Poordog Millionaires?

The so called economic stimulus bill that has been recently making the rounds in the US Capitol is fast becoming unpopular with normal thinking citizens for the ghastly amount of funding that is being proposed for different sectors of the government. It looks like this bill has really been designed to stimulate government spending, not the economy. And as if to add salt to our ‘economic’ wounds, almost all of this spending has no direct bearing on the economy at least for the next two years, by which time most economies will be able to get out of the rut with no help at all. A country like the US can surely get out of a recession within two years; it will be a brilliant (and nothing short of magical) feat if we can accomplish the feat in spite of such back breaking and nerve wrenching expenditure bills.

It is pretty obvious that the fundamentals of the economy are strong enough to be able to engineer a recovery in two years. But it is bills like these that gnaw at these very fundamentals thus making it even more difficult for industry to stage a comeback. The best option is tax cuts across the board as such a move would broaden the net and put spending money in the hands of individuals and corporations who are more likely to spend it much more faster and more directly than any government can. However, if the current policy makers prefer funding government policies at the expense of industry and trade, there is a compromise solution that might work better and turn around the recession faster (at least in the short term) than the current proposed spending bill. Of course, this would hit industry and trade badly, but aren’t those evil corporations supposed to be banned anyway? This compromise solution would not ban them, but it may entice some of the owners to ditch their ‘rich’ corporate lifestyles forever!

In true Obama style of spreading the wealth, why not spread the spending around? ‘Distribute’ the $800 billion plus amount equally among all tax paying citizens of the USA. Maybe we can change that to include all tax paying residents of the USA and then include the non tax paying citizens also (just so that the vote bank doesn’t get annoyed). Wondering how this will fund the government? The way government is always funded – taxes! Tax the amount thus distributed at source at the prevailing rates. So, every recipient will become rich overnight and for once all of the taxes can be collected at the highest possible tax rate. With one swipe, the government will be flush with additional money and everybody will become rich (at least for a few days) and it will be up to each recipient to decide if they want to stay rich or if they want to spend their way to poorness! We can safely bet that at least two out of three Americans will go on a spending binge which will in turn trigger our sleeping economy and put it into overdrive as spending increases dramatically. This in turn will mean more jobs as well as more tax dollars for the federal government.

This will give rise to a few problems like people not turning up for work or not buying lottery tickets for a while, but once the new found money dries up, things will change. To help matters, government can stipulate that recipients cannot leave their current jobs for a year from the time the plan is announced. This will also give all recipients the chance to experience a rich lifestyle. Within a year, either they have spent most of their ‘aid’ or they have made enough intelligent decisions to be able to stop working if they want to.

Meanwhile, the government of the day can openly use the tax dollars thus generated to foster its pet welfare projects and help take the USA that much closer to the USSA (United Socialist States of America). And hopefully, nobody would object as they would all be too busy spending/minding their new found wealth. 

Mom of all Bailouts - smart timing?

One thing about the bailout package for the US financial sector that stumps me is the timing of it all. It is so obvious that the timing would work to the advantage of the Democrats that it begs the question: why did Bush go along with the plan?

Did President Bush have something else at the back of his mind when he initiated this move? By proposing to inject about a trillion greenbacks into the financial world, was he trying to preempt a prospective Obama presidency from having the leverage to be able to spend more in the future? Was he trying to somewhat limit the ability of the future President to spend beyond his means? If that was the objective, how is it all going to play out for a prospective McCain Presidency?

The way I see it, regardless of the promises made on the stump, the big spending initiative right at the cusp of the elections will change the way the next administration will have to govern. President Bush has, with one swipe, put a damper on the Democrat thirst for over-spending by doing exactly what they would want to do – increase spending! Obama has already been talking about a trillion in additional spending during his administration and President Bush’s action will somewhat limit his ability to deliver on that promise. Even if he does do that, he will have to do it by either raising taxes higher or by spreading the tax net wider which will surely make him pretty unpopular, thus clearing the playing field for a much more conservative future administration. As a bonus, an Obama win effectively puts off a possible Clinton Presidency by at least 8 years!

If McCain wins the Presidency, it will be upto him and Palin to come up with innovative ways to fund the bailout package without increasing the tax rates. They will act as an effective counter check to the spend-thirsty Congress. Of course, even they will be limited and cash strapped, but if they are dead serious about eliminating earmarks, they will be able to find the dough to fund their campaign promises.

No matter how this election pans out, President Bush’s last spending initiative is sure to leave the next administration with a bigger challenge then they had initially bargained for. One of my major gripes with President Bush’s policies has been his liberal spending throughout his term, but if he really did initiate the biggest of them all to help limit future spending, touché!

Is Obama the medicine America needs?

With but a few weeks to go for the final vote to be cast and the verdict to be sealed and most polls suggesting that Americans are leaning towards an Obama presidency, one cannot but stop and wonder why, for the first time, the US is on the cusp of choosing the most socialist and communist administration in its history.

From another perspective, the recent economic crisis more than anything else, seems to have dwarfed this fact and turned the tide in Obama’s favor; for now. Once the dust settles down and Americans take the time to ponder over their choice, they will realize that by choosing Obama, they have indeed chosen more of the same vis-à-vis Jimmy Carter. And as time goes by, they will realize that more of the same a la George Bush (though, in my opinion, McCain is more liberal than George Bush) would have been way better for their day to day lives than more of the same a la Jimmy Carter. Of course, by then, it will be too late for them to reverse their choice, at least for another four years. Atleast they would have figured out that Obama might as well been referring to himself when he was suggesting 'more of the same' while on the stump.

The US would be in for much worse conditions with the Obama socialists taking control of the markets and maybe even the daily lives of regular citizens pretty much like what Chavez has been doing in Venezuela over the past few years. This might be the exact medicine that is needed by Americans to jolt them out of the make-believe world that they have been relentlessly prodded into both by a swooning media as well as the fluffy words of Obama that he will deliver them from all the difficulties that they have been facing with a worsening economy. So taken in are they that they don’t have the inclination to go over Obama’s ‘non-achievements’ over the past two decades. We need not dig deep to realize that Obama has mostly been more about sound words and speeches rather than sound judgment. It is no secret that he is the most liberal Senator in the current Congress. There is the prospect that Obama’s USA can, for the first time in history, be positioned as being more socialist than Putin’s Russia or Wen’s China. It looks like none of these arguments will matter for now as most of his supporters tend to paint such arguments as a racial slur rather than take them at face value.

Obama’s tax and wealth redistribution policies might work well in countries where people have been subjugated for generations together, but in a country like the USA where entrepreneurship is rampant, they are deemed to fail. But before they fail, it is going to look like they are succeeding which will prompt him to up the ante. When he does that, the economy is going to take a turn for the worse and Americans will begin to realize the foolhardiness of their decision of electing Obama - albeit a tad late. The souring economy will act as a medicine to rejuvenate regular Americans to wake up and take action at the next elections, but not before putting up with a lot of pain and hardship; a bitter dose of medicine that an Obama administration will force upon them.

It will be much more difficult to turn the country around after four years of a Jimmy Carter like economy, but if Americans could stomach the medicine doled out to them three decades ago and still bring into office a man who single handedly turned around the economy, they can sure do it again. But they will need to elect (pun intended) to take their medicine first.

Hate spending a fortune on passport photos?

It is not often that one needs passport photos, but when the need arises, it is usually arrives in the form of a deluge! Anyone who has had to file for the I485 or the N400 or Passports/Visa/PIO/OCI for the entire family knows what I am talking about. And those passport photos are not cheap either!

If you have had yours taken recently, you know how it works at the photo shops. They snap your photo using a digital camera and then hand it over to their photo software to do the rest. If you are a little bit enterprising, here is a cheap but efficient way of getting your passport photos.

Use your digital camera to take the photograph.
If you choose, you can use photo-editing software like Picasa (a free service) to refine the photo.
Then, use epassportphoto (also a free service) and follow the steps to upload your photograph, format to desired size and then save it back to your computer. Each image will be automatically sized to fit on a 4x6 paper and will have six to eight copies of your photograph depending on your chosen size. Copy this saved image onto your portable media and take it to a photo-printing lab to have it printed. If you are not able to use portable media, you can even choose a service like Snapfish (listed on the website) to have your photos printed at a neighborhood photo shop.

Alternatively, you can even print it at home provided you already have the required hardware. Once you have the printout, cut out the photographs and you are ready to put them to use! All this for the price (maybe lesser) of having a single 4x6 sheet printed.

magicJack - the advent of truly portable, affordable VOIP?

When the nation’s second largest VOIP service provider bit the rocket (err… bullet) mid-July, it was time for me to start searching for another provider to satisfy my long distance calling requirements. My home phone is local only and I cannot use my cell phone for long distance.

VOIP providers lost no time in making attempts to woo ex-Sunrocket customers. Via talk was offering a ‘contract buyout’ of up to a year for those who got scorched by the rocket’s fumes, but that offer was cut overnight to a maximum of six months (I understand it was later cut down to three months)! This prompted me to start looking elsewhere for a solution that would work for me.

The search led me first to GrandCentral (see previous post), the telephone management company that was recently acquired by the ubiquitous Google. The concept was interesting but it still didn’t solve my problem, as it worked fine for incoming calls, but I wouldn’t be able to call long distance using the GC number.

Next, I took a look at Skype that I had first used a few years back when it was still a free service. I recalled that call quality was not that bad, but I didn’t get around to using it much at that time. This service doesn’t give you a dedicated phone line either. With Skype’s new avatar, it looked like I will have to pay about 60 bucks a year to have the ability to make unlimited incoming and outgoing calls within the US. And then I had also heard of complaints about their overall call quality.

A little more searching got me to what I might say is an interesting alternative in the form of magicJack. This is basically a VOIP solution, but it doesn’t involve an adapter or wires. Instead, it comes in the form of a USB device that has a phone jack on the other end. The first time you plug in the device into your computer, you will be allowed to choose a US phone number and you are ready to start making/receiving calls. You can receive calls either on the computer itself or on the phone that is plugged into this device. The only downside is that your computer will have to be constantly on (with an active broadband connection) if you need to make calls. Yes, traditional VOIP is portable, but magicJack goes one up here as there are no adapters or additional wires to carry around! The magicJack device includes voicemail and has a feature whereby incoming calls can be forwarded to another number. All this for a cost of $20 per year! Yes, that was not a typo; it is really supposed to cost you $20 a year for unlimited long distance within the US. As this company is still in beta, they have very few area codes available at this time.

An interesting possibility is the use of magicJack in combination with GrandCentral. Setup GrandCentral to transfer all incoming calls to the numbers of your choice (home/cell /magicJack etc.) and use the magicJack number to make your long distance calls. What makes it even more appealing is the possibility of using this device to call your US number from anywhere in the world provided you have a computer with a broadband connection. And setup is a breeze!

MagicJack even did it’s own bit in trying to attract Sunrocket’s ex-base by placing this humorous ad on it’s website.

Will the insult go unpunished this time?

The recently concluded Presidential elections in India has been widely perceived as a big joke that was thrust upon the hapless people of India against their wishes. This was a case of the politicians (well, almost all of them) brushing aside the popular will of the people to ensure that the 'prestige' that came with the highest office of the country was retained within the 'political class'.

The people of India wanted the highly popular current incumbent Dr Abdul Kalam to continue for another term, but the politicians (as usual) were not willing to listen. There was no major election coming up, so they had little to fear. Given the short memory of the voters, by the time the next election came about, this incident would have long been forgotten.

The reasoning that only a politician should be President was put forth, but it was not the least bit convincing. The general perception was that the politicians looked upon the post of the President as their exclusive birth-right. In the long run, such an attitude may not sit well with the citizens of the land.

The final insult came about when many politicians started throwing verbal jabs at the Dr Kalam when he agreed to contest the election at the behest of the 'Third Front'. The ruling coalition took their banter to a new level when even veteran leaders came out criticizing Dr. Kalam for his decision. Never once did they think that by making digs at a Bharat Ratna, they were undermining their stature in the eyes of the people even further. It looks like the politicians are quite a distance away from learning to understand that if India is to make strides into the future, it is essential that the prominent posts of India should be represented by accomplished, younger beings in the class of Dr. Kalam (politician or not). Gone are the days when such posts were reserved only for old hags or politicians on the verge of retirement.

This incident has brought back calls from various groups to make the election of the President of India a direct election where the people elect him/her instead of the present format where the politicians get to elect the President (and the VP).
I can only hope that, come election time, the people of India don't forget this insult that was thrust down on them by their elected politicians.

The politicians may justify their decision by saying that India was ready for a female Head of State, but that argument is pretty feeble. I think India is past the stage where we will have to have a Head of State from each sect and category. India, at this stage of her economic journey, is ready for Heads of State who, among other things, will be able to rub shoulders with the leaders of the world on an equal footing and who will be the face of a knowledgeable India to the world. In this era when information and knowledge is king, a politician is the last person that anybody would turn to in search of such a face.

In hindsight, it may go down in history that the lady at the helm of the Congress party didn't want Dr. Kalam to continue in office. The reason? My opinion: Vendetta. Revenge. Three summers ago, the lady almost became the Prime Minister of India. It was widely believed in several circles that she was advised by the President's office not to take up the post. What did Dr Kalam tell Sonia on that fateful day when she decided to 'give up' the seat of power? We may never know, but it may well turn out that the whole drama that unfurled in front of us over the last few weeks may be a direct result of that piece of advice that Dr. Kalam gave Sonia on an eventful summer day.

India's railway budget 2006

This year's railway budget seems to be politically driven once again keeping in mind the five states that go to the polls this year. The only exception to this rule is the minister's home state of Bihar which got as many as fourteen of the 55 new trains announced for this fiscal!

Is he expressing his thanks to the biharis for shunting him out of power in the state? Does Bihar really require that much capacity at this time? Or are so many trains required to keep the thieves and bandits in his home-state happy?

And what is with the naming of the proposed eastern and western freight corridors that are mainly relegated to the northern sectors? Is the disconnect between the names and the actual proposed locations for these projects deliberate? I would expect any eastern corridor to run through the eastern half of the country, not across the northern half!! Same argument goes for the Western corridor.

The "Western" corridor is proposed to run from Bombay to the UP heartland and the Eastern corridor is proposed to run from Bihar to Punjab. Why did the "Eastern" corridor have to stop in Bihar? Should it not run into West Bengal at the least and maybe onward into Assam and the other north eastern states thorugh feedrer lines? Don't they desreve to do freight? And what about the rest of the country? Why these additional lines in an area that already has enough lines? If at all there are areas that need additional lines those lie right in the center of India and in the north east states. A line connecting the western and eastern coasts of India may be more beneficial.

What about the south states? The only southern state that got anything significant is Tamil Nadu. Maybe they have an election coming up...

End of rant!!