The latest shamefaced lie behind oil prices

The newest rhetoric regarding escalating fuel prices is here. For the little bit of background, the initial reason bandied about before was the specter of rising demand and consumption by the BRIC economies (Brazil, Indian Russia and China). When nobody paid heed to that piece of drivel, it was the turn for the economists to pin the blame on speculators and the fact that hedging ones bets in the marketplace is detrimental to the stabilizing the price of oil. When this argument did not seem to stick, people opted for the convenience that came out of explanations like rising political tensions between the United States and Iran and the resultant skittish market psychology playing a role in the see-sawing fuel prices. Of course, a recalcitrant OPEC who refuses to change the output and the constant vitriol spewing from Venezuela's Chavez have always been ready reasons handy when all other explanations fail to stick to the wall.

The latest explanation doing the rounds (and this time being given wide coverage shamefully by the New York Times on its front page) is the fact that fuel subsidies overseas is taking its toll on oil prices in the United States. The current president of the United States made a telling comment last week in trying to bolster this explanation by telling us the following in sage terms: “I am discouraged by the fact that some nations subsidize the purchases of product, like gasoline, which, therefore, means that demand may not be causing the market to adjust as rapidly as we’d like”. It was the same person who made the equally sage comment on rising food prices around the world by telling us that “when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up", until it was found out that that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%..

While most of the developed countries have had a bull run for the last two hundred years with established growth rates and a voluminous GDP built on the back of colonial booty and slave labor, it is indeed disheartening to note that these very same countries who have had two to three centuries to bootstrap themselves are wagging their really engorged fingers at the new kids struggling to get a little bit of the leftovers. Add to that the recent shocking statistic that the entire state of California with its 37 million people uses more gas than the whole Chinese nation with its 1.3 billion people.

California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California's 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China's! (Or Russia's. Or India's. Or Brazil's. Or Germany's.) One more choice statistic: gasoline usage in California has increased 50 percent, that's 6.7 billion gallons, since 1988. Has there been anything close to a commensurate increase in quality of life here to accompany that rise in energy use?

When nations who are bootstrapping themselves to climb aboard the great economic growth train (whether that is a good or a bad thing is a whole different debate) subsidize the costs of fuel to its citizens, all they are doing is trying to level a highly loaded playing field (that was tipped in favor of the industrialized west for many centuries) by lifting the basic standards of living for its impoverished millions to a little more of a decent level. They are trying what the industrialized west achieved for its citizens a hundred to two hundred years back. It is also worth noting that as these nations try and level the playing field in a short 20-30 year span, they are doing so without the booty plundered as a result of colonialism and the cheap labor juiced out of imported black slaves worked to the bone.

Apologies if that last bit sounded a little too bitter, but this time the spin really got to me..

Check the fuel price in this photo of a dilapilated gas station on Route 66. Picture ripped from here.

Musings on South India...

Come next month and it will be 10 years since I left India. Before that, I lived all my life in the South Indian city of Bangalore. Every once in a while I read news about the burgeoning economy of the Asian tigers and BRIC's and about parents here confused on whether their children should learn Chinese, Hindi or Russian as opposed to Spanish as a second language.
Internecine parlays between groups of people that constitute nations are common and such is the case with India also. In this vein, I could not resist posting this link from Outlook India magazine that looks to the growth of South Indians and how they are regarded by the rest of India as opposed to say 20 years back (both of which I remember only too well and am able to compare).


General:

The typical North Indian regarded the typical South Indian as short, squat, black, effete—and vegetarian. But now, those once proud people are voting with their feet to move south. Now, the stereotype of the South Indian among Punjabis and Biharis is that he is intelligent, hardworking, entrepreneurial, and open-minded. And that he can very often be a she. And, most importantly, that if you study well and behave yourself, she or he can give you a job.

Raja Ravi Varma (1848 - 1906), 'The Orchestra', Oil on canvas, Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore


Outlook

One striking difference between north and south India relates to how they have viewed people from far away. The foreigner came to the north as a marauder and conqueror; to the south, as a traveler and trader. This is as truer of 'foreign' religions as it is of foreign individuals. There were Christians in Kerala several centuries before there were Christians in Europe. Unlike their northern counterparts, the Moplah Muslims of Malabar speak Malayalam, not Urdu—besides, no one can accuse them of identification with invaders or interlopers.

That the residents of the four southern states are, on the whole, less bigoted and more forward-looking is a product not of their genes but of their environment. Over hundreds of years, they have learnt to live with people speaking different tongues or professing a different faith. At the same time, they have also learnt to be less discriminatory among themselves.

Raja Ravi Varma (1848 - 1906), 'Portrait of a North Indian Lady', Oil on canvas, Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore

Women

Women in the south are less likely to be manhandled in a bus or train; they are also more likely to practice law or medicine, or run a business. This too has something to do with history and geography. Women's work is more crucial to (and hence more greatly valued in) rice as compared to wheat cultivation. Among some communities in south India, property was inherited through the female line. And, with no Rajputs or Mughals around as role models, there was little pressure to put women in purdah.

On the whole, a well written piece (link to article here).