Local Government Crisis in America

It is amazing to see almost zero coverage in media about crisis in local / small governments in US. There is big crisis looming in every corner of US. It includes from big states like California to small city / county governments. I think these state and small governments employ around 8 Million people in US. This is excluding Education and Hospital jobs. This itself is more than two third of total government jobs.

So far these governments bucked recession as they were funded by Federal Government under stimulus programs. As Federal government didn't wanted these local governments also to start doing layoffs when rest of private sector America is doing it. They funded them with cash. Now, with economy coming back to track and stimulus funds vaporizing away, these governments are still facing huge deficits, as tax receipts haven't improved. As a result they are coming up different ways to cut costs. Primarily laying off their employees, cutting down on services and increasing cost of services where possible.. Biggest component is cutting down number of employees.

Will it fix their problem? I think that is going to worsen the problem. As all of these governments have very simple rule of laying off their employees... Performance.. are you kidding!!! that is probably last thing.. Only thing they have in consideration is Seniority.. So it is LIFO... Last In First Out.. Essentially they are getting rid of their so called least skilled and young man power.. Is it true.. I can't say..

Another of their biggest problem is unrealistic Pension plan.. Apparently, if you work 15-20 years with them and you decide to retire you will be getting almost 90% of your pre-retirement income.. What a great moronic plan.. I strongly believe that all these governments should file for bankruptcy and get rid of all these moronic labor contracts and start with clean slate. The kind of obligations these governments have is amazing. Whatever they do in their books to juggle it, ultimately it will come back to them.

Even though I am not republican fan, I do strongly support Wisconsin governor with his plans to get rid of unions for state workers or so called collective bargaining. This collective bargaining should be made synonym of Black-mailing. We need some very fundamental changes in Government sector jobs in US. It needs to run the way decent performing private sector companies run their business. Only performance is your job security.. Only performance is your growth potential... Only performance is your higher rate of income and thus savings in your retirement account..

After all this mess, if we don't fix it we will never fix it. There is decent public support for it.. In case of Wisconsin, their masses has given very clear mandate to their Governor to get rid of their bureaucrats.  

Poor Libya or I should say poor middle-east

After reading and seeing leadership style and more importantly lifestyle of middle-east leaders, I strongly believe that despite all petro dollars in middle east is in bad condition. I hope after these revolutions things will be better.. They won't go for toss.. The way I am reading about Iranian influence in these budding democracies.. you never know that we might think of these days as golden days of middle east.. Hope sense will prevail and people will use their judgement to build and elect better governance.

I hope leaders and people in India will take lesson from all this.. We are so fortunate to have great democratic system. Which system is perfect? neither does Indian democracy system.. But as long as it is there we have hope and hope to have better leaders.. Where these leaders come from? At some point they are part of common people.. so as long as there is better awareness and better educated and committed people who later on become better and honest leaders.. Instead of current rule of thumb that you need to be  first be "Goonda" or son of Gooda/Politician and then only you can go to politics.

India has very precious democracy and we should feel pride and lucky to have this kind of system. I strongly believe that even poor man sleeping in those Juggi/jhopdi (slums) will be overall more happy then average middle class in middle east who lives in constant fear of getting by these so called rulers in middle east..

Amen!!

Apple's new Subscription delivery system

Or I should say new money minting machine... We all love Apple's products and they do deliver great value in terms of usability, ease of use and reliability. I don't know.. In past 5-10 years I have been proved wrong about Apple's approach.. So I will be cautious this time. However, I do believe that Apple is becoming to greedy with their Subscription / Content Delivery aka iTunes approach. Even though I don't have Amazon Kindle and I am basically good Apple customer with lot Apple products in house.. I don't like Amazon Kindle getting hurt by Apple's new Subscription Delivery System approach. This may force me towards Android which is more free and becoming equally good in terms of value for money.
I think Apple needs to remember that whatever goodwill they have generated with iPhone/iPad etc.. can vanish in few days/weeks and customers can switch to other devices if they realize that Apple is taking them for a ride. I hope Apple will work on it and fix it and won't return to 90s depressing era where despite MAC being cool, it got hit by Microsoft badly.. In today's scenario, Google/Android is thousand times better company as compared to Microsoft. So, one single mistake by them can lead them back to same era. I hope they have learned their lessons well and won't repeat same mistakes.

I am fine with their 60% gross margin on hardware as I see direct value in it. However, I may not like paying 30% of all my online purchases to them on top of my hardware cost to Apple. They need to fix it and keep iTunes open and free to their own content competitors as well if needed.

What next in Egypt

I am kind of surprised about Egyptian euphoria. What is the reason for such a rejoice. Was Mubarack only responsible for all the authoratarian rule. Is that regime really gone or just replaced by another regime? They are still ruled by military. What is guarantee that this regime will be better than Mubarak's regime.. There is say in India: "Asman se tapke, khajoor mein atke". In English, it means that "You get stuck in Palm tree after falling from sky".  I feel that is what is happening over there. or may be not.. I guess everything falls down to money money money..
Here is what I found in last couple of days. Egypt's economy is dependent on International Tourism big time. Egypt's Military is involved in lot of consumer durable manufacturing goods and owns lot of business. One and Half billion USD aid which US used to give to Egypt which was suppose to go to Military was mostly spend on Police force and corruption in Regime. Given all this, I think it will be in everyone's interest to get credible government in there. Have a peaceful and trust worthy regime.. Moreover, after such a massive revolution, no military can stand for long time. I think it may still be rough patch for Egypt's population but ultimately they will get it.

Once it happens, it will be really interesting to see it's impact on rest of the middle east. All the best Egypt.. Keep Pyramids safe.. I am yet to see them :-)

Should India be next after Egypt?

It may seem awkward to many of my friends and readers.. We Indians take pride as Biggest Democracy of the world.. However, fact is, it is no less than Egypt or any other middle east countries.. We are still controlled by Nehru/Gandhi type of families.. more or less.. It is bloody shame that we don't have any "Aukat" of getting real good new and young leaders despite more than a billion population and counting..

Actually, Indian democracy is biggest sham.. it should be classified as world's number one wonder.. It is controlled by few families and very small group of people..

Okay.. enough of cribbing.. Here are some of my thoughts and solutions..

1) Make term limit for PM/CM/Governor etc. Max 10 years.. i.e. no more than total of two terms.
2) Start dissolving Lok Sabha (Parliament/congress) every two years and conduct elections every two years for entire Lok Sabha.
3) There should be true democracy in all national parties. To ensure that, conduct their national/state presidents election also with Parliament elections every two years
4) On top of that, National Parties Presidents should be elected only once for two years max. Once you become president, you can't even fight for election next time.
5) Along with national parliament elections, perform all other state, municipal and Panchayat.. all possible elections should be done.. Trust me money spent on these elections will be 10 times less than the reduction in corruption due to fear of elections.

I don't know what is happening now.. But 10-15 years back during election times we used to get all roads repaired and all sort of better governance. Why can't we have same thing every two years now.. and with spread of education I definitely believe that it could be even better country. We are making great progress, but 400 million population is still below poverty. That is 8 times total Egypt's population.. Trust me, if somehow this 400 million becomes aware of their power and comes to the road, India will be in bad shape. So unless, we do something soon about it to fix it, they are going to come on road..

Toyota finally vindicated by Government Motors!!

It was great to hear that sense finally prevailed with our friends in Washington DC. No wonder this vindication comes after GM's successful IPO where government was able to recover most of their investments. They could only hold or blame Toyota for so long. I guess, if Honda was number one company, similar story would have erupted  for them as well.

Very Basic Common Sense.. Car's break is always more powerful than engine. Whatever the speed may be, whatever the engine RPM may be, whatever, the throttle may be.. If you press complete brake.. Car will stop.. Period..

No offense to victims.. but they were simply pressing accelerator thinking that they are pressing break pedal.. What ever the reason may be.. But breaks will work if they are pressed and there is some break fluid in master cylinder.

Most likely, Toyota was framed as victim due to simple fact that they were number one.. There might be some problems here and there.. and when US financial houses can create CDOs and sell it to entire universe and still get bailed out.. why can't Toyota try to optimize their business process and try to save some money here and there.. There is always a risk.. moment you are born.. there are risks.. There are risks when you drive any car. It is machinery and it can fail.. You pay more price for better machinery so it won't fail that often.. In case of GM, you were paying money to machinery to fail.. Where as in case of Toyota/Honda you pay them not to fail.. But when even Toyota/Honda fail, you are angry.. which you should be.. but that doesn't mean you start making unusual blames..

Let us see how many days our New Government Motors will survive.. Hope they have hired some engineers from their competitors from Pacific rim.

Power of Internet in Egypt

Lot of discussions are going on this issue. Media and news groups are openly saying that Twitter and Facebook has lot do with these revolutions in Tunisia and now in Egypt.
I would say that, they had some impact on these revolutions. Definitely, these are great collaboration tools and you do need great collaboration to organize something on that big scale.

However, one story in a way further validated very interesting role of internet and these applications in revolution. This is about Egyptian revolution. Revolution supporters were almost double very next day after Internet was shut down in the Egypt. I think that was Mubarak's biggest mistake and final nail on his coffin. Without Facebook and twitter, people didn't had anything to do at home. They came out in even bigger numbers. No offense to these revolutionist, but it would have been better for Mubarak if he had not only continued access for Facebook and Twitter so people keep on screaming on it sitting inside home but also ask ISPs to open some streaming of nice movies on Internet free of cost so people can enjoy at home. May be he won't have to appoint Vice-President. Just kidding.

I think power of internet with support of these excellent applications and tools is becoming more and more. Unfortunately US has very big role in supporting these regimes in all over the world. However, it is these same US companies, which are kind of counteracting US government's sins. So we are even out and in process making good money by first selling arms and ammunition then further hype our Companies like Facebook and Twitter and get huge valuations for them.. I smell conspiracy by Goldman Sachs on this ;-) 

1-1-1 BILLION!!!

Amazing number I found few days back.. Very interesting..

One billion people sleep every day - HUNGRY
One billion people suffer from - Malnutrition
One billion people suffer from - Over-eating (Over weight or Obese)

Probably, One billion people must be wasting food every day as well.. or more..

Out of Seven Billion Population!! or what is it now? Eight Billion?

After reading this article I feel guilty when I over eat some day..

What is solution? Communism? or Capitalism? Both of them failed in past. some more some less.  I guess, We should introduce another form of government "Humanitarian"!!! or tear down this bloody Nationalism boundaries.. or what ever form of group any theory may produce. Religion.. Nationalism, Racism.. all are in some ways responsible for this mess. We ought to dump these old theories and become true human and earthling.. and just live like earthling.. and remember that we are most gifted earthling.. and help each other grow.. Even after seven or eight billion population, earth is still big enough to take care of everyone.

I know it is dream but there is nothing formed physically without dreams.. To certain extent, Internet is helping tear down these man made walls and silos.. What is Facebook population.. Half billion of already a billion??? Just kidding. but hey.. you never know.. Facebook may be new Religion in next 20 or 50 years.. and Mark Zuckerburg may be God of Twenty second Century.. Only I wish we could start teleporting food on internet way we just now communicate audio and video.. Cisco.. Juniper.. Do something!!!!


Cheers!!

Egypt revolution

Enough has already written about Egyptian revolution going on since last 10 days or so. I am in general supporter of these kind of revolutions and definitely anti-regime. Especially these dictatorship kind of. I strongly believe that this revolution will culminate in change of government/regime. There is no doubt about that. No body can suppress people power once people are aware of their power.

However, I am also concerned about after effects of revolution. When I was kid, somewhere I read quote from Napoleon "let fools fight for the best form of government, whatever works is the best form". I was under impression that Mubarak Government was working and was good for Egypt.. But I think I was wrong.

At the same time, I am not so sure about form of government after Mr. Mubarak's regime is gone. What if Islamic fundamentalist takes over and let us say they form Afghanistan Taliban style government based on pure Islamic or shariyat kind of government. I hope people of Egypt will use their judgement and hope will get better government. There were/are problems with Mubarak Regime. However, which government doesn't have.. Are their no human rights violation in US or in UK or in India? When I grew up in India, I used to read stories of Police atrocities all the time. People are still afraid of Police in India.. May be we can blame it on Gandhi Regime ;-) I guess, it is time to get rid of Gandhi Regime in India too.