From Silent Soliloquy (Fiction): Presnet less tense, future less imperfect-My Dateless Diary (2002/2003)

Given the philosophical bent of mind, I know that I am here, not to compare or compete with others.My uniqueness as a person, as a teacher, writer and orator and so on has been not fully grasped by your good self .The creative and productive side of the individual has been fully ignored, ridiculed and marginalized under the dominant weight of hypocrisy and sadism.I can’t blame you.

No intention to measure my success or failure by comparing with others. But if you have any self introspection, have time and mental rhythm and resilience to dig into the recent past you would      notice that fragmented, degraded and devalued minds, with very little work ethics and academic potentials/output have been showered by bonus and positions.I don’t quarrel over this.They have been rewarded for their shallowness backed up by exhibition of flattery.

Temporarily you have succeeded in erecting stumbling blocs to stifle my creativity and enterprise.Foolishly I have given more room for blunting my innate capacity to read and write.Now I know that I need to change and grow, in my own ways, doing things which make me happy.

I must undo the magical reality of anxiety manifested in me, which virtually blocked  my vision and modest ambition-Mine will be neither cooperation not confrontation, but  a pure self interospection, to tap the  hidden potentials and power.If I am careful enough to listen to the voice within me here and now- the precious moment, which is nothing but the present, then present will not be tense and future, less imperfect

This is the season of seminar.Last week I was at AVC College to meditate on Friedman. On Friday, I delivered a lecture on euro zone crisis, the essence of which I shall post soon.

The stories of the currencies are not just given, but made depending upon one’s own perceptions of the issues involved and understood by the story teller.I am a story teller.

In the  face of complex and multiple factors involved, there is  difficulty in telling the true  story-It s very rare to get a true or a natural story-construction is therefore artificial-in some sense – a derivative of different view points .stories  are made from reality- reality is made up of events that have actually occurred; in a true  story events should not be invented-plausible  and speculative observations could be made.

Selections and arrangement must be such that they represent reality or at least do not misrepresent them.

My task is to compose, integrate, interpret and explain, components are not fully mine.

My intent is to look for strong element of commonality- narration is not planned, it has evolved given the absorption of the facts.I could select them from the whole range of possible events/ outcomes.

This is true of not only the currency crisis volume, but also on silent soliloquy piece on campus politics.

A.V.C.College of Mayiladuthurai creates history by having a discourse on Keynes and Friedman

Keynes’s General Theory- really a monumental master piece of 20^th century completed its 75 years of existence last year . This year(2012)  happens to be the centenary celebration of Milton Friedman. Thanks to the financial benevolence of Malcolm & Elizabeth Adisheshaiah Trust , under the guidance of Prof.N.Rama gopal of Annamalai University ,  Dr.Ramasamy of A.V.C.College, Mayavaram conducted  both the functions in his campus and I was one of the invited speakers .On both the occasions, I had the opportunity to read prof.Paul Krugman’s scholarly writeup viz Introduction to Keynes’s General Theory of Employment , Interest andMoney and ‘ Who was Milton Friedman?’

Ever since I returned from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune in 1982 after the completion of my Ph.D I have fallen in love with Paul Krugman’s writings. While writing a new introduction to Keynes’s General Theory in 2005 , the 70^th year of publication, he made the following remark that he read that classic as a student but hardly touched there after. Again in view of its continued relevance to interpret contemporary developments in the world economy, he again read the book to write a lengthy commentary, passing on the central message of Keynes –How did he do it? What he missed it and so on. This write up , combined with his classic piece on Miton Friedman do have an educative influence on lesser privileged people like us who have a passionate interest in economics but clearly lacking scholarhsip to understand the tricky  aspect of the subject .

Last year, Prof.Neelakantan, former Director of MIDS, who must have crossed 75 was there at A.V.C to scintillate all of us by giving the juice of Keynes’s General Theory. There were also many others to do justice to task assigned to them. That occasion also helped me to re read Keynes and get fresh insight as to how monetary policy was impotent and ineffective, and that fiscal policy should play a dominant role. It was an altogether different matter that the Keynesian medicine of deficit budget and public spending was half heartedly applied and hence the Depression prolonged for more than a decade and ironically the economic salvation came through Second World War.

This time the audience was large, the hall was very big, stage setting was very nice and yet in terms of  interpreting the substantial contribution of Miton Friedman , there was some slack and  nobody can be blamed for this .From my side, given the constraint of time , following Paul Krugman fully and feverishly and getting convinced that he was right , I made an attempt to expose the intellectual fallacy and dishonesty  on the part of Friedman in interpreting the Great Depression of 1930s through the monetary lens.By citing the statistics  that monetary base increased from  $6.05bn to $7.02bn and that the money supply declined from $26.6bn to $19.9bn , I  brought home the  truth that  Federal Reserve Bank of U.S did not adapt any deflationary policy and that, contraction of money suppply was the fall out of series of bank failures ins 1930-31 , leading to excessive liquidity prefernce by the general public and the bank as well .

Before I conclude this piece let me quote the attribute of Economists as quoted by Theodre White in ‘Breach of Faith’ “Economists are very much like reporters and necessary. The best of them can tell you exactly where you are. The exceptional ones can tell you how you got there.But none can predict how you go from where you are to where you want to get.”

Personally I feel that both Keynes and Krugman are exceptional professional economists who could write more analytically on issues and tell where we are and how we got here. We need the tribes of these economists to interpret the complex events taking place around us.

If God wills and my physical stamina permits , I will subject myself to the self imposed discipline of writing more on Keynes and Smith, Ricardo and Friedman, Sameulson and Joan Robinson and so on and by  reading and re reading Krugm,an’s scholarly writings .

The Unposted letter –An exercise in the art of letter writing

Following is the letter that I drafted to my youngest daughter’s friend in 2002 but failed to post .For reference I should say that Joe is another pet name for my daughter .Her friend lives in Washington .Most of us have forgotten the habit of writing letters but only scribbling through short e-mails. The letter posted below not only stresses the value of true friendship but also remains the reader that once in a while we need to write letters to know who we are? What we are?

Now the Letter :

My Dear,

Since the closing days of 2002, we have been experiencing a series of turns and twists  in the drama of  our life.I must say that Joe had the necessary mental and physical stamina to withstand all those shocks and disturbances of life .

It was during that period only you thought, she had distanced from yourself and that she was not adequately plain and frank.Had she allowed me to speak, I would have explained in person, about the state of chaos prevailing here.

I only know how much love and affection Sakthi has for you.It may not be fully expressed explicitly but it would be naive to say or seduce yourselves to the belief that it does not exist.

To my knowledge, true friendship is a rare phenomena in life .It is not that everyone is gifted to strike it at the early age and keep it in perpetual motion through time.One must have judgement and wisdom to forget the transient misunderstanding and fall back upon the true spirit and perspective of friendship.

I am very sorry to hear about your own pain and agony.There’s a saying that when going becomes tough, the tough gets going.

Thank you for the letter written, but not posted yet.I would be very happy to receive your tonic   and balm to lighten my heart.

From my end, I must say that children must spend more time with mother and make her happy and reassured in life.Try to understand her feelings and frustration and provide an emotional anchor.

It’s time all of us learnt the art of detached attachment in life.Too much of love, a heightened sense of possessiveness will create wrinkles on emotional side. All of us will always practice a sense of moderation. And more important, we should not forget to laugh .

The Corrupt: Neither sense of shame nor the moral fibre to cloth their physical frame

In the wake of the spill over effects of both global financial crisis and ongoing European Sovereign Debt Crisis, the growth profile of even strong emerging economies like China and India has undergone a transformation and in the near future, they cannot step into double digit growth rate.

Lack of democracy has been strength to China in so far as stifling the voice of dissent and there is no immediate threat to leadership .In sharp contrast, India is facing a real leadership crisis. The regime of  UPA led by Dr.Mannmohan Singh as a proxy prime minister in the second innings is one of the classic case of non performance on the economic front.The corruption has peaked to an all time high and  no longer the scholar P.M can talk like a parrot I don’t know .

One of the fundamental reasons for the rampant inflation and slow growth rate in our country is the lack of governance and absence of ethical and moral standards. Indeed it is an irony of fate that the ruling party is not at all bothered about its image being molested  by a series of corruption scandals . They have no  sense of shame , no moral fiber to cloth their physical frame .The honest elite can only lament through blog like this and they are helpless . Following is just a simple silent soliloquy on the need for good governance so as to give some semblance of stability and support to the masses who are completely dispossessed of their basic necessities.

Ethical and moral standards can be maintained only if the leaders of the Government provide a personal example of dedication to public service .A perpetual deviation from standards of good code of conduct and behavior on the part of many leaders including the captains of corporate and academic sectors is the root cause for the deprivation of many at the bottom line.

When ethical standards falter at  top  level, one cannot expect the typical ordinary government employee having all vulnerabilities and   capacities  to yield to  temptation of money,  develop any kind of sensitivity and concern towards the poor, unless of course he  has had evolved a code of conduct to behave in a more balanced  and moral way since his cradle days.

Not only Government employee uses  his position to curry favor  or induce another individual to provide him with anything of economic value but also engages himself in outside employment.Under the circumstances the confidence of the public in the integrity and dedication of Government becomes suspect.

No legal system or web of statute however intricately conceived can hope to deal with the myriad problems confronting our political system for both men of eminence in their respective fields of ‘politics’ and ‘crime’ became natural   and normal partners – a kind of collusive oligopoly .Like price rigidity of oligopolsitic market, a state of rigidity and status quo prevail with regard to the acts of criminality committed in the past.