Do it yourself

  …continuing from yesterday . In my view, assimilating the impact of a sustained Indo-US trade standoff in a personal investment strategy is an extremely complicated task, for three reasons – (i) Indo-US relations are very deep and wide; (ii) Indo-US trade relations go much beyond import and export of goods and service; (iii) Indo-US trade relations are intricately intertwined with strategic, geopolitical and social relations. Hence, the impact of a prolonged standoff in the trade relations may not be confined merely to a couple of thousand Indian exporters, having a material exposure to US markets. In my view, a noticeable impact could be felt at economic, political, geopolitical, and financial levels. As of this morning, we do not know about the progress in back-channel negotiations. But visibly both the sides appear to have hardened their stance. India has outrightly rejected the reasons cited by the US administration for imposing penal tariffs, viz., purchase of crude oi...

The year 2024 is proving to be one of the worst years for political soothsayers. After a debacle in the Indian general elections last summer, psephologists have failed in the US presidential elections. The challenger Donald Trump emerged a winner, gaining popular votes to occupy the White House for four years with a clear majority in the US Congress and Senate. This kind of decisive mandate has been a rarity in US politics in the past four decades. Most of the media, political commentators, psephologists, and other experts completely failed to read the peoples’ mind and anticipated a victory for Kamala Harris. Post the election results, thousands of experts – research analysts, economists, strategists, geopolitical experts, money managers, etc. – have written reports running into millions of terabytes, forecasting the likely impact of Trump's victory on financial markets, currencies, commodities, geopolitics, and trade etc. Most of this analysis is based on Trump's election p...

Continuing from last week The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still in the early stages. How many more job losses shall we witness in the coming years due to automation? Last week, one of the popular viral videos on Indian social media was about the views of Mr. Rahul Gandhi, Lok Sabha MP, and Mr. K. Annamalai, Tamil Nadu State President of BJP, on the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI). In the video, Mr. Annamalai is seen eloquently explaining the challenges of AI to young students, while Mr. Gandhi is seen doing some whataboutery to hide his lack of proper understanding. Discussing the matter with many people who chose to forward the video to me, I found that the key reason for their forwarding this video is to show Mr. Gandhi in a poor light and not bother about the challenges of AI. They deliberately chose to ignore that both Mr. Gandhi Mr. Annamalai may not be in a position to make policies, at least for the next five years; whereas Chief Ministers of...

Recently, an interview ( watch here or read here ) with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trending in the media worldwide. In this two-hour seventeen minute long interview, President Putin touched upon many important issues concerning global economics and geopolitics. Experts from the world over are analyzing the interview from multiple angles, e.g., strategic, political, geopolitics, economics, etc. Most analysis I have come across is deeply biased. The starting point of most comments is the trustworthiness of President Putin. Most Western analysts seem to be rejecting Putin’s assertions as mere propaganda; while the analysts from Eastern and Southern analysts are using the contents of the interview to justify their opinions about the US agencies (deep state) and NATO. In India, pro-establishment media and experts have mostly refrained from commenting on the interview; whereas the critics of the establishment have used this opportunity to emphasize that President Putin has ...

  Last year, the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while he was addressing a public meeting. This is perhaps the first of its kind of act of violence since assassination of Inejirō Asanuma, the then Chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, in 1960. The visuals of Abe’s assassination may have shattered the image of Japan, most people would be carrying in their mind, viz., the image of most courteous people showing remarkable patience and calmness in their public behavior. The post WW2 generation had only witnessed Japanese people who were extra polite, patient, courteous, and cooperative. These Japanese were very different from the pre-WW2 Japanese, who took pride in their martial and imperialistic traditions. Political assassinations were commonplace. The Japanese Army was considered one of the most brutal forces. The imperialist Japanese occupied parts of Russia, China, and Korea; plundered their wealth, and enslaved their women. The 1945 nuclear attack on...

In the past 6 years, several significant events have occurred that would shape the new global order in the next decade or two. I would particularly like to mention the following ten events that in my view could potentially prove to be transformative for the global order: 1.      Incorporation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) into the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party. (2017) 2.      Abolition of time limits, allowing Xi Jinping to remain General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of the Central Military Commission for life. (2018) (After winning an overwhelming majority in the 2020 elections, Russian President Vladimir Putin is also eligible to stay in office until 2036.) 3.      The Exit of the UK from the common European market (the EU) (2017-2020); and the elevation of the first non-white person (Rishi Sunak) to the office of Prime Minister of the UK in 2022. 4.      The ...

  In my view, we have entered a phase in world history where the politico-economic ideologies, e.g., free market, socialism, communism etc., have lost their theoretical context. In a significantly large number of countries the ruling parties and their leaders are not particular about adhering to their core ideologies. The voter base of the parties also appears to be divided on the basis of current issues rather than the core ideologies. The sharp rise in socio-economic inequalities across the ‘democratic world’ has made the bulging bottom of the socio-economic pyramid even more attractive from ‘popular vote’ perspectives; and the thinnest ever top of the pyramid the most attractive from election funding and corruption purposes. We are, therefore, witnessing (i) a larger role of governments in the economies; (ii) deeper influence of large corporates in the matters of economics and geopolitics; and (iii) preference for stronger (egotist; fascist; ultranationalist; hardliner whate...

In the past two years, the quintessential argumentative Indian in me, like most of my fellow countrymen, has assumed “expert” status in many diverse fields such as Virology, Epidemiology, Medicine, Macroeconomics, Geopolitics, Defense strategy, nuclear weaponry, History etc. This is besides the Politics, Spirituality, Religion, Astrology and Memelogy (the art and science of making jokes for every important and serious issue) which have been the domains of our expertise for a long time. Recently, we have been discussing (or trying to direct, if you will) the geopolitical and war strategies of Europe. The government of India may have chosen to stay neutral in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine; but the people have taken sides. More than the countries, we are taking sides of the leaders - The Russian president Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Supporters of Putin are mostly playing the “old friendship” card. They are vehemently arguing that Russia is our...