 30 years' and
'jail is where you should stay for your entire sentence - and a little
more if possible',
every one has an opinion on this.

But in the case of pedophiles (proven beyond a shadow of a doubt) and rapists (again, proven beyond a shadow of doubt) I think the norm should be universal capital punishment.

But what you have outlined as the punishment below seems reasonable - as long as the scientists claiming that it works are willing to face capital punishment when it doesn't work.

Sai

P.S. I am also willing to consider the hanging of the criminals by their ... until they die. It seems to be reasonable to expect the criminal to feel at least a femto-amount of the pain that the victims have felt.

P.P.S Please note 'beyond the shadow of a doubt' is not a legal definition. But then 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is not well defined either. What is reasonable to one could be unreasonable to another.

FAA - are they working for the safety of the public or for the airlines?

One more story brings fears of safety to the fore. Airline safety is being compromised as detailed in this story. I am afraid that people will stop having confidence in the airlines and the organization that is supposed to be looking out for them. It looks like the fox has been set to guard the chicken coop! Whither whistle blowing safety?

Gurus and Shishyas

For the past two odd years, I have started to get into self-inquiry. So far, no guru. I have been reading around, listening to lectures and feel that many, nay most, of the doubts that you have expressed about Gurus misleading seekers is genuine. However, the intelligent and inquiring seeker should be able to discern the difference between the real Guru and a Furu (fake Guru).

The problem is when you have Furus that are close to being Gurus - one that comes to mind is Osho - erstwhile Bhagwan (or Acharya) Rajneesh. There are numerous others in India - and still more in the West in the guise of Xtianity spreaders (Southern US has boat loads of these people who feed off the poor).

BUT - there are real Gurus out there. One of the things that I have learnt from the teachings of Adi Shankaracharya (the original - not the current one from Kanchi) and his Bhashya on Gita (Bhashya can be loosely translated as an interpretation or, more correctly, an explanation) is that there ARE gurus and there are realy seekers - and (here is the tough to swallow part) when the time is right, The correct Guru will 'appear' before the seeker and put the seeker on his/her way toward the 'Truth'.

I have difficulty with this. My question is - who guided Adi Shankaracharya himself? And are the only Gnanis the ones that had Gurus? What about Ramakrishna Paramahansa? What about Ramana Maharishi? I am sure there are many other Gnanis in our midst and at least some of them must have found the 'Truth' on their own?! So why not me? Why not EVERYONE else?

Having said this, I believe that J Krishnamurti (however murky his teachings) used to say it right (I am paraphrasing) 'you should not follow me - find out for yourself by inquiring within'.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.

A tale of an ungreedy guy!

You have all read about the greed of the past few years that caused the current market bust. Now you need to read about Andrew Beal who has been saying 'No' for the past 4 years - and only now is agreeing to say 'Yes'. This is an article in Forbes magazine and should be required reading for all the high-and-mighty Wall Street types.

Here is the article - good luck in your future endeavours.

I have been reading about the 'unprecedented grab of power being proposed by the Treasury Secretary' wherein he would like to have the authority to control the behaviour of companies like AIG. And Republican House head, John Boehner is vehemently opposed to it.

I believe that the following framework should be used to establish the future of financial enterprise in the US.

Just like the Department of Homeland Security, we need to have all organizations like the SEC, the CFTC, Office of Thrift Supervision, and various states' oversight of insurance companies - all need to be collapsed into the Federal Reserve. This will eliminate the need for multiple bodies doing their own specialised bit of oversight, while the big picture is alarming.

Secondly, the banks that are currently partially nationalised should be fully nationalised (stop baying for my neck), the toxic assets placed into a RTC look-alike, each bank split into smaller banks until none of them are 'too big to fail', and then sold to the public.

Any future mergers between any financial institutions need to be overseen by the Federal Reserve in order to ensure that the merger does not create a bank that is 'too big to fail'.

All advertising by these financial companies need to be regulated - much as the SEC regulates advertising by mutual fund companies, or by broker-dealers. This will ensure that shady practices of the mortgage brokers of yester-year will remain there - in the yester-year.

Thoughts?

What I wrote to the Clinton campaign about rolling back the gas tax.

Dear Senator Ms Clinton,

I know that you will never get to read this. Still, I will chime in because I feel I must.

So far, I have been a faithful supporter of almost all of your pronouncements. But the recent noises you have been making (chiming in with *horrors* Sen. McCain) regarding repealing the gas tax for the duration of the summer is, at best, meaningless and at worst, a disaster. Please note that all this will do is a) help people drive a little more during the summer and b) help the US pollute the earth a little more.

As a candidate from a party that claims to be more environmentally conscious than the Republicans, I believe this is the last thing you should be saying. I would suggest backing off from the suggestion altogether.

I would like to look at it from my point of view. My wife drives around 40 miles one way to her work place. Given that her SUV (yes - I admit that this is not the right vehicle to be driving - but it is the only posture and the only vehicular entrance/exit that keeps my wife's lower back from collapsing) gives about 15 MPG, I just calculated that she drives 80 miles per day - for about 5.33 gallons per day. The proposed savings will help us save about $1.00 per day. From my perspective, this isn't sufficient to help us build our dream house or send my kids to college or even buy some extra eggs for breakfast.

Let me go a little further and telll you what I believe you should be doing. Instead of lowering or temporarily eliminating these taxes, you should be proposing an annual hike in this tax of about 5 cents per gallon per year. Why am I suggesting this? The case boils down to what is good for America (and the world in general). Foreign oil will last about 50 more years or so and with the soaring demand from China and India (Africa has not even started its development - imagine what would happen if that entire continent were to be in the state that Chindia is?) this could be projected to end even sooner.

Drilling into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (a perennial right-wing favourite location for drilling and promoting independence from foreign oil) would, at best, produce oil in sufficient quantities by 2020 and account for, at most, 5% of our consumption. Does it make any sense? Not in my opinion!

If we were to institute an annually accelerating (or even an annually constant but increasing) tax on oil, it would help modify the behaviour of consumers inn a few ways - auto companies would be forced to produce more efficient vehicles, because their guzzlers would simply stop selling. Oil companies would be facing reduced profits because of reduced demand for their goods. Alternative energy sources would see their day in the sun as they become more and more viable. As demand for oil stabilises or even starts dropping, our dependence on foreign oil would start reducing. And finally, the government would have a source of funds to reduce the deficit, help with the Social Security deficit and encourage the development of alternative sources of energy - HOPEFULLY FUNDING SOURCES BETTER THAN ETHANOL.

I cannot claim complete credit for these thoughts. I have been thinking about them for a long time now (on my own) - but some comments from Chris Farrell of www.Marketplace.org and Robert Reich a couple of days ago crystallised these thoughts and prompted me to write this up.

I am sorry for having taken up so much of your campaign's time. But I believe these steps will help in accelerating our independence from foreign source of oil.

Sincerely,

This headline from the New York Times, had me wondering if tere could be any bright spots at all, caused by the crisis in gasoline prices.

Yes indeed - there are bright spots. People are driving less and using less gasoline. The gas prices are forcing them to stop eating meat and start eating healthy foods (from the article) 'replacing meat at supper with soups and green beans and broccoli'

Now THAT is good news indeed!

I am also quite sure that smoking will come down, in order to feed the gasoline monster!

Bring on the higher prices! There is hope yet for the American people that they will curtail their wasteful habits.