Life and Spirituality

Robin Hood and his Merry Men I n today’s complex economy it is useful for the ordinary citizen to understand a few simple principles about economics. That way, they can manage their own money better and also contribute their voice to policy making in their countries. This post is about inflation, its causes and ramifications and how it can be managed  in any country. Money is a used for acquiring goods and services and when the price of goods and services rise we say that inflation is taking place. The price of something depends on many factors but two of the primary ones are 1. Demand and supply balance 2. Extent of Money Supply.   Both factors are easy to understand. If a commodity becomes in short supply then its price tends to rise. If apple crops have been destroyed by untimely frost then apple prices will rise. If the demand for a product increases then too its price rises but if demand falls prices fall or crash. The balance of demand and supply is one...

Although a scientist and engineer by profession, I have had deep interests in spiritualism and spiritual practices albeit tempered by scientific wisdom and logic. One of the side effects of this indulgence is that one develops certain symptoms and side effects that are similar to spiritualists of a more rigorous kind. I too have not been able to escape such symptoms and one of these is the reading of signs and occasional prophecy.   Thus, years ago when I served for a few years as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Saddam’s Iraq, I noticed that the population throws away bagfulls of bread on a regular basis. This was before the gulf wars. One of the things that Saddam Hussein used to do to keep his subjects happy, besides the supply of fine European booze at subsidized rates, was the supply of near free bread through kiosks that were littered throughout Iraqi cities. The idea was that no citizen, howsoever poor, should go to bed on a hungry stomach. Booze was ne...

Off you go into the countryside T here was a time when a very substantial portion of the human population lived off the land in rural areas scattered across the planet. Since the industrial revolution, large portions of human population began to move towards cities to engage themselves in industrial production and other pursuits related to an urban life.  Consumption of energy and industrial production began to increase and with advent of things like antibiotics,  human population too began to increase rapidly. Nations that could produce and consume at increasingly large rates or provide for increasing consumption to other parts of the world grew rapidly. It is here that an inherent paradox and contradiction began to be built into modern economies. Many realize that the current rates of consumption in the most developed economies such as the US are not sustainable. As resources like energy and materials diminish, the planet may run out of cheap resources. On the other ...