Paramendra Bhagat's Blog
Monday, April 19, 2004
A fourth stint into the 51st state beckons. In a way, it is time off - away from the city and its people, onto the road; in a way it is an extension of the work at hand - for my online marketing business I have designed an Internet based, revenue neutral education and support system, and I could be building my client base anywhere in the country, preferably all over the country, so a roadtrip is a "book tour," and I could be working on the two core steps of read and recruit from anywhere; in a way a time to read and write - a book to be called The Why And How Of The Quixtar Business, and the outlines of a novel; in a way it is about the weekly paycheck - finances will look better; and every other weekend I should be on ground, off the road, for business - local teams - and for personal replenishment. In a way a separation, a move to a new town, from Indianapolis to Terre Haute. My strongest leg in business is there, the university library in town is much more car-friendly than the ones in Indy and Bloomington. And no matter where you live in the US, your car looks the same, people sound the same on the phone, the internet looks the same, apartments are not that different inside, the washers/dryers/kitchens perform the same. Very little is different from one place to another. Roads, fast food places, Walmarts look the same. Traffic lights. Movies. In a way a preparation to make a trip home to Nepal in a few months. Hopefully in a few months I can expand the business enough that I can afford to do it full time. Expanding this business is not unlike working on a book: you are shooting for residual income through both. In the mean time perhaps pay off the credit card, the car, a personal loan. And Heartland Express is offering 39 cents a mile, "home" time every other weekend. That's a decent mark-up. The truck driver is the modern day cowboy. Summer is friendlier weather.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
There is a branch in mathematics that talks about the African coastline as an example. When you look at the coastline from outer space, you see the lines that make it up. And then you might swoop down closer in air space and the portions of the coastline that looked like straight lines from up above look all zig-zaggy. You don't see the entire African coastline anymore, but what you see is more complex. And you might swoop down lower, and the same thing keeps happening. The level of complexity stays the same, the closer you come to the coastline. You keep zeroing in, and what looked like a straight line is not so no more.
That analogy might describe the tech scene. When Microsoft showed up, IBM was the largest computer company in the world, so big that Microsoft's vision of focusing solely on the desktop of personal computers went unnoticed. Within a decade or so, Microsoft had surpassed IBM in market value. But then the software industry itself has grown so big, Microsoft has become its IBM. It is no longer possible for any one company to dominate it all.
The Internet was the first jolt for Microsoft. "If there were a switch that would turn the whole Internet thing off, I'd pull it," Bill Gates once said in exasperation. The web browser replacing Windows proved to be a far-fetched notion. But there is much talk of Google, a company hoping to "organize the world's information," especially since talk of its Gamil service that would give its users one gigabyte of free storage, supposedly good for a lifetime. It sure refused to be bought by Microsoft. Could it further polish its search engine? Deliver on e-mail? Similarly offer online storage of documents and stuff people currently store on their PCs? Thus proving Windows to be background skeleton rather than the world's most expensive piece of real estate? Such a shift would really bring back Larry Ellison's vision of an internet computer from the grave.
But it might be too early to count out Microsoft. It's next version of Windows is promised to be quite an innovation, though it has to be noticed many of its touted features are already offered for free online by various small and large companies, mainly small. Microsoft might not disappear altogether: IBM did not. It might stick around, big but no longer cutting-edge, less in the headlines.
Also making major news is voice over the internet. After search, e-mail is the most used feature online: text over the internet. And it is free as long as you can come online. Especially with Gmail-style storage space as promised. If the same can happen to voice, people will be talking to each other for free globally as long as they can come online. What's next, video? Especially with a much wider spread of broadband? Especially when nanotechnology might take care of all the memory space issues, small and large, especially large, very large.
A few existing industries might die or change beyond recognition. But the consumer wins. And that is the way it is supposed to be.
Friday, April 16, 2004
The Republican Party sounds out the personal responsibility theme, the small government theme, the strong on defense theme, and gets its fuel from social conservatism. The Democratic Party in many ways is less well-defined to the point it has not even been able to cash on Bush's record deficits and crony capitalism which, in essence, is a distortion of the market. The Democratic Party tries to represent many relatively powerless groups and that is hard to do. Getting together the moneyed and the powerful is relatively easy as evidenced by Bush's record fund-raising. But then political victory is about having a message, an alternate vision, it is about building a working coalition.
What most appealed to me about the Dean campaign was it tried to revive the one person one vote idea behind democracy. Not to say it brought the Internet into politics like JFK brought television. I am grateful for the MeetUp idea personally that I have since applied into my business: http://quixtar.meetup.com. Couple the democracy element with a respect for the market at all income levels and at all levels of sophistication including the corporate - free enterprise - that is not distorted by corporate welfare. And add massive investments into human capital as the true response to the inevitable globalization that would require major rethink in the education and health sectors, perhaps a President who might look into human capital the way FDR looked into some aspects of physical infrastructure. America is supposed to be creating entire new industries, not nagging about "outsourcing."
Clintonomics helped people in all income brackets. Clinton was a Democrat who got the market like he got the votes, like he got politically feasible social progress. Dean did not get the market part good enough. Not to say the votes part. But then those might be related.
Social progress might be the trickiest. The homophobics today might speak all the right words on the segregation and slavery issues of the past without realizing their own contemporary folly.
Democracy, market, social progress, human capital. Sound like a theme to me.
Pendulum swings are political events. When the Republicans control all three branches of the government including both chambers of Congress, and most governorships, Kerry might be in striking distance. The voters might be in a mood to seek redress, a balance of sorts. But votes don't come without the political work.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Hindustan Times: "Sayalee Bhagat replaces Pandit As The New Miss India-World."
NDTV: "Sayalee Crowned Miss India-World."
Good to know at least someone of that name is good-looking.
:-)
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
"Many Mexican American immigrants simply do not appear to identify primarily with the United States. This reality poses a fundamental question: Will the United States remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture?"
Samuel Huntington
America has been around over 200 years, and primitive brains like Huntington still don't get the essence of it. Ameica never was an "Anglo-Protestant" country. America's pride is that it is the oldest modern democracy. The American combination of the constitution and bill of rights gives a unique definition to the individual which has been America's promise. It is that blueprint that has refined that social backwardness of the social groups constiuting the population of the country. A further application of that political blueprint will root out primitivethinks like Huntington as well. The social conservatives belong in the dustbins of history, and they keep coming up with proof for the claim.
Huntington's comment does not alarm me. It is rather amusing as to how anachronistic it is. Just sample global music to see how rich we are for diversity. Our diverse backgrounds, our diverse collective backgrounds are cause for eternal celebration. Get some sun, Huntington.
As I like to say, America has become Europe. The Internet is the new country. And in that country, every language, every religion gets ample space. The real estate is limitless. Diversity is wealth. Cultural diversity is "out of the box" thinking institutionalized. And can be measured in dollar terms. The cultural deposits all over the world are like the oil deposits of the past, if you are in any way involved with the Internet-based economy.
Huntington, "You are fired!"
Monday, April 05, 2004
In the 1920s, if you would have wanted to be part of the cutting edge industry, you would have looked into automobiles. In the 1990s, it was software. The next big thing is touted to be biotech. If you keep going down that line, you will come across group dynamics as a science and art form in a world where the software and the biotech companies will have become like utility companies today, important but more in the background. And so I feel like I am part of a very futuristic business.
The thought of the Iraq occupation possibly snowballing into a democratized Arab world is not a coverup on my part of my numerous disagreements with the right end of the American political spectrum. One, is democracy in Iraq the newest stated goal for the occupation conveniently coined after the weapons of mass destruction were not found? Two, if Saddam Hussein was a Cold War ally of the U.S., is General Musharraf a similar War On Terror ally of the U.S.? Three, if terrorism, like AIDS, can not be tackled by any one country, is the U.S. willing to be part of a family of nations where all members are first class? Four, if the weapons of mass destruction are such a threat to humanity, why has there not been an initiative towards universal disarmament? Five, why does the U.S. emphasize non-proliferation on the one hand and pour money into new kinds of nuclear weapons on the other? Is that double standard the newest strain of the racism virus? Six, is George W. Bush leading a fundamental strategic error on the American part by leading an army designed to attack and invade countries with the traditional state apparatus without fundamental reorientation and reorganization into a war with an organization like the Al Qaeda which does not have a state or a corporate-like organization? Seven, would a country willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars into invading a dictatorship like Iraq spend about 10 billion dollars to fund non-violent movements for democracy in all countries that are not yet democracies, and another 10-20 billion dollars to help new democracies build the institutions of democracy, if spread of democracy is the stated goal? Eight, do George W. Bush and his corporate cronies addicted to corporate welfare have a right to swipe the credit cards of the next generation of Americans to the tune of record deficits of half trillion dollars primarily to fund giveaways to the wealthiest 5% of Americans and to the defense industry fatcats' bottomlines, for it is not lack of toys but lack of human intelligence that has been America's greatest handicap in its war against the violent groups inspired by Osama Bin Laden? Nine, if George W. Bush is for a constitutional ban on gay marriages, would he have been for a constitutional ban on desegregation 50 years back, and a constitutional ban on a possible women's right to vote a hundred years back? And so on.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Fascism was defeated at the end of World War II, and we got democratic Japan, Germany, and Italy. Communism got defeated at the end of the Cold War, and that saw a spread of democracy such that for the first time over half the world's population now lives in a democracy: Russia is a democracy in the works. The challenge presented by the umbrella organization of the Al Qaeda, presenting a radical, militant Islam, the Muslim version of the KKK, only globalized and with a sophisticated mastery of technology, is a major geopolitical event, and a victory there will hopefully result in a totally democratized Arab world.
But terrorism is like AIDS: no one country can hope to tackle it. And there is a strong undercurrrent to the whole fight. The mistreatment of the Japanese Americans during World War II was a black-and-white blunder of historical proportions. The oldest democracy in its bold fight against militant Islam dare not tolerate any social hostility towards Arabs, or other non-white-non-blacks. The Oklahoma City bombing got carried by a white guy does not make all white guys suspect.
