Sparrows?

This isn’t the first time a charismatic nationalist has used a simple, good-vs.-evil narrative to push a radical economic measure. In 1958, China’s Mao Zedong called upon millions of citizens to wipe out the country’s rats, sparrows, mosquitoes and flies to fight disease and prevent crop losses. And like Mao’s campaign, which engendered a plague of locusts by wiping out the sparrows that ate them, Modi’s strike against corruption has led to some unexpected and painful consequences.

Racism In The New Zealand Criminal Justice System

A growing body of statistics about how Maori fare in the justice system make clear that for similar offences Maori get a rougher deal at every stage of the criminal justice system.

Demonetisation Is Step One

Modi hints at more fierce war on black money even as BJP unanimously backs note ban

Larry Summers On Modi’s Demonetisation

Without new measures to combat corruption, we doubt that this currency reform will have lasting benefits.  Corruption will continue albeit with slightly different arrangements.

It's A Long, Deep, Constant Fight Against Corruption: Modi

The Kushner Factor

Just as Trump’s unorthodox style allowed him to win the Republican nomination while spending far less than his more traditional opponents, Kushner’s lack of political experience became an advantage. Unschooled in traditional campaigning, he was able to look at the business of politics the way so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have sized up other bloated industries.

“Jared understood the online world in a way the traditional media folks didn’t. He managed to assemble a presidential campaign on a shoestring using new technology and won. That’s a big deal,” says Schmidt, the Google billionaire. “Remember all those articles about how they had no money, no people, organizational structure? Well, they won, and Jared ran it.”

“There’s some aspects of the Democrat Party that didn’t speak to me, and there are some aspects of the Republican Party that didn’t speak to me. People in the political world try to put you into different buckets based on what exists. I think Trump’s creating his own bucket–a blend of what works and eliminating what doesn’t work.”

The Two Party System Continues

America is a two party democracy, and it continues. The Republican Party is not dead, although a major act of creative destruction might have happened. The Democratic Party is now a municipal party, but such total defeat is also the best place to be from where to mount a strong comebck.

NATO is too expensive. That is the electoral verdict. The unfinished business of ending the Cold War once and for all perhaps now will be finished. Architecting a normal relationship with Russia might be at hand.

Trump's ascent might be a challenge to the solar entrepreneurs who now have to make sure dirty energy gets priced out completely. 

Demonetisation

Demonetisation result of power concentration in one man: Rahul Gandhi

Change PM, not notes: Arvind Kejriwal on demonetisation

Enemies couldn't have hurt rural India as demonetisation: Sitaram Yechury

Mamata Banerjee: Note ban hit lower class, traders, women the most

Opposing demonetisation against country's interest: Devendra Fadnavis

Demonetisation:Queues get shorter at banks; no respite at ATMs

Demonetisation has hit those seeking money for poll tickets: Modi

Anxiety due to cash crunch takes ministers to shrinks

Congress running away from discussion on demonetisation: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

Senior bureaucrats to visit states to assess demonetisation drive

Demonetisation: Mamata Banerjee, Arvind Kejriwal threaten intense protest

Demonetisation: Currency recall issue creates storm in Parliament

Demonetisation: Regulations changing faster than notes; banks stumped

Demonetisation move poorly executed: Ajay Maken

Demonetisation: A painful shift in rural economy, but all could be well by January.

Demonetisation will not address the problem of black money, say social activists.

Demonetisation: Banks get about Rs 5.44 lakh crore worth of old Rs 500/1000 notes.

Demonetisation: More important to address deeper problems in war against black money

Demonetisation seems like deflation for many people; danger signal for PM Modi

Demonetisation a 'bold move' to curb shadow economy: Bill Gates

Demonetisation: Modi should have gone after 8 lakh wealthy 'farmers', not common man

Rs 500, Rs 1,000 ban: Reaction to Modi's demonetisation move shows how it has upset upcoming elections

Warren Ascendant

In the days since Hillary Clinton’s stunning electoral defeat to Donald Trump, the vacuum she left atop the Democratic Party hasn’t gone unfilled.

Elizabeth Warren has moved aggressively to occupy the space, a timely reminder to the party and its most ambitious members that all roads to 2020 — not to mention 2018 — go through her.

 a detailed 8-page note on Tuesday, addressed to Trump himself, that ripped into him for appointing Wall Street officials and lobbyists to his transition team despite his promises to cleave such insiders’ influence.

“If you truly stand by your commitment to making government work for all Americans — not just those with armies of lobbyists on payroll — you must remove the lobbyists and financial bigwigs from your transition team and reinstate a group of advisors who will fight for the interests of all Americans,” Warren wrote. “Maintaining a transition team of Washington insiders sends a clear signal to all who are watching you — that you are already breaking your campaign promises to ‘drain the swamp’ and that you are selling out the American public.”

Warren’s team posted the missive on her Facebook page, and it was viewed over 10 million times in the ensuing two days.

NATO: A Rethink Is Possible

George W Bush, as a candidate, famously asked, "Why do we need an army?" Such first principles thinking is a good thing. Donald Trump, as a candidate, similarly asked, "Why can't we use nuclear weapons?" That is first principles thinking.

Donald Trump, the candidate, asked for a fundamental rethink on both Russia and NATO. A presidential campaign is a marketplace for ideas. The voters are the customers. 75% of Americans who don't have college degrees are saying they can't afford NATO. It is dollars and cents. In a government of the people, by the people, for the people, it is the people who make the final decision on how the tax money is to be spent.

Trump has been smart enough to see Russia and NATO are two sides of the same coin. NATO was created with the express intention of preventing Soviet troops from marching into Western Europe.

So when the threat is supposed to be gone, if the Soviet Union is no more, if the West won the Cold War, why is NATO still there? Somebody should have asked this question in 1991. Trump is asking now. Good for him. He had an idea and he took it to the people.

NATO was never designed to counter terrorism, and was never redesigned for it either. It is an old fashioned battle machine designed to fight wars with tanks and ground troops.

Trump’s point is if Russia can politically be turned into a Germany, a friend and an ally, then do we still need NATO?

That is a question he asked and lost the entire Republican security establishment in just asking.

There are many moving parts to the equation. The biggest moving part is Russia itself. But like Obama disagreed with Bush on Iraq Trump has disagreed with Obama, Bush II, Clinton, and Bush I on Russia. That is quite entrepreneurial.

He won the idea battle. The execution battle is ahead.

Giving Trump The Benefit Of Doubt

Or rather accepting the plain fact that not only is Donald Trump the president for the next four years his party seems to now be leading a one party state. The Democrats, for some reason, have been reduced to the municipal levels. It is a big city party. That is interesting because Trump is the ultimate big city person. He grew up in Queens which is the most diverse borough of the most diverse city on the planet. Trump and Giuliani are both liberal on social issues by upbringing. Although their current positions might be politically aligned to the voter base they sit on.

America's bipolar disorder is that one camp reduces the other to cartoons. Hillary is a cartoon. Trump is a cartoon.

The Trump version is that he is Hitler.

The truth might be more banal. America is more or less the same country it was a few weeks ago. It might be a country adjusting to the fact that it can not afford to be the sole superpower.

Trump totally intends to question NATO. To him it is about money. And that is a fundamental challenge to the post World War II, post Cold War order.

This election has been about readjusting.

There is an election result. And there is a mandate to read. Trump could end up mediocre to scandalous. In which case the pendulum will swing again in two years and he could lose control of both houses of Congress.

But with much of the federal money going to entitlement programs, defense and interest payments on the 20 trillion dollar debt, that leaves little room for anything else. It is underemployment in DC, not gridlock. There is not much wiggle room.

Trump could even prove transformative. He could spring forth a one time 15% tax on the wealth of the rich to pay off a big chunk of the national debt of 20 trillion dollars. He could do a fundamental rethink on NATO and turn Russia into a Germany, a total ally with which to massively downsize the nuclear arsenal and vastly reduce each other's defense budgets. He could impose term limits on Congress, max 10 years in the House and 12 in the Senate.

And suddenly gridlock season is over.

He might increase the democracy momentum in China and Arabia.

Liberals think conservatives are dumb people. That is why they are so unenlightened on the social issues. Conservatives think liberals are bookish, impractical clowns who could not make the trains run on time even if they wanted to. That is a bipolar disorder. It might have roots in the scant wiggle room mentioned above.

Teenagers With Poor Self Esteem?

Like a teenager with poor self-esteem, the American people had chosen the flashy and abusive boyfriend over the steady, boring one. We’ve had enough decency for one decade, the electorate decided. Give us chaos.

You should be worried, too. George W Bush, a man of comparative calm and measured intellect, started two foreign wars and cratered the world economy. Trump is far more reckless.