Just returned from my second visit to India, the first was in 2005. In the meantime, it has become hard to recognize. Before, as well-travelled as I am, I found it too chaotic, too poor, too squalid thus outweighing it's thrilling exoticism, its color, and uniquely complex and fascinating history (Dravidians, Aryans, Mughals, British, out-sourced American call centers and German engineers...see below...to be horribly oversimplified).
In the intervening 7 years, it's 7.5 to 8% annual GDP growth is on display. It's not as poor, not as squalid, not as chaotic...and not as exotic. Virtually all the men are only in Western attire and most of the women seem to have left their spectacularly coloful garments at home. And the enormous infrastructure deficit is rapidly being filled. Where the airports had been small, dark, and cramped, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi all have brand new ones that put anything in the US to shame...well, just maybe Denver could play in the same league. New broad roads; a giant fly-over bridge that cuts about 45 minutes off the trip to the heart of Mumbai (by the way, it only costs about $1.50 to use it); 5 star business hotels abound.
The first world and the third world are still right next to eachother here, but there's much more first...and less third...and you can now drink from the taps. And the food is still great!
A particularly ambitious 43 year old relationship manager sought my advice about breaking away from his very well compensated job at a major multi-national bank and plunging into the life of an entrepreneur to serve his clients in his own business. "It's only been in the last five years that a professional can make as much or more than a business owner...and so much more than I ever thought I would make when I finished school." I got the strong impression that he would be willing to leave the safety of a fat paycheck, but his wife and children and servants weren't as eager.
Bangalore, or Bengaluru in the new respelling, re-pronunciation of many Indian cities (Kolkata = Calcutta; Chennai = Madras; Mumbai = Bombay; old-timers just roll their eyes and use the old names), was a revelation. Upon arrival, I got a taxi to my hotel and after announcing its name, the driver asked, "stadtmitte?" (German for city center, or "downtown"). Staying with the unexpected cosmopolitanism, I responded "Ja!" The next evening on my flight to Delhi, the plane was full of mostly Western business people, including quite a few tall, blondish Germans. At 3000 feet above sea level, Bangalore has a pleasant, mild climate year-round (where Mumbai, on the Arabian Sea, is hot and humid even in January and Delhi is chilly and prone to thick morning fogs this time of year). My host provided the transportation most of the day and actually drove himself...a rarity, I believe. Most professionals who can afford nice cars can afford drivers. On passing a major street, marked only "M G Road", I asked what that stood for. With a withering sigh, I was told that it stands for Mahatma Gandhi Road: "Every town in India has one, there's no point in actually writing it out".
Delhi, as before, impresses you with it's strong European look: broad avenues, landscaped traffic circles; handsome civic buildings and monuments in classical Western proportions. The British created this look to make themselves feel at home in their imperial capital, ironically with some of the most majestic structures finished only a decade or so before they left it all behind. Delhi is marking it's 100th anniversary as India's capital (the Brits moved it from Calcutta before that); while 100 years is not much on India's time scale, the modern, independent country itself is only 65 years old. I happened to be there the day before Republic Day, roughly the equivalent of our 4th of July. Preparations were intense for the parades and speeches and the millions(!) of spectators expected the next day.
Probably due to that timing, there was some conversation and a fair amount of media attention on the idea of India emerging as a significant world power...to match its rapidly growing wealth. Like China's, India's wealth and power stalled for several centuries as the Europeans' advanced. Like the other Asian giant, India is starting to see itself as properly reclaiming its ancient ascendancy and even besting China in the process because of its considerably younger and more broadly diverse population. Democracy (while especially messy and, many believe, openly corrupt) seems an advantage, long term; and, of course, English is spoken everywhere.
Many people thus believe that India and the US are eachother's natural allies in advancing joint prosperity and cultural sway...and counter-balancing the power of China.
There's much more to learn and it will be hugely exciting to watch closely....and even better, to participate. When I left India the last time, frankly, I was in no rush to return. Now, I can't wait to get back!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Optimism Inspires Optimism
2011 involved quite a bit of overseas travel for us, some for pleasure and some for business...usually both.
Madrid was a wonderful experience for the art, the food, the architecture and the weather (very warm and sunny and very long days, with dusks that seemed to last well into the night...a nice congruence with the dining patterns of not beginning to go out for dinner until about 10PM). The city is handsome and the museums, especially the Prado, are among the finest in the world, not just for their spectacular collections but for the grace and ease of the buildings that house them. Don't miss the Thyssen-Bournemissa.
The history is also fascinating, though Madrid is not an ancient city...a relative newcomer among Europe's capitals. The impact is, I think, greatest on an American (North and South American, that is) since the real history of Madrid begins with the conquest of most of those two continents by a tiny number of Spaniards and their now well-known chief allies: guns, germs, and steel. The American empire's gold and silver...and coffee, and cacao, and tobacco, and maise returning across the Atlantic made Spain hugely rich and caused it to rank first among European nations for nearly 400 years after Columbus sailed. The most impressive building in Madrid is the Royal Palace. High above its main entrance are two monumental statues, one of Moctezuma and the other of Atahualpa, acknowledging the source of the grandeur Madrid came to enjoy.
Today, the pace is relaxed (at least in August) and the spirit of grandeur seems to be replaced by a sense of a final moment of comfort on the eve of an unknown but probably unwelcome next chapter. Not exactly pessimism, but a resignation that not so good times are ahead...and that there's not much to be done about it, but muddle through. In the midst of the August version of the European soveriegn debt crisis coming to a head, in one of the most significantly vulnerable locales, there was a puzzling non-chalance. It may have been that the Madrilenos were away for their August holiday and the tourists couldn't really care...besides, the Pope was due to arrive soon for World Youth Day (week?) celebrations, so why worry about the economy when the food is so good and the weather is so nice? At the least, I'd say that you sensed no urgency to action.
In fairness, the Spanish have since then just elected a new government, committed to long term solutions to Spain's fiscal problems and to reducing structural impediments to its long range economic success. I wish them very well in these efforts, for all of our sakes and especially for theirs. I'm eager to return.
Shanghai (July) and Hong Kong (October) were mostly business: speeches, interviews, meetings with fellow professionals, potential clients, and with government officials, awards presentations, a true blizzard of card exchanges. In both of these cities, the forward perspective and optimism were palpable. Things were so much better (bigger, more modern, taller, cleaner, more fun!) than they had been before and they were going to be even more so soon. Everyone had an idea for their own success and how that contributed to, or relied upon, the success of the country as a whole. In either event, the whole society had a common stake. In contrast to the non-chalance of Europe, China is on the make...especially the women. Women were disproportionately represented in every entrepreneurial venue we encountered.
A sense of confidence is everywhere. No challenge is too great, no accomplishment beyond reach...and what are we waiting for?...let's get busy!
I give you just two examples: from workaday to the height (literally) of publicly visible luxury.
The Hong Kong subway goes everywhere (including under the harbor of course), is cheap, full of passengers at every hour, and was built in just a few years! Imagine the obstacles, time, and cost it would take to match it in the US? I'm not sure that we'd even try. The now tallest building in Hong Kong (that claim seems to change every year or so; the most impressive buildings in town when I made my first visit here in the early '80's are now in the shadow of newer neighbors) has at its top floors the Ritz Carlton Hotel and its dining room at the very top. The setting, materials, and super chic design are almost beyond description in their beauty and power to impress. It's not at all the only public space designed to "blow you away" with it's elegance...just, for now, the highest above sea level.
This is not to say that China has no serious problems to cope with. It does, naming just a few: rural poverty, bad age demographics, risks of asset bubbles, an eventually unsustainable central political control, and a delicate balancing of its economic power throughout the world, its cultural influence, and its potential military power in East Asia and the Pacific. However, the strong impression you get is that the Chinese are not afraid of these challenges and have great confidence in their ability to achieve results that are well beyond merely okay.
Madrid was a wonderful experience for the art, the food, the architecture and the weather (very warm and sunny and very long days, with dusks that seemed to last well into the night...a nice congruence with the dining patterns of not beginning to go out for dinner until about 10PM). The city is handsome and the museums, especially the Prado, are among the finest in the world, not just for their spectacular collections but for the grace and ease of the buildings that house them. Don't miss the Thyssen-Bournemissa.
 |
| The Royal Palace, Madrid |
 |
| Atahualpa |
Today, the pace is relaxed (at least in August) and the spirit of grandeur seems to be replaced by a sense of a final moment of comfort on the eve of an unknown but probably unwelcome next chapter. Not exactly pessimism, but a resignation that not so good times are ahead...and that there's not much to be done about it, but muddle through. In the midst of the August version of the European soveriegn debt crisis coming to a head, in one of the most significantly vulnerable locales, there was a puzzling non-chalance. It may have been that the Madrilenos were away for their August holiday and the tourists couldn't really care...besides, the Pope was due to arrive soon for World Youth Day (week?) celebrations, so why worry about the economy when the food is so good and the weather is so nice? At the least, I'd say that you sensed no urgency to action.
In fairness, the Spanish have since then just elected a new government, committed to long term solutions to Spain's fiscal problems and to reducing structural impediments to its long range economic success. I wish them very well in these efforts, for all of our sakes and especially for theirs. I'm eager to return.
Shanghai (July) and Hong Kong (October) were mostly business: speeches, interviews, meetings with fellow professionals, potential clients, and with government officials, awards presentations, a true blizzard of card exchanges. In both of these cities, the forward perspective and optimism were palpable. Things were so much better (bigger, more modern, taller, cleaner, more fun!) than they had been before and they were going to be even more so soon. Everyone had an idea for their own success and how that contributed to, or relied upon, the success of the country as a whole. In either event, the whole society had a common stake. In contrast to the non-chalance of Europe, China is on the make...especially the women. Women were disproportionately represented in every entrepreneurial venue we encountered.
A sense of confidence is everywhere. No challenge is too great, no accomplishment beyond reach...and what are we waiting for?...let's get busy!
I give you just two examples: from workaday to the height (literally) of publicly visible luxury.
The Hong Kong subway goes everywhere (including under the harbor of course), is cheap, full of passengers at every hour, and was built in just a few years! Imagine the obstacles, time, and cost it would take to match it in the US? I'm not sure that we'd even try. The now tallest building in Hong Kong (that claim seems to change every year or so; the most impressive buildings in town when I made my first visit here in the early '80's are now in the shadow of newer neighbors) has at its top floors the Ritz Carlton Hotel and its dining room at the very top. The setting, materials, and super chic design are almost beyond description in their beauty and power to impress. It's not at all the only public space designed to "blow you away" with it's elegance...just, for now, the highest above sea level.
This is not to say that China has no serious problems to cope with. It does, naming just a few: rural poverty, bad age demographics, risks of asset bubbles, an eventually unsustainable central political control, and a delicate balancing of its economic power throughout the world, its cultural influence, and its potential military power in East Asia and the Pacific. However, the strong impression you get is that the Chinese are not afraid of these challenges and have great confidence in their ability to achieve results that are well beyond merely okay.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Legalize Marijuana
California voters will have a chance to take another step in legalizing marijuana soon. I am, generally, no fan at all of the opportunity California's Constitution gives voters: a direct means of creating legislation or even amending the state Constitution. I fear that it is far too open to manipulation by relatively small, but well-organized "special interest" groups that don't really reflect the considered will of the majority of the people. Moreover, these propositions can be enacted into law without adequate provision for the costs of implementation. Thus, as a result of many earlier successful propositions, we witness a large part of California's dreadful current financial condition. All things considered, I'm emphatically for far less of propositions, not more.
However, while I disdain the process, generally, the potential result in this case, I believe, would be good. I believe the marijuana legalization proposition is probably a worthy exception because actual legislators, elected politicians, are unable to take action, even if they believe it to be right in this case.
Human beings have been altering their state of consciousness, by chemical means, throughout all cultures and all history. We are foolish to think that making this natural human behavior illegal will actually stop it. Less than a century ago, the US witnessed the disastrous experiment with alcohol Prohibition. What did we fail to learn by that?
Criminalization of marijuana does raise the cost, of course, and makes many people (non-users and crypto-users) feel righteous; but the downsides far outweigh that, in my view. Criminalization severely burdens our justice system, it explodes our prison population, it fosters organized crime, and it makes marijuana use just tantalizing enough for the young and rebelious to pursue it just because it's against the law.
I'm not naive and I realize that legalization may, in the short term, actually encourage some people to experiment with marijuana who otherwise would have been dissuaded. But, perhaps in a generation or two, I'm optimistic that reasonably broad social conventions will emerge that, like for alcohol today, "regulate" how most people use this particular chemical amendment. There will be times, places, occasions, and activities when marijuana use will be appropriate (for example: with or before food (who hasn't experienced the "munchies"), with friends, in enjoyable situations...a lot like wine today) and others when it will be frowned upon or even cause for legal punishment: "Drive with reefer, go to jail!"
More immediately, however, the legalization of this, like any other product, brings it within the expectations of "normal" activities. Legitimate businesses will compete, on quality and price, to supply maijuana demand. Retails outlets will exist in respectable neighborhhods; you'd be able to buy pot even at Safeway or Vons (if you've been to Amsterdam, you know what I mean). Fundamental quality issues can be regulated. Legitimate production and sales can be taxed. And, the criminals who now are the beneficiaries of marijuana's illegality will lose one of their huge revenue streams and one of their prime contexts for violence.
So, as much of an enemy of legislation by proposition as I am, I hope this particular exercise in circumventing the elected legislature is successful. Given the righteous, well-intentioned, but poorly informed "public" that legislators must respond to on this issue, we probably do need a "special interest" cadre to bring us to what I think is the right result.
As California goes, then, we can hope the rest of the country follows.
However, while I disdain the process, generally, the potential result in this case, I believe, would be good. I believe the marijuana legalization proposition is probably a worthy exception because actual legislators, elected politicians, are unable to take action, even if they believe it to be right in this case.
Human beings have been altering their state of consciousness, by chemical means, throughout all cultures and all history. We are foolish to think that making this natural human behavior illegal will actually stop it. Less than a century ago, the US witnessed the disastrous experiment with alcohol Prohibition. What did we fail to learn by that?
Criminalization of marijuana does raise the cost, of course, and makes many people (non-users and crypto-users) feel righteous; but the downsides far outweigh that, in my view. Criminalization severely burdens our justice system, it explodes our prison population, it fosters organized crime, and it makes marijuana use just tantalizing enough for the young and rebelious to pursue it just because it's against the law.
I'm not naive and I realize that legalization may, in the short term, actually encourage some people to experiment with marijuana who otherwise would have been dissuaded. But, perhaps in a generation or two, I'm optimistic that reasonably broad social conventions will emerge that, like for alcohol today, "regulate" how most people use this particular chemical amendment. There will be times, places, occasions, and activities when marijuana use will be appropriate (for example: with or before food (who hasn't experienced the "munchies"), with friends, in enjoyable situations...a lot like wine today) and others when it will be frowned upon or even cause for legal punishment: "Drive with reefer, go to jail!"
More immediately, however, the legalization of this, like any other product, brings it within the expectations of "normal" activities. Legitimate businesses will compete, on quality and price, to supply maijuana demand. Retails outlets will exist in respectable neighborhhods; you'd be able to buy pot even at Safeway or Vons (if you've been to Amsterdam, you know what I mean). Fundamental quality issues can be regulated. Legitimate production and sales can be taxed. And, the criminals who now are the beneficiaries of marijuana's illegality will lose one of their huge revenue streams and one of their prime contexts for violence.
So, as much of an enemy of legislation by proposition as I am, I hope this particular exercise in circumventing the elected legislature is successful. Given the righteous, well-intentioned, but poorly informed "public" that legislators must respond to on this issue, we probably do need a "special interest" cadre to bring us to what I think is the right result.
As California goes, then, we can hope the rest of the country follows.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Corrections/Amplifications to the Health Care Post
Sorry, my math was off in the final point in yesterday's post. Those who would be on notice that their health care is fully their own responsibility even in late old age would now be 45, not 40...still plenty of time.
Further, I should have added a point in the opening comments about why I'm not optimistic about a solution in the current political climate. My pessimism stems in part from the President's failure to exert a level of genuine leadership above the rancor of Democrats versus Republicans. Whether from his own instincts, or from some puzzling electoral calculus, President Obama's behavior is much more like chief Democratic cheerleader than as our head of state. When you think back to his election night triumph when he said that "there are no red states, there are no blue states, there are only the United States of America", you can now only sigh at the failure to live up to that promise.
Further, I should have added a point in the opening comments about why I'm not optimistic about a solution in the current political climate. My pessimism stems in part from the President's failure to exert a level of genuine leadership above the rancor of Democrats versus Republicans. Whether from his own instincts, or from some puzzling electoral calculus, President Obama's behavior is much more like chief Democratic cheerleader than as our head of state. When you think back to his election night triumph when he said that "there are no red states, there are no blue states, there are only the United States of America", you can now only sigh at the failure to live up to that promise.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
