Lost in the illusion - It's a wonderful world

Colonialism and humanity perhaps cannot exist in the same sentence. As an Indian when i read colonial accounts of the how the Europeans brought civlisation to the uncivilized masses of India or when i read about how Indian economy, one of the richest in the world in the 16th century with positive balance of payments was plundered systematically by the British, my blood boils. Descendants of a civilisation that contemplated the true nature of reality in glorious hymns of the vedas atleast a couple of thousand years before the mighty Roman empire came to exist did not necessarily need the brand of civlisation that the whiteman brought. The colonisation of India was one of the earliest proactive attempts to set right a trade balance that was heavily tilted in favour of India. In the pre-colonial era balance of trade was very often positive in favour of the Asians especially the large empires of India and China. (The Europeans rammed at the walls of the middle kingdom for over 150 years t...

The Americans exasperate me. All this furore against executive bonuses specifically AIG's executives and Congress' attempts at taxation of individuals in a witchhunt, private executives' homes being targetted and public protests over their bonuses is beginning to look ridiculous. The poor (well not so poor) executives of the financial industry are being made scapegoats by and american public that has no clue how to manage their budgets and a government that abdicated all responsibility in regulating markets and was merrily collecting taxes and taking credit for a boom that was fuelled by easy liquidity - not fiscal and monetary policy genius. Lets look at the American public - a bunch of morons who need a Suzie Orman show to tell them how to manage their finances should not be out blaming others. A typical segment on this show goes like Caller (Linda) : Hi Suzie, I want to buy this new designer Louis Vuitton Scooter to Zip around the city. It costs 15,000 dollars. Suzie: (...