Deja vu

If you have been following the mortgage crisis and the downspiralling US economy, you will find the following account interesting. It is an excerpt from A People And A Nation - A History of the United States, detailing an economic depression that started in 1819. The similarities with today's crisis are so similar, I had to rub my eyes and flip to the cover page to make sure I wasn't reading a contemporary magazine. Underlined emphases are all mine.

But hard times spread. The postwar expansion had been built on loose money and widespread speculation. Banks extended credit too freely, fueling a speculative western land boom. When it slowed, the manufacturing depression deepened, and prices spiraled downward. The Second Bank of the United States reduced loans, thus accelerating the contraction in the economy.

Western farmers suffered too. Those who had purchased land on credit could not repay the loans. To avoid mass bankruptcy, Congress delayed payment of the money, and western state legislatures passed "stay laws" restricting mortgage foreclosures.

The only missing measure seems to be tax rebates.

The narrative goes on to describe how the economy eventually revived by the mid 1820's but nonetheless sowed the seeds for political revival through the Jacksonian movement - the creation of the Democratic Party (by the 1820's, the Federalist party has withered out and the Republicans ran a more-or-less one-party state). What will the present period bring?

Golden hour

Sometime in early spring of last year, I went hiking up the western flank of Pyramid Peak in the central Sierra Nevada mountains. I had been up in that area plenty of times but this was an unusual time for me to be there, all my previous trips being in summer. And an unusual trip it certainly was! It was the time of the year when the snow from the past winter is in an advanced stage of melting; wherever you looked, you could see freshly uncovered soil still laden with last year's wildgrass, the grass still bent and flattened from the few feet of snow that it had lain buried under for four months. The soil felt different, the vegetation looked different, even the air smelt different.

It was a classic moment of transition, a rare period in the mountain's seasonal cycle. Had I been there a week later, the experience would have been completely different. As an amateur photographer, I identify such transitory chunks of time as "golden moments", with reference to those few minutes between dawn and morning, and then again between evening and dusk, when everything is golden and photographs are just perfect.

As in nature, so in politics. From the grand old mountain (the Sierra Nevada is actually quite young) to the Grand Old Party. Like the mountain, the Republican party is passing through a delightfully rare stage in its political life cycle.

I am talking about the vicious internal criticisms and disagreements among Republican commentators that have erupted ever since Soulja Boy rose handsomely as the likely nominee after Super Tuesday. These pundits, especially the far out ones like Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, are not known for holding back their words, and what has resulted is nothing short of blissful. Especially for someone like me; I came to this country a couple of months before the election that rung in GW Bush for his second term. Since that time, the only avatar of the Republican party I had seen was a homogeneous bunch of individuals who stubbornly and stupidly rallied behind their equally stubborn and stupid leader. Who needed introspection and self-criticism, when you had barn-sized targets like Nancy Pelosi and Cindy Sheehan?

In the last few days, all the cleavages that exist inside the party have been brought out for the world to peep into. It seems the renegade Soulja Boy has provoked the best of brawling between the opposite ends of the GOP's fiscal, religious, immigration and political spectrum of thought (everywhere except in the case of belligerent foreign policy, where there seems to be no cleavage - Soulja Boy comes as a boon without disguise). At no point in the past three years could you have flicked on a political talk-show on radio and found any criticism of a Republican (most of these talk-shows tend to be conservative of some denomination or the other). Now, you cannot miss it.

Of course, I keep my excitement in check. Like the melting snow, this period will quickly disappear as Republicans will eventually rally behind Soulja Boy. But enjoy it while it lasts, for these golden moments might not return another four, maybe eight, years.

NB: It is unfortunate that no clear policy distinction exists between the two Democratic candidates for the nomination; there is no golden hour on that side of the fence. Quite on the contrary, all discussion of candidates' worthiness revolves around their ability to influence connately joined groups aligned on gender and racial lines. It is a completely disgraceful, especially if you tend to agree with the Democrats most of the time, like I do.

Why Raj Thackeray shouldn't be tried

Because, as Nitin Pai puts it,

...laws abridging freedom of speech have created incentives for the political use of intolerance.

Read his argument here. Also, check out his thoughts on what he calls 'competitive intolerance' here.

Be afraid, be very afraid

About a year back, I had posted about Dinesh D'Souza, well-known right-wing pundit. Yesterday, while checking out material on Freedom Fest, I ran into this video of D'Souza in debate with a couple of libertarians.

I had read a bunch by and about him, but had never imagined him to be as cacophonous a tin-drum as this (see video). Look at his arm-gestures. Then close your eyes and listen to the shrill diatribe. Who does he remind you of?



Check out all the seven parts of the debate:

Part 1: Ron Paul's argument
Part 2: Dinesh D'Souza's argument
Part 3: Larry Abraham's argument
Part 4: Doug Casey's argument
Part 5: Abraham and Casey's rebuttal
Part 6: D'Souza and Paul's rebuttal
Part 7: Q & A

Update:Ha!

McCain all but wins Republican nomination

What song can better capture the moment?



Crank dat, Soulja Boy!

Worth reading

It was as if, after decades of greeting the world with folded hands, India opened its arms and embraced the world.

Read Amit Verma's back-of-the-envelope economic history of post-independence India in Profit's No Longer a Dirty Word: The Transformation of India.

Paradox

Beef-eaters across the United States are shocked and disgusted after the Humane Society released a secret video showing the abuse of cows at a slaughterhouse. You heard it right, the abuse of cows at a slaughterhouse. This is the same perverse sentiment that causes meat-eating societies to balk at the clubbing of baby seals in Canada or the slaughter of dogs and cats in China.

Here are some cattle slaughter statistics for the US:













For 2007, that is 2.84 million cattle heads slaughtered every month, 34 million over the course of the year.