Tuesday 29 September 2020

Pranab Bardhan's & the structural dependence of the anal sphincter.

Capitalism means that physical capital is controlled by entrepreneurs hoping to retain a profit after paying wages to labor, rent to landowners, interest to providers of finance and taxes to the State or other provider of 'public goods'. 

Social Democracy just means Democracy. The notion is that the Government will use tax revenue to help the poor and do all sorts of nice things for Society. But it may just piss money against the wall. 

Pranab Bardhan writes in 3 Quarks-

Different people mean different things when they talk of social democracy and its somewhat close kin, democratic socialism.

But all these people are alike in being worthless tossers.  

I usually associate the former with the mode of production remaining essentially capitalist, though with some important modifications, and the latter with the case where the ownership or control of the means of production is primarily with non-private entities (the state or cooperatives or worker-managed enterprises). In this sense Bernie Sanders and his followers wrongly describe themselves as democratic socialists, to me they are social democrats.

But tossers they remain.  True, they aren't crazy enough to think the US Government can collectivize the land and take over all the business enterprises. But they are tossers nonetheless- unless their aim really was to get Trump elected.

In social democracy those important modifications to the capitalist mode of production may involve some substantial reform in the governance of the firm and in the fiscal power of the democratic state to raise taxes to fund a significant expansion of redistributive and infrastructure programs.

This is true of any sort of state. A monarchy may institute changes in the governance of the firm or in taxes and transfers. A tyrant may declare that everything belongs to him- all must be as productive as they can but only as his slaves. Everything over and above what they need to stay alive must be handed over to his goons. In other words, adding the tag 'social' to democracy or dictatorship or anything else is a meaningless exercise.

Yet these modifications will remain constrained by what used to be called the ‘structural dependence’ on private capital.

There was a time when talking of structures was supposed to make you sound smart. But only assholes did it. So it is now understood as the mark of a cretin. There also used to be 'dependency' theorists. But they were useless. That is why only senile cretins think 'structural dependence' means something different from 'having no money of your own coz u r a useless tosser which is why you have to try fool people by talking incessant bollocks'.  

How far that structural limit can be pushed will vary with a country’s institutional history, political culture, and social norms.

Nonsense! The only thing which matters is resources and productivity. But resources get squandered by shitheads who talk of 'social democracy' or 'democratic socialism'. Productivity goes in the crapper because shitheads are in charge.  

Much will depend on how far the modifications of capitalism can leave unhampered the mechanism of productivity growth and innovation, which Schumpeter considered the engine of capitalist dynamics.

No. What matters is who is doing the modification and for what purpose. If it is smart patriots who are modifying how the economy works so as to win a war against a technologically advanced and ruthless enemy then growth and innovation could go through the roof. Their may be a 'peace dividend' as new technology is transferred from the Defense sector to the rest of the Economy. But this depends on mimetic effects of a competitive type. 

Is there a magic balance achievable under social democracy?

No. When Bardhan was young some Indians did shite PhDs on 'balanced growth' and 'optimal growth paths' and turnpike theorems and other such shite. But other Indians soon realized that these tossers were utterly useless. Magic beans may enable you to climb up into the Heavens to steal treasure from a Giant. 'Magic balance' is just boring nonsense.  

This will be central to my discussion in this article, as I often find that my social-democratic and democratic-socialist friends do not pay adequate attention to the question of innovations.

because their heads are stuck up their own butts. Bardhan wishes to enlighten them by getting them to insert their heads into his capacious rectum.  

I shall also comment on the need for significant reforms in the financial system, labor market policy and election funding for a social democracy to function properly.

The problem is that those who advocate 'significant reform' are as stupid as shit. Let people with skin in the game reform things which matters to them.  

Social democrats often insist on a larger voice of workers in the governance of the firm.

But workers don't want this because they are aware that the 'comrades' with the loudest voices are as stupid as shit. Only a few lunatics want to run the Asylum. Most don't because they are merely mad, not irremediably stupid. 

(In the US presidential primary campaign Elizabeth Warren was a main proponent).

Pocahontas's wokeness backfired. 

At a time of widespread job losses this can be particularly important in influencing the firm’s decision to outsource or relocate.

Or concentrate on lobbying for Government money, tariffs and so forth.  

Outside the firm they also demand anti-monopoly regulations not just because corporate concentration of power is bad for an efficient economy and democratic polity, but also because such concentration of buying power in the labor market (what economists call ‘monopsony’ power) weakens labor’s bargaining strength.

Whereas, the countervailing power of Trade Unions can kill off industries and destroy the life-chances of the young. As for Regulatory Agencies, they soon get 'captured'.  

They also ask for an active role of labor in the negotiations on international trade agreements, which are currently shaped by powerful corporate lobbies.

Or you could just vote for Trump. 

Similarly, unregulated financial capital that often destabilizes capitalism and unregulated international capital mobility are vehemently opposed by social democrats as they weaken labor’s bargaining power and job security.

Vehemently? No. Uselessly. That's the problem with being a 'social democrat'. People think you are a virtue signaling cretin.  

To all this one may raise the objection that with this kind of restrictions social democracy hurts the cause of technological innovations, and thus productivity growth and improvements in our standard of living.

People figure out ways to prevent too much 'incentive incompatibility' in mechanisms of use to them.  

I am going to argue that this is not necessarily so. But before I go there, let me mention two issues relevant here which are not central to my argument. One is that some kinds of ‘innovations’ particularly in the financial sector (like the cleverly repackaged mortgages that were used in ‘subprime lending’ in the US), that became prominent before the financial crisis of 2008-9, are surely not worth the great devastation the crisis caused, or that their effects on productivity growth in the real economy are at best minimal.

The problem wasn't 'fin-tech'. It was crap Economics and 'Agency Capture' and the fact that the Second Gulf War was an expensive failure. 

Secondly, on a more personal note, whenever I have visited Japan in the last two or three decades (the so-called ‘lost’ decades, of stagnation) I had come away with a sneaking feeling that for all the stagnation the Japanese standard of living is reasonably comfortable, and if it can be rendered environmentally and fiscally sustainable, maybe they, and other rich countries, do not need a frantic pursuit of more and more innovations.

But Japan is still innovating. It has to for demographic reasons.  

The story is, of course, different for developing countries, where productivities and living standards are still very low. But for these countries the challenge often is not that of really new innovations, but of catch-up and adaptive technical changes.

Mimetics. That's all that matters. Sadly elderly tossers like Bardhan have persuaded a lot of Indians that imitating 'Social Democracies' which are very rich means not worrying about productivity or mimicking the other poor, over populated, countries which managed to rise up. Instead one should concentrate on denouncing Fascism so that Money will appear by magic for transfers to the poor. 

The question of technological innovations under systems that are alternatives to capitalism is important not just today, but it has played some role at least in Europe in the evolution of social democracy.

Nonsense! The Superpowers decided what would happen.  

There was a time in the immediate postwar period when the workers in some west European countries were sufficiently politically powerful to have the capacity to democratically upend much of the capitalist system if they really wanted to, and replace it with some form of democratic socialism.

The C.I.A spent a lot of money to avert any such outcome. In any case, everybody could see that Communism sucked ass big time. Even the Communist Parties did not want to come under Moscow's thumb.  

But astute consideration of the prospect of more innovation and productivity growth under capitalism persuaded many of their leaders that the workers’ share of a larger economic pie will in the long-run get them more, even at the expense of allowing a significant share of the pie to the capitalists.

Workers wanted higher wages. They would only tolerate Leftist nutjobs if they could deliver higher wages. But all this was predicated on cheap oil. By the Seventies, it became obvious that the upper working class would either have to accept 'solidarity wages' (i.e. reduced pay differentials with the unskilled) or turn their backs on Left-Liberal political parties. Large scale immigration was also a factor. The Class Struggle was over. The working class would have to pick its own pocket to support Big Government.

But what about a larger role of labor in firm governance?

How about letting janitors run the Universities? 

Does it hurt innovations? Germany is one major country where some social democratic institution for voice of labor in the governance of the firm (in the form of works council or Betriebsrat, or more generally what is called codetermination or shared governance) has been active for some time and for which some empirical analysis is available.

In practice, this just means workers take pay-cuts in bad times in return for job security. It isn't the case that the janitors get a big say in Treasury Management.  The other point has to do with the power of a few big banks. Germany is good at fostering external economies of scale in Marshallian industrial districts but appears to be falling behind in the key technological industries of the future.

Although codetermination is there in some other countries of continental Europe (and recently spread to Canada and South Korea), it started earliest in Germany and worker representation in supervisory boards of large companies there has reached parity with shareholder representation. The worker representatives have a significant influence on investment and financial decisions and control of executives.

 This means higher wages and longer holidays. Perhaps it is also a barrier to entry for foreign firms who find the setting up of a Worker's Council an expensive business.

Observational data on German works council suggest a generally positive effect on productivity, particularly if the firm has profit-sharing and collective bargaining arrangements. They also help in building trustful industrial relations, in improving information channels between managers and workers and in carrying out environmental goals, like emissions reduction. (Of course, trustful industrial relations are so scarce in the hierarchical workplaces, as in say much of US and India, that one may need more social and structural changes before codetermination can even begin to work.)

In America, Unions like the Teamsters would challenge any German style Workers Council as being per se illegal under the National Labour Relations Act which prohibits any type of employer influence or control of a Union because an adversarial relationship is assumed. Electromation Inc (1992) clarifies the current position. 

In India, Trade Unions are either  affiliated with Political Parties or lawyer/gangsters. Cooperation can't be expected from them.  


Recently a Berkeley colleague of mine, Ben Schoefer and co-authors have gone beyond observational data and used quasi-experimental evidence on German firms to come out with some interesting results on the effects of shared governance. They show that shared governance significantly raises firm productivity, without negative effects on profitability, on capital investment or on capacity to raise external finance.

What was shown was that Germans are a deeply boring people who can work well together on boring committees. Furthermore, workers will take pay cuts in bad times. The US could get rid of antiquated Labor legislation and permit this sort of sensible 'mechanism design'. But is paranoid style of politics militates against any such outcome.  

They also show that it reduces outsourcing by the firm, and improves women’s representation in the supervisory board.

Outsourcing and discriminatory managerial practices aren't efficient. They are responses to legal and other rigidities of an ultimately political kind. 

Of course, not all productivity improvements are innovations, a great deal of it is catch-up and adaptation of technology. Not all innovations are fundamental breakthroughs, and often the real breakthroughs are products of basic research in public organizations (including the military, like that of internet and GPS in the US) and publicly subsidized institutions like universities and public laboratories. Commercial applications are usually made by enterprising private companies. Even in commercial innovations, one may distinguish between ‘disruptive’ innovations (which often upend incumbent firms and are close to the ‘creative destruction’ Schumpeter had in mind) and steady ‘incremental’ innovations (akin to what the Japanese call kaizen), which can be carried out even in large incumbent firms, but over time cumulate to quite a lot of productivity change. In Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc. the innovations are more often of this incremental kind. And there is no reason why, a social democracy committed to public and private investment in Research and Development cannot accomplish a steady stream of such incremental innovations.

The same could be said of any type of Society- with or without a Government. The Law may inhibit mimetic effects- and the desire to discover and innovate is itself mimetic- thus it is pointless to taxonomize innovation and try to figure out how to boost it. 

Disruptive innovations funded by venture capital (taking a significant stake in start-ups) are more common in the US,

Why? Because it has a huge internal market of a homogenous type. 

but even there disruption in the form of exit of established firms is not that common now; more often established firms with deep pockets co-opt or buy up start-ups that are potential rivals–what Facebook did with Instagram and WhatsApp, and Alphabet with YouTube are well-known recent examples from the Big Tech sector.

Only because Financial Markets trust the Big guys to acquire the start-ups more cheaply. So this is really a story about the 'divorce between ownership and control' evolving in a manner which concentrates the power of leveraging in fewer hands such that compliance costs fall and regulations have less power to delay everything.  

For Germany the quasi-experimental study cited above shows that shared governance did not have any differential effect in firm exit (or facing of bankruptcy) compared to other firms, which means labor representation did not significantly block firm exit or restructuring. But there is some indirect evidence that worker-elected representatives on the supervisory board of the firm can have longer horizons in matters like investment and more stake in the firm compared to the outside shareholder members of the board. This may make it easier for a firm to take up innovative projects with larger risk but higher return.

This is a story of the savings of workers financing their own employers. Overall it means wages and profits are depressed which is reflected in a lower real exchange rate and a desperate, but often foolish, search for higher returns in overseas financial markets.  

One may also mention here that one important rationale for universal social protection systems (like universal basic income) is that by delinking the economic security issue from being tied to particular jobs such systems may make exit of inefficient firms or plants more acceptable to workers.

This is foolish. One would rather have a job then have to struggle on the same stipend as a unemployable cretin.  


There is also considerable evidence—cited in the work of the labor economist Richard Freeman and co-authors–of positive productivity effects of employee stock ownership and profit-sharing, as, for example, shown in a large 2007 study commissioned by the Treasury Department of the British Government.

There is evidence that some firms where productivity has risen have implemented employee stock ownership schemes- because employees figure such shares will rise in value. Where productivity is falling, it is likely that losses are being incurred. Employees don't want shares because they are worthless. 

Studying the workers in US firms with meaningful programs of shared capitalism and a supportive culture of participation, and contrasting them with workers in firms that do not have such programs, Freeman finds the former to have more loyalty to the firm and pride in their work, and a willingness to think more innovatively and make creative suggestions.

It makes sense for a company that has enthusiastic workers to get those workers to become share-holders. They are likely to be loyal. Moreover, there is a tax advantage for both. 

The problem is that if you are in a shitty line of business with employees who hate what they do then no amount of profit sharing will change things. On the contrary, having a bit of capital will cause your workers to try to find some more salubrious type of job.

Apart from more worker voice in firm governance and stock-ownership, social democracies may also try to experiment with some mixed (public-private) ownership and see if that helps or hinders innovations.

Governments which 'experiment' with taxpayer money have a funny way of ending up lining the pockets of cronies.  

We do not have much hard evidence on this but there are useful anecdotes. Most recent such anecdotes are from China (even though China is definitely not a democracy, the results about mixed ownership on innovations need not depend on its authoritarianism per se). In the desperate technology race that China has launched vis-à-vis the US there are now stories about some mixed-ownership firms doing reasonably well, benefiting both from long-term finance provided by the state and equity capital and risk initiatives from the private owner-partners. In the integrated circuits sector, for example, a recent mixed-ownership semiconductor company, YMTC, established in 2016 is already reported to be making memory chips almost as advanced as the world’s best (like those by Samsung from South Korea).

The US is now taking draconian action against YMTC whose 'Xtacking' approach was believed to be a money pit for the Chinese government. But this has nothing to do with who owns YMTC. There is a National Security angle to this. 

There are similar stories from state-aided and –guided Chinese private firms in Artificial Intelligence (AI), where in some types of AI application the US is no longer the leader. Of course, with mixed-ownership and state-aided private firms there is always the danger that too-big-to-fail (or too much of a state favorite to fail) ventures after some time may turn into cozy rental havens, prone to ‘socializing’ losses and ‘privatizing’ profits. Keeping international competition open can, however, act here as a healthy disciplining factor, as the recent history of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan suggests.

It is perfectly possible to find good tech savvy entrepreneurs whom the Government can work with to meet national objectives. Beaverbrook turned out to be a great Minister of Air-craft production.

Crony Capitalism can be a good thing if the crony is smart, patriotic, and not too greedy. 

Apart from aid and mixed ownership in firms the state can sometimes play a catalytic role in the innovation process through coordination and directional guidance, shaping the market expectations, creating demand through public procurement practices, and underwriting risks and making strategic initial investments.

In other words, if the State is good at business it can run a successful business. But the sorts of people who get elected tend to be good at bullshitting, not business.  

There are many examples of all this cited in the book by Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State. As she illustratively points out, every bit of technology that makes the iPhone so ‘smart’ was government-funded—the Internet, GPS, its touch-screen display and the voice-activated virtual assistant Siri.

The US Govt. was sitting on a huge stockpile of patents and discoveries. It was like the last scene in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'- a big Government warehouse where all sorts of treasures are left to moulder away in crates. Then the law was changed forcing the Government to release these discoveries into the market. Otherwise we'd still be using dial up phones.  


In discussing the role of the social democratic state or the firm in the innovation process it is also important to stress that

one is talking worthless bollocks 

the pattern of innovations may be just as, if not more, important as the rate of innovations. If workers have a strong voice in the running of a firm and also in the general polity outside, it may be possible to redirect investment in new technology by a firm and by public authorities that conform more to social priorities—labor-absorbing and labor-empowering rather than labor-replacing technology, environmental and other long-run goals instead of short-run profits and monopoly rights –even with private patents the state may buy them and put in the public domain to accelerate future research and innovations, as, to take an early example, the French state did for the patented photographic invention of Louis Daguerre in 1839, which led to a rapid development of photographic technology.

If workers have a strong voice in the running of the Academy, worthless tossers like Bardhan would be employed only as janitors.  

On the other hand, it is true to say that everybody was very very smart and very very nice then naughtiness would diminish appreciably. 


It is worth stressing that Nordic social democracy has been quite conducive to innovations.

The Vikings were good at innovation too. Countries which were innovative remained innovative- indeed they could change their political arrangements in an endogenous, not a mimetic, manner. Countries which were not innovative remained desperately poor no matter which political ideology they espoused. 

 
Taking the rough country ranking estimates of the Global Innovation Index (reported by WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization), the ranking score for 2019 was slightly higher for Sweden than for US, and slightly lower for Finland and Denmark. The two most conspicuous features of the wage determination process in Scandinavian countries are compression of wages between high- and low-productivity firms and industries, and the confederate, rather than local, collective setting of such wage patterns. The relatively low wages in high-productivity firms/industries and hence higher profitability stimulate innovations as capitalists get to keep much of the surplus, when they invest in new technology. Contrary to popular impression the Scandinavian economic model is thus as much about dynamic capitalist efficiency as about equality—this was clearly stated in the original exposition of the model by two Swedish trade union economists Gosta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner in 1951, and subsequently developed by Scandinavian academic economists like Karl Ove Moene. Of course, these distinctive features of the Scandinavian model may be difficult to reproduce in countries with different labor institutions and cultural mores. In US and India, for example, labor bargaining, where it exists, is much too decentralized

India and the US are much larger. There is no point comparing them to Nordic countries. 

; a confederate mode of wage bargaining will require a major restructuring of labor institutions.

It will require population falling to Nordic levels.  

Similarly, in both countries a repression of salaries of high-skilled workers and managers may induce large-scale emigration, to an extent that is not common in Scandinavian socio-cultural context, in spite of the fact that post-tax post-transfer household income in the top decile is much higher in US and Canada than in Sweden or Denmark. (These problems of social democracy in one country, when the surrounding world is different, may be akin to the problems of ‘socialism in one country’ that Trotskyists used to worry about in the now long-gone past).

Shooting people trying to escape is the way 'People's Democracies' solved the problem. 

The ‘democracy’ part of social democracy should apply as much to economic democracy as to political.

Thus custodial staff should have an equal say in determining the Curriculum and grading dissertations.  

Our preceding discussion on the voice of labor in the governance of the firm and outside has already involved a major part of that economic democracy. Similarly, the call for anti-monopoly legislation is aimed at reducing concentration of economic power. In the US contrary to the prevailing view of anti-trust, influenced by the Chicago School, that looked primarily at the effect of monopoly on prices and consumer harm, there is a new generation of legal scholars (sometimes described as followers of the neo-Brandeis movement, following Justice Brandeis who had pointed to broader effects of concentration) who look at the impact of concentration on all stakeholders in the economy, including workers, producers and citizens, not just the consumers. This allows them, for example, to look at the adverse impact of the giant Tech companies, even when they are reducing prices for consumers (like Amazon), or providing services at what seems like zero price (like Google or Facebook). Not merely should social democrats embrace this wider view of anti-monopoly, they should also join in a growing demand for Big Tech to pay back for the ownership and control of massive amounts of private data that they are collecting from their billions of customers and using profitably (apart from aiming at installation of appropriate privacy protection systems and antidotes to ‘surveillance capitalism’). Andrew Yang, another contender in the US Presidential primary campaign, has launched a campaign for Tech firms to pay users a ‘digital dividend’ for their data. Since the state may be in a better position to bargain with Big Tech than the numerous, often unwitting, suppliers of the data, it may act on behalf of the users in return for a share in that dividend going into a public fund. (As it is, already the state in countries like China and India have got involved in making sure that the data from their citizens remain within the country). In general the aim of economic democracy should be to curb the growing power not just of tangible capital but of this kind of intangible capital as well.

But, clearly, this happens regardless of the political regime. States tax those who can be taxed and regulate those who can be regulated. It is a Stationary Bandit, after all.  

Apart from Big Tech, one area of heavy concentration of largely intangible capital is that of Finance. Their concentrated power and excessive risk-taking allowed them to precipitate the Financial Crisis of 2008-9 and the attendant world-wide devastation, and then to come out of it with relative impunity. In the US even today just 3 private asset-managing firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, together own about 20% of all firms on the S&P 500 index. In this context social democrats should seriously consider a public option in the financial system. The Roosevelt Institute, a think tank in New York has called for a Modern Reconstruction Finance Corporation (somewhat on the lines of a similar financial authority in the New Deal era) to help fund the proposed Green New Deal. Social democrats in all countries should try to redirect the pension funds of workers toward such public finance authorities that facilitate public investment in the service of social and environmental goals (projects like mass transit, affordable working-class housing, public broadband, public health and sanitation, and so on).

This will require the reintroduction of capital and exchange controls and banning the private ownership of gold and implementing land ceilings and so forth. These may be required if there is a serious external or internal challenge to the Polity. Still, a lot of the smarter people will flee. When things go wrong, there will be a demand for scapegoats and nobody likes a smartass. 


In doing this there is, however, a lot to learn from the mistakes in handling the public option in the financial system already in use for many years in countries like India, where public banks and insurance companies have been abused by politicians for dud loans to crony private companies and for parking Government debt to cover unproductive expenditure. The public development banks in East Asia (and Germany) have a somewhat better record. For countries with mainly private banking systems it has also been suggested that if the Central banks allow all citizens to open free bank accounts directly with the Central bank with all the usual facilities of a commercial bank account, then this public option can reduce the monopoly power of the big banks, apart from making it easier to run monetary policy and fiscal stimulus programs in a crisis. Morgan Ricks, John Crawford and Lev Menand have called for such a ‘FedAccount program’ for the American public.

This is feasible. Why not integrate the Tax and Banking system under the aegis of the Government? Kill off the Tax Avoidance industry. Put an end to Organized Crime. Never again be forced to bailout 'too big to fail' Financial Institutions. Instead of regulating markets just have cash transfers to the needy based on Medical reports. Indeed, why not centralize all information flows? Let Big Brother do 'Bio-politics'. 

In the US where the safety net is patchy and in developing countries where it is often non-existent, particularly for the vast masses of informal workers, social democrats supporting a generous welfare state (including a significant universal basic income) have to think about restructuring the whole public finance system, including streamlining the existing structure of subsidies (many of them mainly going to the rich and middle classes or taking the form of energy-inefficient fuel subsidies) and revamping the system of raising taxes from the rich (like more progressive income taxes, wealth, capital gains, and inheritance taxes, and a reformed system of local property taxes). This will be difficult if they do not simultaneously (and in coordination with other countries) put restrictions on international capital mobility and flight to offshore tax havens. It has been suggested by some that a tax on foreign financial transactions collected by individual countries may be contributed to a Global Environmental Fund, from which developing countries that usually suffer most from flight of financial capital, can borrow at a concessional rate for investment in mitigation of environmental degradation. (One, of course, has to keep in mind that in a world of digital super-connectivity there are some limits to restrictions on capital mobility and taxes on financial transactions). In addition to raising the tax rates, for expanding the tax base (and, of course, for other labor-friendly objectives) social democrats should also keep the goal of high level of employment as a top priority. North European and other social democracies have often achieved this with active labor market policies for retraining and re-skilling, wage subsidies, and with public care-giving services which enable women to participate in large numbers.

Any type of regime would sponsor reforms which 'pay for themselves'- i.e. generate more revenue than they cost. No regime can afford to pay for virtue signalling bullshit unless vested interests are getting a pay-off and, in any case, the scheme has been set up to disillusion the voter.  


The ‘democracy’ part of social democracy will remain essentially rigged as long as politicians mainly depend on large corporate donations for the increasingly expensive elections. It is now recognized that the Blair-Clinton-style social democracy wedded to High Finance is doomed to failure,

Clearly Bardhan thinks Biden won't win. 

both for the ‘social’ and the ‘democracy’ parts. But the most egregious recent case of a major social democratic party crashing under the burden of corruption is that of PT in Brazil. The corruption scandals clearly involved personal greed of some PT politicians, but much of the money illicitly procured was to feed the political machine of the party, that needed large sums to fund elections and to lubricate the post-election wooing of legislators of allied parties to rally behind particular policy programs.

Brazil, like Venezuela, was hit by falling commodity prices. Chavez was a General. His regime, being more authoritarian, could survive while Lula's protege's could not.  

In the US the largely unregulated, and court-sanctioned, role of corporate money for campaign finance before elections and for lobbying of legislators between elections has made a mockery of democracy and rule of law, when these laws are essentially for sale. The situation is in some respects even worse in India, where the ruling party legally raises corporate money many times the total raised by all the other parties combined, not to speak of the undocumented illegal finance. Matters have been made murkier by the con game of what is called electoral bond (with very little disclosure requirement), introduced by the current regime under the guise of what was called electoral reform. In order to raise money some smaller parties at election time now sell their party ‘tickets’ for contesting elections to the largest contributors to the party fund.

There is nothing new about any of this. The fact remains, cunts Bardhan approves of can't rule America because their slogan is 'Make America shit' and can't rule India because they denounce Hinduism- the religion of 80 percent of the people- at every opportunity. 

Social democrats have to seriously consider the alternative of public financing of elections, with, of course, a system of strictly enforced limits on (and independent auditing of) expenditure by both parties and candidates.

But they will still be unelectable because the temptation to virtue signal about the plight of abortion seeking transgender Palestinians will overcome them.  

It is worth learning from cases of relatively successful reforms in public funding of election in some social democratic countries. In Canada there is substantial public funding with stringent regulations on ceilings of election spending; there are also tax incentives for small contributors. Germany uses public grants that match the funds from small contributors. Sweden, where corporate donations used to be a major source for political parties, public subsidies are now generous enough for the parties to voluntarily stop accepting corporate donations.

So what? It is the US Supreme Court you have to convince. What Canada or Germany does is not relevant.  

Indeed, talk of 'Social Democracy' is irrelevant unless a Political Party is in a position to amend the Constitution and change the composition of the Bench.

Social democracy to be viable and vigorous has to grapple with

Reality. Not bullshit about Scandinavia or vacuous verbiage about  

 systemic issues arising from

having taught a shite subject for too many years  

the structural dependence on capital, by increasing the role of labor in firm governance, influencing the pace and pattern of innovations, democratizing the financial and fiscal space, and draining the current swamp of electoral funding.

Just concentrate of getting Biden the old fashioned way- i.e. by outspending the other guys. 

Of course, the oligarchic interests of business and capital that now dominate most democratic polities will not easily give up on the powers they have acquired.

Because people don't like giving up stuff that is useful to them.  

Apart from the obvious uphill task of social movements and mass organizations in forcefully pushing an alternative political agenda and moral narrative,

uphill and futile- like Sisyphus pushing his rock.

it may be possible to persuade some sections of the business world that social-democratic improvements in workers’ participation, welfare and morale within a modified framework of capitalism may not conflict with their long-term interests of productivity and profits, that capitalism can be saved from myopic capitalists.

Business people are smarter, at least when it comes to making money, than senile academics or woke activists. They understand 'incomplete contracts' and change the incentive mix as required. They also employ some bullshitters and P.R firms and so forth. 

Instead of saving capitalism from myopic capitalists why not save shit from myopic assholes who don't understand that if they release a turd then their endowment set will be reduced. Only by a proper analysis of the anal sphincter's structural dependence can a proper Socially Democratic defecational procedure be implemented.  

Monday 28 September 2020

Second example of Aeon's Racism

Aeon, whose pick of authors is statistically racist, censors Blacks challenging Stupidity of an Epistemically worthless, Eugenicist, sort.

This is the comment they deleted- 


I am sorry to say that this is peurile nonsense on a par with Quantum Economics or Deepak Chopra’s bromides. It is ‘regret minimizing’- i.e. a rational response to Knightian Uncertainty- to take risks and shake things up a little. The Maths involves “Hannan Consistency’ and so forth and is as boring as Portfolio Choice theory. Consider the following school-girlish schwarmerie- ‘The algorithms took him to acrobatic-yoga classes in Mumbai and to a goat farm in Slovenia, but they also took him to the small-town pub of Holy Cross, Iowa, and to an eighth-grade flute recital, and to a small family Christmas in Fresno, California. Anywhere that would break him out of the comfortably predictable rut of the affluent San Franciscan tech worker.’ How did this deeply boring man become an ‘affluent San Fran tech worker’? The answer is by doing deeply boring things for unconscionably long intervals of time. No doubt, the fellow wants to escape his occupation before newer technology makes him redundant. So he spent some money on learning to write Malcolm Gladwell type shite. Good for him. But why should the rest of us care? If these authors were genuinely smart they would be very rich. We who read these articles are poor. We want to believe a PhD in some unlikely place- like Sussex (why not Roehampton, or Walthamslow- which has a combined Doctoral program in Zumba and Vovevodskian Univalent Foundations- or is bound to do so sometime soon?)- will avert recognition of something our species has been aware of for ten thousand years- viz. prediction is outsourced. There is a mimetic component. But non-mimetic initiatives are stochastic and doomed to fail. Our authors write- ‘The examined human life reflects, we suggest, a new kind of relationship with our own expectations and uncertainty.’ What’s new about Regret Minimization? If Evolution itself uses Hannan Consistent strategies and knowledge of Game theory- a la Aumann- is in the Old Testament or other Iron Age texts- then what ‘new relationship’ can these guys come up with? Tossing a coin like the ‘Diceman’? Puhleeze! The following sentence looks ‘Aeon’ or ‘Areo’ worthy. But is it really? ‘Yet it is one that we have somehow constructed within the inviolable bounds of a biologically bedrock drive to minimise long-term prediction error. How is this neat trick possible?’ If there is a ‘bedrock drive’ to minimize ‘surprise’ then NOTHING can be ‘constructed’ unless a priori synthetic judgments are true. We know they are not. So this is meaningless and in bad faith unless the authors believe in Occassionalism. Uncertainty is a mathematical concept. It is already well refined. The article these authors link to is jejune. There are some very smart people from the Life Sciences working in this area. But then, the roots of the concept have to do with shifting fitness landscapes. The authors appear wholly unaware of the ‘popular Science’ background of Moby Dick or the Diceman. This is a lazy type of collaborative writing in which lowest common denominator ‘wokeness’ is in the driving seat. Obviously, a well paid Techie in San Fran should spend time doing goat yoga in Soweto- and massacring Rohingyas in Myanmar- right? This is a case of negative synergy. Each of the three authors could have written better on their own. But they pooled their prejudices and paranoid ‘common knowledge’ to come up with something which really is NOT par for the course, or ought not to be, for Aeon. When I came to the West, I was the lowest type of ‘Black’- a ‘coolie’. But, back then, having a strong back meant that if you could be trusted with money when you were 12 and were doing at least half a ‘big man’s’ job by 15 then, by the age of 21- so long as you hadn’t got a girl pregnant- the world really was you oyster. I came from a privileged background and so never became rich but my rich ‘Black’ friends understand ‘Uncertainty’ in a visceral manner. But their kids take degrees and higher degrees at places we could not- coz good ‘coolies’ are good marriage partners and our race, regardless of color and class, HAS to perpetuate itself the way it always has. This involves FAITH. From Pascal’s Wager to Kavka’s Toxin- but also Kantorovich’s (Sobornost and pathetic) claim to have found the Labour (thus Christian!) theory of Value- great math mavens have puzzled their heads over things which three ordinary people made clear. (Gabriel) Tarde- Mimetics matter for Bayesian processes and Aumann correlated Mechanisms are what are (Thomas) Schelling focal to them. That’s just (Jonh) ‘Muth Rationality dude’ Actually, John Muth was a Math maven- but, apparently, he drank a lot of beer. So- hope for me yet!

Sunday 27 September 2020

Mark Tully misunderstanding Subsidiarity

Mark Tully, who appears to be still alive, writes in the Hindustan Times- 

There is a principle of European law known as subsidiarity. Under that principle, the European Union can only act if it can be shown that the action taken at that rarefied level would be more effective than action taken at the national or local level. In other words, decisions should be taken as near the grassroots as possible.

This only makes sense if people are themselves paying for what they get. It does not make sense if money is being redistributed. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Otherwise the arrangement is not 'incentive compatible'. The guy paying the bill finds ways to weasel out of doing so because he is not enamoured of what is being done with the money. This in turn means that you get a complicated system of kickbacks and corrupt deals. Thus E.U subsidiarity meant that 'deprived areas' got money to spend on shite projects. There was a pretence that locals were benefiting from this type of pork barrel politics. But they weren't really. They were being fucked over. That's why, in England & Wales, areas which were net recipients of EU funds nevertheless voted for Brexit. 

Subsidiarity should surely underpin the relations between Indian states and the central government

Yes. There should be no persistent net fiscal transfers. 

because the country is a federation

It is not a federation. It is a Union. 

with power divided between the central government, state governments and panchayats. 

in other words, the country is honeycombed at every level with the corruption, incompetence and inertia of a politico-bureaucratic class. Thus it will remain very very poor. 

But there has always been a question mark over the extent to which India is a federation.

Nonsense! It is a Union which has vigorously put down secessionist movements. 

Many years ago, I heard the distinguished civil servant, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and confidant of Jawaharlal Nehru, LK Jha, say India had “a centrist Constitution with federal trimmings”.

The Constitution is wholly centrist. The Centre decides what is or isn't a State or Union Territory. It can always impose President's Rule on one excuse or another the Bommai decision notwithstanding. 

Over the last week or so, its federalism which has been questioned in the rowdy controversy in Parliament over the government taking decisions on agriculture and other subjects which many state governments insist it is their right to take.

The controversy is bogus. The State has no right to force farmers to sell their produce only in places where a corrupt intermediary class takes a cut. Why is Tully invoking the notion of subsidiarity in connection with economic liberalization? Does he not understand that producers should be able to decide for themselves what to do with their produce?

The government has insisted that it needs to legislate so that all farmers, everywhere in India, have the freedom to sell their produce anywhere.

While the States are welcome to offer them a better deal. What they are losing is a captive market.  

The prime minister did promise co-operative federalism when he first came to power but as Member of Parliament (MP) Dinesh Raj of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) said: “The cooperative federalism the Prime Minister claimed to have championed is going exactly the other way.”

Tully means Danish Ali- a protege of Deve Gowda who, however, could not secure him a Rajya Sabha seat from Karnataka which is why he went over to Mayawati. 

Congress MP Manish Tewari told Parliament a bill about the governance of cooperative banks was a frontal assault on the federal structure of the Constitution. The manner in which the bills were passed, the lack of discussion, the questionable parliamentary procedures could not be described as cooperative.

But the Opposition are now considered to be a bunch of obstreperous thugs.  

At one stage, seven bills were passed in under four hours in the Rajya Sabha.

The lockdown has had a silver lining.

Nor, of course, could the abuse of the Deputy Speaker of the Rajya Sabha by Opposition members be described as cooperative.

But it was what we had come to expect. 

When the states agreed to surrender their rights to levy a number of different taxes and the central government replaced them with the one Goods and Services Tax (GST), chief ministers (CMs) were guaranteed that any loss of income they suffered would be made up by the central government for five years. Now, with the decline in economic activity caused by the pandemic, the central government does not have the revenue from GST to compensate the states. The CMs say the Centre should borrow money to pay the compensation guaranteed to them, but the Centre insists that the states should borrow money to fund any deficit they suffer.

So, because of COVID, the States would have had to borrow even if there was no GST.  

Why does federalism matter so much?

We haven't had federalism. India could not have pursued a Socialist path if States had economic freedom.  

India is rightly proud of its diversity and it is federalism which protects that diversity.

No. It is because India is a Union that it has not broken down into more homogeneous units. The fact is India has had to redraw Provincial boundaries all the time. It is the opposite of a Federation like the USA where the States pre-existed the Union.  

Take, for instance, language. Without the creation of linguistic states with their own official languages, what would the fate of Tamil in the South, or Oriya in the East, Gujarati in the West and Punjabi in the North have been?

What the fuck is Tully talking about? Tamil and Telugu existed side by side in the Madras Presidency as did Gujarati and Marathi in Bombay Presidency. The Telugus agitated for a separate state. But they have since split up into smaller units. It is possible to argue that 'Hindi' has replaced Haryanvi or Magahi and so forth because of the action of the State. But it might have happened anyway through Tardean mimetics and market forces.

Federalism should also play an important role in the system of checks and balances intended to prevent the accretion of too much power at the Centre.

Why 'should' it do so? So as to preserve slavery in the American South?  

It should increase the efficiency of a democracy because its principle of subsidiarity reduces the inefficiencies of top-down government.

Or, it permits entrenched elites to extract rents and perpetuate exploitative practices.  

Unfortunately, recent events have shown how far India is from being a cooperative federation or union of states.

Recent events, like less recent events, show that people who talk bollocks about Indian politics have shit inside their brains.  

Without cooperation, Indian federalism will be just a trimming.

There is no Indian Federalism. There is a country with a billion Hindus- 80 percent of the population. It is now ruled by a party which identifies with Hinduism. Whitey may not like this. Whitey may feel 'Diversity' should increase. But White peeps don't seem too happy with increasing it on their own soil. 

Saturday 26 September 2020

Christ's Bride & Lucky Jim


Because no Yangmingism's Li, blind Zatoichi can nominate
Is such bakufu territory, as cutesy Baby might dominate
Thy Word weds the Widow of its Lucky Jim,
So Grace, as Groom, yet Envy Him.

Envoi
Midons! Only so Girardian mimetics stalemate Thy meiotic drive
Satyriasis' rival is Scapegoat survival- Christ Alive!

 Réponse-
'Nakedness is not something, Babe, you are big enough to see'
Says Puruvaras abolishing Indralok for, but, Urvashi. 

Siddhantha- 
Twixt Seetha Kalyanam & the Nalopakhyanam ;  Geist
Carries out Martin-Löf's īkṣaternāśabdam Heist.




Pratap Bhanu Mehta as cop-killing rap artist

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes in the Indian Express. 

 Delhi’s Police’s investigation against students and activists in connection with the Delhi riots is pushing the Indian state into a long dark night of tyranny.

The Delhi Police, which initially took a battering during the riots, needs to burnish its image and regain salience. Otherwise it will be disintermediated by local politician/gangsters in working class areas. The question is, does it have the political nous to assert itself? Will the Union Home Ministry back it up?  

Mehta's 'students' and 'activists' are a tiny minority of paranoid nutters whom the BJP have managed to pass off as Congress proxies. They have served their purpose by burying Congress & the Left.

The sad truth is, nutters of this sort will be killed by the majority if they continue to make a nuisance of themselves. Mehta & Co. are ruining the life-chances of their students by lying to them about 'tyranny' and how to fight it. The fact is, the anti-CAA agitation was useful to the Ruling Party which got a few more seats in Delhi. The big question is whether the Delhi Police can assert itself or whether power will slip away to local politicians. It is probable that the Home Ministry will back the police- as will the Courts, initially- because of Delhi's significance as the National Capital. On the other hand, riots in Delhi harm Kejriwal and make Yogi Adityanath look good by comparison.  Thus, long term, this initiative will backfire.

Still, this is 'silly season' journalism. The country is facing an unprecedented crisis. The BJP has to be left on to get on with the dirty work of pushing through long overdue reforms.

The riots are a serious matter. All perpetrators must be credibly identified and subject to the law.

Not in this instance. The Police lost control. They have to tread carefully to regain credibility. Mehta & Co. can help them a little by painting them in diabolical colors. But only if they write in Hindi or other vernacular languages.

But instead, we are witnessing a project designed to crush civil society.

Mehta's type of civil society- i.e. paying 20 per cent commission to advocates for the poor rather than just transferring cash to them and cutting out the middle-man- turned out to be a noisome luxury. Crush it by all means. India needs a genuine opposition party at the Center. Virtue signalling cretins have accomplished nothing. Ten years ago, some may have thought India would be safely 'middle income' and so the tax base would be big enough to support a Welfare State with all the trimmings. Sadly, that turned out to be a pipe dream. But then, America and Britain and the EU now look very different. Majority appeasement is necessary to keep the wheels from falling off Democracy. 

If our freedom is to be saved, we need to understand what is at stake in what is happening in Delhi.

I think senile academics will be free to go on recycling nonsense. But the State will cut back on subsidies to their students. 'Activists' will disappear from campuses where caste based politics of the provincial type will entrench itself.  

Normally, in a society constituted by the rule of law, we should let the investigation run its course before pronouncing judgment.

No society is 'constituted by the rule of law'. Mehta has been living in a fool's paradise. That was cool twenty years ago when India was pretending it would soon be rich and property rights and contract enforcement and so forth would be world class. But why bother keeping up that pretence now? One might as well speak of the inevitable victory of the Proletariat.  

But we are living in a world where the state, in partnership with the media, does not subscribe to this restraint.

India is a very poor country where the State can't do much and the Media scarcely matters. Still, both can survive by going with the flow or retreating to an ivory tower when that flow becomes too turbulent.  

In case after case, it runs nightly media trials, destroying people’s lives and reputations.

Modi too was given a media trial and pronounced guilty. The trouble was that voters like the type of crime he was accused of. 

The state uses investigations, leaked evidence, chargesheets as pretexts for establishing narrative dominance and to intimidate.

Indeed. The problem is that people the Government locks up become popular provided they are accused of things the voters want. Digvijay Singh, a veteran politician, was beaten on his home turf in the last election by a Hindu nun accused of anti-Islamic terrorism. 

A young politician- like Hardik Patel- should be delighted to be locked up on charges which appeal to a particular vote block. 

It is not interested in guilt or innocence. It is interested in demonstrating that it can destroy your life with impunity.

The one lesson Indian politics of the Twentieth Century taught politicians was that a spell of porridge is the best thing you can have on your CV. 

It can declare you a terrorist, it can declare you a drug lord, and it can charge you under UAPA.

Having a number of murder and rape charges hanging over your head is a great qualification for getting elected. Jayalaitha was jailed for corruption. She would still be CM of Tamil Nadu if she hadn't passed away for medical reasons.  

In the Delhi chargesheets, dozens and dozens of students and distinguished academics are facing exactly this prospect.

The cases will either be dismissed or drag on for decades. If these guys are serious about electoral politics, it boosts their credibility. On the other hand, because they are stupid, they will be used to split caste vote-banks in the manner of Kanhaiya Kumar in Begusarai. Interestingly, he is keeping his distance from Umar Khalid because Bihari Assembly elections are in the offing.  

“The law will take its own course”, the state wants to say. But, in the meanwhile, let us show you what we can do to you.

This is better done by beating people to death. 

How we can make an example of you so other intellectuals dare not speak.

This is silly. Plenty of intellectuals are NRIs. Okay, the small fry may not want the nuisance of attending Court, but for serious players the thing is a godsend.  

The law should take its own course when the state is interested in law.

No. The opposite is the case. The Judiciary is supposed to be a check on the Executive.  

But when the state is using law as an instrument of ideological and physical intimidation,

The State is supposed to physically intimidate criminals and would be criminals. It is perfectly proper for the Executive to have a political ideology. 

Mehta's stupidity causes him to put forward a wholly paranoid thesis- 

the phrase “let the law take its own course” becomes a cover to subvert our constitutional values.

Paranoia of this type subverts not just constitutional but also fundamental epistemic values. Mehta is unfit to teach even in a kindergarten.

What does the pattern of filing chargesheets suggest?

It suggests that the Police believe- or want the Court to believe- that there was a conspiracy to instigate riots in which policemen were killed.  

It is following a script.

Mehta is following a script- but it is a paranoid one. It features abstractions- 'tyranny'- and is based on a false view of reality- 'Society is constituted by the Law'- whereas the police have a narrative involving actual human beings who may or may not have been in touch with each other. Thus the thing is justiciable. Paranoid nonsense, however, is not justiciable. It is useless.  

The whole purpose is to argue that there is a liberal, left, Islamist conspiracy to embarrass and subvert the Indian state.

and kill police-men and innocent non-Muslims- that is why this case is important. Either the police get back in the driving seat or, the next time there is trouble in some working class area, the police will be disintermediated. The minority may take the initiative but, soon enough, the force of numbers will prevail.  

The political class repeats this, the media parrots this and the police, as if on cue, frames the issues this way.

Which planet is Mehta living on? Politicians compete with each other. So do media parrots. Even Law Enforcement professionals compete with each other.  

Tenured Professors, it is true, may go on repeating each others' paranoid lies. This is because they is less competition in their line of work. 

Mehta & Co pretended that India wasn't a very poor country with an utterly shite intelligentsia. The spoke darkly of 'tyranny'. Students and Activists were supposed to run around shouting silly slogans to prevent Fascism from taking route. 

The truth is India's economic future looks dire. Either Modi pushes through the needed reforms now or the thing will happen by default. 'Civil Society' will be fractionalised. The Administrative State will be disintermediated. Courts will be ignored. 

The idea is not just to deflect attention from violence and discrimination, it is to declare any critic of the government a potential subversive.

Mehta & Co mistook anti-nationalism for a democratic protest.  

It is to invent an enemy of the people, in students and intellectuals.

They are a nuisance certainly. The bigger problem is that they have shit for brains. India is very poor. It needs to raise productivity. But intellectuals like Mehta and their equally gormless students reduce productivity. Moreover, they harm the causes they espouse. 

The state has diabolically shifted the emphasis away from investigation of the riots to delegitimising the anti-CAA protest.

Those protests were not legitimate. They were based on stupid lies. They helped the BJP and hurt Congress and the Left. Woke activism diabolically delegitimized the police. Then police men were killed. The majority showed it would slaughter the minority if it ran amok. Either the State can put the fear of God into the woke nutters or it gets disintermediated. The sort of ethnic cleansing which occurred when Nehru came to power in Delhi might recur. In 1992, what killed off the riots was the police opening fire. Either the State takes the lead in killing nutters or it will become irrelevant.

The Indian police has, in the past, a patchy record in riot investigations.

Fuck 'investigation'. Its job is to stop them happening. This is best done by shooting people and locking up the nutters preemptively.  

Just think of 1984.

Do. Guess who won the biggest Lok Sabha majority in history? Killing aggressive minorities is what the vast majority of voters approves of.  Extra-judicial slaughter in the Punjab is what contained the separatist threat. Civil Society and impartial 'Investigations' played zero part in restoring the status quo. 

But there is something distinctive about the current conjuncture.

The Police have to re-establish their own credibility. That means credibility with the majority- not the minority. The problem it faces is that it may once again get a pusillanimous Police Chief who lets lawyers beat policemen with impunity. The next step is thugs shooting them. Then the majority slaughters the minority and chases it away. Local people can always be found to enter the University campuses and beat 'students' and 'intellectuals'. Chairman Mao brought the workers in from the factories to chase the University students into the countryside. 

Usually, the police botch up investigations to protect powerful perpetrators.

The investigation does not matter. The thing will drag through the Courts for decades. Witnesses will turn hostile. If 'powerful perpetrators' kill police-men, however, they may themselves be shot while grabbing a gun from a policemen as is by law required. 

This was often the pattern during Congress times.

The Courts are shite. The police have to choose sides. The convention is that it is the gangster who got elected who is supported against the one who didn't get as many votes. 

Sometimes there is pressure to produce results. In the process, the police can sometimes round up some usual suspects. But what is happening in Delhi is of a different order.

Indeed it is. The police saw that they had been turned into an Aunt Sally by a cowardly Police Chief who was scared of the Media and was thinking of his post-retirement sinecures with Human Rights NGOs or whatever. Thus the police are going after both the local hoodlums as well as the high profile cunts who instigated the thing. Will they succeed? No. The Courts will ensure that nothing happens for the next three decades. So the police need to shoot a few people who supposedly grab guns off police-officers as is required by the law.  

It is the use of police to round up or send signals to critics of the government.

Both the Ruling Party and Kejriwal benefit from these woke nutters running amok. The question is whether the Delhi Police can reassert itself. It is acting in a self-interested manner.  

It is an ideological witch hunt.

It is the Police reasserting themselves against nutters who tried to use them as a punching bag.  

This is being done by erasing the distinction between ideological positions and conspirators.

It is being done by fucking up those who fucked with the Police. That's how the coppers work. They may not prevail. After all, everyone hates them for good reason. 

The general trend now seems to be that mere thought, or a speech advocating a position, can make you part of a conspiracy to incite.

This nutter has been denouncing anyone who is pro-Hindu, pro-India or even pro-good Governance. He is a worthless pile of shit. But he is not part of a conspiracy. I'm not saying that beating him viciously might not be satisfying. But it would be illegal. Also, why bother? His function is to show that Professors of useless subjects are useless. 

This modus operandi was perfected in the Bhima Koregaon cases. There also the focus became not on the event, but targeting alleged ideological foes like Anand Teltumbde or Sudha Bharadwaj.

This silly man does not understand that the Maharashtrian Police is pro-Maratha. They can't be overtly anti-Mahar so they shift the focus onto senile Reds. They found a good way to curry favor with the majority community but, ultimately, will jump whichever way the State Government tells them.  The Delhi Police, under the Union Home Minister, are politically orphaned. Can they assert themselves without IPS leadership? Or will they keep getting beaten up by lawyers- and then shot by the clients of those lawyers while their Commanders stand idly by? My guess is that the Courts will do what Indian Courts normally do- fuck things up for everybody. 

The second is to erase the distinction between legitimate protest and conspiracy against the state.

This stupid cunt is pretending that things like the farmer's protests has been equated with sedition or terrorism. Mehta & Co have done a great job fucking up the electoral prospects of Congress & the Left. But this means no one- not even Kanhaiya Kumar- will speak up for the 'urban naxal' or 'anti-national' now. In other words, these 'useful idiots' are now considered useless by even the most cretinous of dynastic politicians or casteist parties. NGO funding too is drying up. Campuses are no longer safe spaces. 

Any democratic society allows for peaceful protest.

But cracks down on nuisances.  

You can also, at the margins, disagree about particular tactics. But the act of organising and coordinating a protest does not amount to subversion of the state.

Till policemen get killed. Once the majority is targeted, the minority is slaughtered in retaliation.  

In the Delhi case, democratic protest is being deliberately confused with riots and subversion of the state.

Because policemen were killed. Non-Muslims were attacked but then retaliated massively. When a minority protests against the majority being more numerous, they get fucked up. That's how democracy works. It may pretend to be under the Rule of Law or it may denounce Judges as incompetent, corrupt, cretins. In India, we know that periodic ethnic cleansing and industrial scale extra-judicial killing is what keeps the show on the road.  

Organising a protest is being confused with organising a riot.

Says a nutter who can't organize shit. What the Police are doing is self-interested. They were humiliated and killed. Either they get some measure of revenge or they lose salience- i.e. rents. 

Third, there is a novel theory of instigation at work.

No there isn't. The Police- who aren't geniuses- see a link between the anti-Police atmosphere created by the woke nutters and the thugs who killed policemen. Since voters want to see the woke nutters get a bumboo up their butt, the police are on to a good thing. But they know they have to choose sides- which means smaller rents.  

If you strongly argue that a particular policy was a subversion of constitutional values,

which is what Mehta is doing here 

and some incident carried out by someone else follows, you are responsible.

So Mehta is responsible... for what? The fucker is completely useless yet is responsible for something or the other. 

But if ministers and politicians instigate a chorus of “goli maaro saalon ko” it is some kind of allegorical defence of the rule of law. The definition of incitement is partisan beyond belief.

Beyond Mehta's belief, sure. But then the guy is a cretin. The fact is India spends money killing those who attack the Indian nation. 'Shoot the fuckers' is not 'an allegorical defence', it is what soldiers and cops get paid to do.  

If you read the alleged confessions of students and unidentified witnesses, it will remind you more of Mao’s China than a democratic republic.

What about Xi's China? That's a good role model for India- at least for those of the majority community. 

There is pressure on students to name and denounce their supposed ideological inspiration so that it can be presented to the world that the violence was the product of an ideological cabal.

Mehta thought India's hate-speech laws would only be used against those he disliked. But that's not how the Law works. Where there is violence, there is a prima facie case against instigators named by the guilty.

It is to deflect attention from the direct incitement provided by several BJP politicians.

No. It is in the interest of the BJP to highlight the direct role of its politicians in promoting a spirit of self-defence and resistance to an evil, murderous, anti-national minority. That's how politics work. Your side eulogises as inspirational those the other side castigates as instigators. 

Think of the appalling human costs. Dozens of young people, whose politics you may not agree with, but whose only crime was to believe that this country could be better and risk something for that belief, will now be charged as if they were terrorists.

That's good for them if they are serious about electoral politics. It shows they put 'skin in the game'. Like Sadhvi Pragya, they may end up in Parliament.  

It does not matter whether it is Sharjeel Imam or Umar Khalid or Devangana Kalita.

Yes it does. Imam and Khalid could get a career out of this more splendid by far than that enjoyed by either's father. Kalita was part of 'Pinjra Tod'- break the cage- and, obviously, the Laws of Comedy prescribe a jail cell as the funniest place for that parrot. 

It is a trap to think about the differences between them at this point,

For genuine thinkers, thinking about empirical differences is not a 'trap'. It is the high road to utility.  

when the state has declared that thought is a crime, protest is subversion.

and the year is 1984 and your TV screen is watching you.  

The point is to send every young person a message: Choose between democratic protest, thinking or your life. The message is chilling.

But no such message exists. Young Indians know that jail time- or at least a half dozen murder or other such criminal cases- is a good thing for politicians. Look at Hardik Patel! 

I happened to be reading Professor Apoorvanand’s incandescently brilliant forthcoming book on Prem Chand, a deep meditation on the meaning of being human, when I heard he has been named in the chargesheet. He is one of India’s finest scholars of literature. He has been associated with the Left, but is a deeply Gandhian figure. His politics has been devoted to the pacification of violence. He also has a kind of absolute unconditional concern for others that Gandhi demonstrated. In a climate where even decent liberals run away from Muslim political figures, contortedly trying to find the right kind of Muslim to assuage their conscience, he openly embraced Umar Khalid as someone who was like his son. His concern for students is exemplary.

The guy is a Bihari Hindi speaker. These charges could be the making of him. On the other hand, if he'd killed or raped a few people of a different caste, he'd already be a Minister.  Like Yogendra Yadav, Apoorvanand needs to be built up a little to split AAP votes in select Delhi wards. The Delhi Police aren't geniuses but they aren't completely stupid. 

The idea that he can be interrogated by Delhi Police, named in a riots chargesheet and the shadow of UAPA hangs over him (like many others) should disconcert you.

No it shouldn't- unless you are in the same line of work, in which case you need to distribute bottles of whiskey to SHOs till you can figure out a way to get charge-sheeted yourself.  

It should disconcert you that Kapil Mishra can tweet “In Delhi Umar Khalid, Tahir Hussain, Khalid Saifi, Safoora Zargar, Apoorvanand type people planned and murdered. They engaged in a 26/11 type terrorist attack. These terrorists, killers, should be hanged. Congratulations to Delhi Police.”

Mishra, a typical professional agitator of the 'Civil Society' type, was with AAP. He joined the BJP after falling out with Kejriwal.  He probably has inherited beef, from his Mum- Dr. Annapurna Mishra- with Apoorvanand. The caste-region dynamics in North East Delhi is pretty complicated. 

Whose script is being followed? And congratulations indeed, Delhi police. Those who really incite roam free. But all of us who saw the Constitution as a site of hope are potential terrorists now.

Will Mehta be charge-sheeted? No. He must up his game. Start tweeting in Hindi. Maybe come out with a cop-killer rap video. That would be cool.  

Thursday 24 September 2020

Ar amarey marish ne Ma


Thy black child battered without rhyme, reason, or relief
Is but a winsome prank of the butter thief
To the breast, what returning?
Need is milk. Why this churning? 

Zikr, Simran, Prayer as Remembrance
Of worthless victims of Visions of Independence
 Lalon Faqir, in thrall, beholden 
To jackals alone is Bengal golden. 

Envoi- 
Thakur! Than Man, since there is no Knowledge higher
Bow to Whitey to your heart's desire.





Bekar Amitabh Behar & FCRA

Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam, writes in Scroll.In- 


The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020, which was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, has to be understood in a political context.

Such laws were introduced in the mid Seventies and beefed up over the last decade under both Congress and the BJP. Historically, they must be understood in a National Security context. 

The message is loud and clear: a single narrative being crafted in India and any challenge to power is seen with suspicion and crushed with brute force. Civil society, which believes that one of its primary roles is to hold power to account and to undertake non-party political action in favor of the marginalised and disempowered, needs to fall in line. Civil society can exist only if it is willing to play service delivery roles – or it should perish.

It seems Civil Society needs foreign funds to fulfil its 'primary role'- which is to fight the Government. How does it do so? By crafting 'narratives'- in other words, telling stories. Behar is saying 'We need foreign money to tell stories against the Government. But Government is saying 'you have to spend at least 80 per cent of foreign money on actually doing good- not employing people to tell stories'. This is very naughty of the Government. Without foreign money, Indian peeps will stop telling stories against the Government. Boo hoo! This is sooooo unfair!' 

No doubt, Behar thinks that Mahatma Gandhi got foreign money to tell stories against the British. That is the only reason India got independence. Without foreign money, Gandhi would have kept quiet. Only because foreign donors were constantly prodding him did he start roaming around doing Satyagraha all over the place. Sadly, first the Congress and now the BJP have started cracking down on foreign funded NGOs which lack any constituency in India because they are a self-serving nuisance merely. 


The legislation, which lays down conditions under which civil society organisations can receive funds from abroad, had been passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday. It will have far-reaching consequences on the fields of education, health, people’s livelihoods, gender justice and indeed democracy in India.

No it won't. A nuisance will be curbed.  Foreign money may be sweeter than the domestic variety because foreign donors are easier to fool. Tell them you spent their cash fighting Fascism and they may believe you. Local people aren't so gullible. 

Depending on one’s vantage point,

provided you are currently getting foreign moolah 

the Bill could be termed a draconian amendment of a deeply repressive law, or – in its most charitable assessment – as a sloppy piece of legislation that has failed to have undertaken even a basic analysis of the working of the field that it wants to govern.

For everybody else, the Bill means just one thing. Instead of spending half the foreign cash on 'admin', NGOs can only keep 20 percent. That is still much more than a Government agency. It is a step in the right direction.  

While acknowledging the huge incompetence of our existing systems of governance and regulations, the amended legislation has not thought through the consequences of such fundamental changes on the diverse stakeholders.

But those 'diverse stakeholders' are virtue signalling cretins who have made a nuisance of themselves.  

Surprisingly, the Bill was introduced almost by stealth. The draft of the Bill was not in the public domain till it was introduced in the Lok Sabha on September 20. There was no pre-legislative public consultations nor were there any stakeholder consultations. In times where the norm has been to put draft legislation in the public domain for comments along with robust stakeholder consultations, this is odd.

No it isn't. It shows that foreign funded NGOs are viewed as a nuisance. Had they been doing something valuable, they would have been consulted. Of course, useful NGOs will get an exemption. But useless virtue signalling cretins will have to tighten their belts and spend less on themselves and more on those they are supposed to help.  

This gives credence to the perception

by a guy on the take 

that this Bill was promoted by political narrow-mindedness without a deliberative process or a vision that is in line with the normative framework of our Constitution.

Either the Bill, like its predecessor, is compatible with the Basic Structure of the Constitution, or it isn't. If it isn't Behar is welcome to challenge it in Court. But he would fail. Why? It is because it is in line with the normative framework of the Constitution. Charities aren't supposed to spend half their money on admin. They are supposed to do good, not get fat.  

The Bill ignores the fact that India operates under developmental deficits of basic human necessities of food, education, health, shelter livelihoods and human dignity.

Behar ignores the fact that spending money on admin does nothing to tackle 'developmental deficits'.  

The objective of the Bill was to regulate non-governmental organisations by making them accountable and transparent, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told Parliament. Another stated objective was to regulate religious conversions supported by foreign funds. The third, was to broaden the definition of the “government servant” category to include “public servants” among the people who cannot receive foreign funds.

All of these are good and valid objectives. 

Even a cursory reading of the amendments will clearly demonstrate that the changes will not address first two objectives in any way.

Nonsense! The recipients of foreign money will have to provide their Aadhar number and use a Bank Account in Delhi. That makes for transparency and accountability. An organization found to be using foreign money for proselytization will have its certificate cancelled. Thus both objectives are addressed in a proper and credible manner. 

Instead, new bureaucratic hurdles have been created that are unrelated to these objectives.

This bureaucrat thinks giving his Aadhar number and setting up a Bank account is a tremendous hurdle! No doubt, he feels he has to have a fully staffed Department of Aadhar Number providing and another Department of opening a Bank Account and a third Department to liaise between the two. 

Behar may be surprised to know that most people can give their Aadhar number and open a Bank account by themselves. The thing isn't rocket science. No vast 'bureaucratic hurdles' arise.

The third one is clearly an outcome of a specific case (relating to Lawyers Collective) and appears to be a vindictive response that is not rooted in larger questions.

Trustees and officers of charitable organizations that receive government grants of over INR 10 million (approximately $146,000) or foreign funds over INR 1 million(approximately $14,600) are considered “public servants.” I believe they will be required to provide a lot of personal information under the Lokpal act. Clearly, there has been bipartisan support for a crackdown on dodgy NGOs and the influential people who have profited from them. 

In any case, even if it was an objective (though questionable), it does not justify the wide-ranging amendments. That could have been achieved by a much narrower remit of the legislation.

Why is this stupid bureaucrat pretending to know how Bills should be drafted? Is he in charge of managing Parliamentary time?  

As civil society organisations seek accountability from others, it is a moral obligation for them to themselves be accountable and transparent in substantive ways and maintain the highest standards.

It is a legal obligation.  

While this is the stated commitment, it is also important to say that the NGO sector is already one of the most regulated sectors.

Yet it is still shite. 

Organisations already have to present at least four substantive reports to the authorities.

So what? This is easily done provided they are maintaining a proper Management Information System. New Technology has made this easier, not more difficult. 


They need to comply with the income tax laws and file their reports regularly. The second relates to their reporting to the FCRA division of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The third is to the Charity Commissioner/Registrar of Companies. The fourth is to the donor.

But the donor does not represent 'the authorities'. So Behar has been caught in a lie. There are three, not four, types of reports required by the State from a foreign funded NGO.  

This is in addition to all other laws of the land that are applicable to the sector, such as the Provident Fund Act and Gratuity reporting requirements.

This is true of all Organizations. Why is this fellow wailing about it? How shit a bureaucrat is he? 

On top of this, the current Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act mandates that the FCRA division of the home affairs ministry needs to be intimated about even smaller details like a change in bank account or change of address or change of even a single board member within a couple of weeks.

Why is this a problem? What sort of shitshow is this cunt running? 

Besides, every quarter on the FCRA website, each FCRA organisation needs to report their FCRA income along with the details of the donor and the project for which the money has been sanctioned.

Where is the difficulty? The thing is purely routine. How crap are these bureaucrats? 

In a country where the dominant mood is to reduce red tape and over-regulation in various sectors, it is curious to describe the levels of regulations discussed above as inadequate.

Fuck does this sentence mean? Berar started writing one sentence and then wrote another probably because his Director of head scratching got into a fight with his Director of arse scratching and so he lost his train of thought.

 India needs to reduce red tape in productive areas of the economy. It needs to curb nuisances. NGOs are a nuisance- unless they aren't in which case they will get an exemption.  

There is no denying the fact that there are black sheep in the sector (as there are in any other sector). But sincere adherence to the existing framework could easily weed them out.

This cretin does not get that black sheep don't 'sincerely adhere' to anything. Thus he has admitted that the Government is right to get tough on these stupid sheep.  

Importantly, none of the amendments proposed in reality will increase any accountability and transparency.

Because the black sheep will remain black- but they won't get foreign money to create a nuisance. That's a win for the people of India.  

Instead, they will overload the NGOs with new bureaucratic tasks and open the floodgates for arbitrary, vindictive action by the authorities.

Fat sheep, however black, don't want to be put on a diet. They bleat angrily at 'arbitrary, vindictive, actions by the authorities' who kick them out of the lush, green, pastures which their credulous foreign donors have provided for them.

The Government says 'listen, you worthless cunts, you can't get away with spending half your money on admin'. Bekar replies 'you are overloading us with Admin! I will need at least a staff of 20 just to provide my Aadhar number! Why are you being so mean!' 

The discussion on conversions appear as a bolt from the blue

to a black sheep 

in the context of the proposed amendments. A careful reading of all the arguments in favour of this objective fails to establish the amendments will achieve it.

Another sentence which started off one way and then turned to shit. How fucking bekar is this cunt with an MPhil from JNU? Does he really not get that if an NGO is found to be buying converts then it loses its foreign funding? That's it. Simples.  

It is clearly a red herring

says the black sheep 

and a tool to galvanise political support from the government’s Hindutava base.

That support was 'galvanised' long ago.  

It is important to underscore that it is a myth that foreign sources of money are largely church based.

But it is not a myth that some is. 

The overwhelming majority of donors are philanthropic bodies or governmental agencies that have no association with the church.

This does not mean their money may not be used for improper purposes. 

Similarly, the extraordinary majority of organisations at the receiving end have nothing to do with religion.

Extraordinary? Is that the sort of English they teach at JNU? How bekar is Behar? 

Instead, they focus on developmental questions like poverty eradication, creating livelihood options for the poorest of the poor or work for gender justice.

But are shite nevertheless because the cunts who run them have MPhils from shitholes like JNU.  


Now that the Bill has been approved, it is important to examine the key amendments and its implications to understand why VANI – the Voluntary Action Network India – calls this bill as “death blow” to the sector.

VANI is lying. We may wish it weren't but the fact remains the thing won't die so easily. Even 20 percent of the pie is enough to keep it going. It spends 140,000 Euros a year lobbying Brussels. 

According to its Website, its

Achievements

are

Meaningful Advocacy

which turns out to be meaningless, illiterate, bureaucratic goblledegook

VANI played a critical role to advocate for and widely disseminate Model Bill for Society Registration among the state level networks.

The Indian Voluntary Sector, through VANI, proposed the historic Alternative National Budget, an unfathomed move amidst TINA campaign (There is no alternative) of the government. This was later acknowledged by the then Prime Minister of India Mr. P V Narisimha Rao

Advocacy initiative under Lokpal Bill resulted in relaxation in government’s ask for personal information disclosure of governing board members and their family members

Building Compliances

After the amendment of FCRA act, VANI conducted FCRA Clinics around the country to de-mystify law, create awareness and prepare the voluntary organisations (especially grass-root level organisations) about the changed requirements and their adherence.

VANI was closely associated with Planning Commission to develop and disseminate the National Policy for the Voluntary Sector.

All this is completely useless bureaucratic crapola. There is no Planning Commission any more. VANI too should just fuck off and die already. It mentions Narasmiha Rao on its Website under 'Achievements'! This is an utterly senile organization.

Let us pick the five important changes proposed.

First, an FCRA grant cannot be re-granted to other organisations even if they have FCRA clearances.

So, mere 'brokerage' or 'round-tripping' is off the table- a good thing surely? unless, these black sheep are fraudsters plain and simple.  

This is a devastating blow to the way civil society functions.

Only if it is ab ovo fraudulent. 

At the heart of why NGOs perform such re-granting is the idea of collaborative functioning to ensure pooling of diverse competencies to address difficult social problems.

Why not just pay for services like everybody else? Is it because NGOs want to get around limits on 'admin' expenditure? Or is it because the thing is fraudulent? 

It also recognises the reality that most NGOs in India are rather small and focus on their work with communities and do not have the skill sets to write proposals and liaison with the donors.

There it is! That's the scam right there! Those working with the poor don't have bureaucratic skills. So a rent seeking bureaucratic tribe is exploiting them while lying to the donors. What the Government is doing is squeezing the bureaucrats. That's good for the intended beneficiaries- or would be if these NGOs weren't a scam pure and simple. Still, some of these fat black sheep are going to end up on short rations.  

In one stroke, this entire model of bringing relief and support to millions of poor and ordinary citizens will be compromised.

The Zamindars and Maharajas used to say that if their big palaces and privy purses were taken away, then nobody would be left to look after the poor and starving peasants. Bureaucrats like Bekar make a similar claim. 

If donors want to do good they must disintermediate bekar Behars and deal directly with the grass-roots guys. Use the internet. Crowdsource volunteers who can speak the local language. Tell the bureaucrats and their lobbyists to go fuck themselves. 

We need to be cognisant of the fact that even earlier, FCRA money could be re-granted only to organisations with FCRA approvals. When they have already been vetted by the FCRA division, what was the need for stopping this mode of operation?

The answer is that 'collaboration' can be fraudulent. If the thing is 'good faith', let the foreign donor do it directly. If you pay me to do a job and I pay someone else to do it, the question arises as to why the middleman was necessary? If this field is genuinely populated by altruists let the process of transparency percolate back to the donor. Why should a person working in India not use her own resources to develop the plans which require funding? Will Indians show no altruism unless foreigners pay them to do so?  

In effect, the work on the ground will suffer and the small organisations will be elbowed out by big organisations.

Why not absorb the small organizations so as to reduce transaction costs, internalize externalities, and cut overheads through economies of scope and scale? Why should bureaucratic bloat be tolerated in this sector?  Perhaps Bekar does not want to rub shoulders with people who don't have MPhils from JNU. 


Second, administrative expenses of organisations receiving FCRA funds have to be capped at 20%.

Which is still a lot more than would apply to Government programs of a similar type. 

This is a case of complete legislative overreach. If the donor agrees to a budget that might support administrative expenses of higher magnitude, then why should the government object?

Because fat black sheep bleat anti-National nonsense and use their spare cash to make a nuisance of themselves with PIL and so forth. Foreigners may believe 'Fascism' is being battled. Indians know a Nuisance is being funded. 

It is a fundamental principle of law that is getting subverted by giving the state unbridled power to enter into the space of a contract between two entities.

No 'fundamental principle of law' allows foreigners to subvert the polity by supplying cash to lying bastards.  

Leaving aside the deeper philosophical questions, it is operationally also a disaster.

For fat black sheep who are utterly useless. 

This needs to be understood in the context of how civil society organisations function. This 20% might be feasible in a service delivery organisation where the entity works with reasonably large budgets and direct implementation. However, if the NGO plays other roles like research, training or advocacy, then the 20% would be a ridiculously low number.

But its 'research, training & advocacy' is shite. It is not a service and it isn't delivered. It just stinks up the place.  

In effect this would mean that the government will only allow service delivery organisations and not allow NGOs that play many other critical roles in society.

Foreign funded NGOs aren't going to be allowed to play a critical role in subverting the polity. Boo hoo! 

This also needs to be read with the fact that often the higher administrative expenses from foreign funds play a very important role in cross-subsidising other large government or Corporate Social Responsibility projects.

In other words, the foreigner has the leverage- their dollar has a multiplier effect. A sensible country would want the reverse. The foreigner should only contribute to the marginal cost of implementing something desirable and scalable for the country. 

Most government projects or CSR projects limit administrative overheads to 5%-6%. This is not a viable figure but given the importance of these projects, NGOs often negotiate higher administrative expenses with the FCRA projects to provide a cross-subsidy.

Yes, yes. We know bureaucrats like scratching each other's backs. But this worsens poverty. 

Third, one of the most bizarre proposals in the bill is the need for all FCRA organisations to have their FCRA bank account in a Delhi branch of State Bank of India.

This can be done from your local bank. It isn't a big hassle. Why is this bureaucrat getting conniptions? 

If one overlooks the tragic level of centralisation being proposed and state’s deep suspicion of even its own banking system (including public banks), then it appears as black comedy in times of internet and push for digital India.

Another sentence which started off one way and then turned to shit. It makes sense for the Government to shift compliance costs onto a sector which even Bekar admits has black sheep.  

Fourth, the need for all key functionaries to furnish their Aadhaar cards. This insistence even after the Supreme Court judgement on Aadhaar is disappointing. Every credible civil society group would be willing to share their details, including individual details. However, why is Aadhaar essential? Why could a copy of passport, PAN or a similar document not achieve the same function of transparency and accountability.

Why not Aadhaar? Surely, the Government knows best as to what is most convenient for its own bureaucrats? Why is Bekar second guessing a more professional, and smarter, type of bureaucrat? 

Finally, the powers of action given to the government by increasing the number of days for investigation or for seizure of property and other provisions, will only make an already draconian law more draconian in practice.

Which the voters welcome because they believe, with good reason, that Bekar and his ilk are a bunch of crooks.  

Even currently, there are enough cases that the government has not adhered to six months as the time framework for completing its enquiry and this amendment now would further open the floodgates for vindictive, disproportionate and arbitrary action against voices challenging the government.

Voices challenging the government, funded by foreign donors, are foreign agents. They may not be anti-national, but then again they may be. It depends on which foreigner is providing the funding. What is certain is that every sovereign nation has a right to monitor foreign agents operating on its soil. Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai is an American citizen. The FBI had him jailed for violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act. He had taken millions from the Pakistani ISI to lobby American politicians re. Kashmir.  

Behar and his bekar ilk have set up a great bleating about this Bill. But they will survive. Bureaucrats are like cockroaches. They will tell other lies and find other ways to grab money. The true menace they represent is the notion that Indians will only try to improve their lot if Johnny Foreigner pays them to do so. Look at Mahatma Gandhi. He was financed completely by the Churchill Foundation- right? That's how come India became independent. Democracy today is gravely imperilled because bekar cunts are not getting to keep 50 per cent of foreign money which is supposed to help poor people- not illiterate bureaucrats with MPhils from JNU.