... or so Capitalism's leading rag would have you believe. Because it's libraries doing the banning, not the guvmint.
Taking that line of argument further, if libraries, or restaurants, or say buses, or schools for that matter, decided - acting on complaints from concerned parents of course - that Black people weren't allowed in their premises, that wouldn't be racism. Good to know, 'cos in my ignorance, that seems awfully like it to me.
One lives, one learns.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
From the Unintentionally Self-Referentially Hilarious Dept.
There is, inbuilt into human beings, a sort of dangerous taste for unreality
- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
Honest? You think?
"Love Crazed Immigrant Murders Senator's Daughter ..."
Also, why you are not jealous of the Queen of England, and why going to your school reunion is a bad idea.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Vulture Reading Room
Are you struggling to resist the temptation to read the latest revolting regurgitation of bad prose from Dan Brown?
Have you (shudder) already given in, and are you looking for a way to expunge your sins, a literary papal indulgence as it were?
Look no further than the Vulture Reading Room.
Have you (shudder) already given in, and are you looking for a way to expunge your sins, a literary papal indulgence as it were?
Look no further than the Vulture Reading Room.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Value of the Invisible
Hat tip to Bipin for his blog post on the cost of customer service.
Indeed, when customers march in droves towards lower prices like so many dodos marching off a cliff, what's going to happen to quality? What indeed.
I'll add that it's not (only) that customer service costs money. Sunil Mittal did not become one of the richest men on the planet by charging me marginal cost. I'd reckon he's got enough margins, even at current ARPUs, to give me better customer service. I'm sure he would give me better service at the same price if he had a way of knowing that I, the average consumer, care for better service. At the moment, I the average consumer am sending him the opposite signal by hopping to lower cost providers at the first opportunity.
This reminds me of the airline industry. People make comparative decisions based only on the information they have in front of them. Before online comparison shopping, people had "favourite" airlines on the basis of experience, and tended to always fly them when possible. It was too much work calling up all airlines and comparing prices. Once it became easy to go to a website and buy the cheapest possible ticket, that commoditized air travel - to the point where you often don't remember which airline you're supposed to be flying today till you get to the airport and have to find the checkin counter. Since "service" is not a visible commodity at the point you book tickets, that goes for a toss - there is not enough incentive to invest in making service incrementally better. Unless, it's so horrendously bad that you never want to go back, as with me and Delta Airlines.
Interestingly, airlines in the US have learnt that customers make buying decisions based on what's visible at booking time, so they've started playing tricks to nickel and dime travellers at airports - lower baggage allowances, charges for "expedited" checkin, et cetera. The only way around that seems to be stricter regulation.
Where things are quantifiable, like on-time performance, it'd be easier to make consumers pay. IndiGo has an ad campaign promoting their on-time status. I for one would definitely like to see an on-time statistic for the airline and flight while booking (are you listening, cleartrip and makemytrip?). I normally go to flightstats.com and try finding out for myself, but not too many people might have heard of that site. And I will (and have) paid more money to get on a flight with a substantially better on-time record.
So, quantification may be a way out.
How do we quantify mobile "service"? Network congestion statistics may be an easy option. "Quality" of the voice connection is rather harder to quantify. Calls on my Airtel phone sound a lot clearer than on my Tata Indicom. Is that because of the phone, the network, the particular tower? How about coverage?
Until number portability, I personally am unlikely to switch carriers or go prepaid, but if I did, this is what I'd want to know, in addition to call and data rates
Indeed, when customers march in droves towards lower prices like so many dodos marching off a cliff, what's going to happen to quality? What indeed.
I'll add that it's not (only) that customer service costs money. Sunil Mittal did not become one of the richest men on the planet by charging me marginal cost. I'd reckon he's got enough margins, even at current ARPUs, to give me better customer service. I'm sure he would give me better service at the same price if he had a way of knowing that I, the average consumer, care for better service. At the moment, I the average consumer am sending him the opposite signal by hopping to lower cost providers at the first opportunity.
This reminds me of the airline industry. People make comparative decisions based only on the information they have in front of them. Before online comparison shopping, people had "favourite" airlines on the basis of experience, and tended to always fly them when possible. It was too much work calling up all airlines and comparing prices. Once it became easy to go to a website and buy the cheapest possible ticket, that commoditized air travel - to the point where you often don't remember which airline you're supposed to be flying today till you get to the airport and have to find the checkin counter. Since "service" is not a visible commodity at the point you book tickets, that goes for a toss - there is not enough incentive to invest in making service incrementally better. Unless, it's so horrendously bad that you never want to go back, as with me and Delta Airlines.
Interestingly, airlines in the US have learnt that customers make buying decisions based on what's visible at booking time, so they've started playing tricks to nickel and dime travellers at airports - lower baggage allowances, charges for "expedited" checkin, et cetera. The only way around that seems to be stricter regulation.
Where things are quantifiable, like on-time performance, it'd be easier to make consumers pay. IndiGo has an ad campaign promoting their on-time status. I for one would definitely like to see an on-time statistic for the airline and flight while booking (are you listening, cleartrip and makemytrip?). I normally go to flightstats.com and try finding out for myself, but not too many people might have heard of that site. And I will (and have) paid more money to get on a flight with a substantially better on-time record.
So, quantification may be a way out.
How do we quantify mobile "service"? Network congestion statistics may be an easy option. "Quality" of the voice connection is rather harder to quantify. Calls on my Airtel phone sound a lot clearer than on my Tata Indicom. Is that because of the phone, the network, the particular tower? How about coverage?
Until number portability, I personally am unlikely to switch carriers or go prepaid, but if I did, this is what I'd want to know, in addition to call and data rates
- Does my carrier have "good" coverage near where I live and work? How about cities and regions that I travel in?
- What is the subjective measure of call quality as measured by independent third party tests (I presume there's nothing like that right now, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to know)
- What's the reliability and effective bandwidth of the data connection I get?
- How good is the dispute redressal mechanism? How do I trust the metric, how do I know it's not gamed by the provider themselves?
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Oh Sky-Cake, why are you so delicious?
Warning: strong language.
Russell's Teapot, and Oswalt's Sky-Cake - just the right thing for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.
Russell's Teapot, and Oswalt's Sky-Cake - just the right thing for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The end of the road for US Engineering?
So asks EETimes.
Here's an Indian perspective, the flip side of what you read on how bad things are in America:
About 25 years ago, before globalization, most Indian engineers had a nice easy life - work for a public sector engineering firm like BEL or BEML or HAL or C-DOT or even ISRO, earn a steady if not spectacular salary with regular promotions, live in "quarters", and in general lead a predictable and stress-free life. Thanks to protectionism, most of these public sector firms had guaranteed markets for their products, and could support a large workforce in relative comfort though not opulence. The more ambitious of the engineering lot migrated to the US through the Masters/H1B/Greencard route and settled down there to earn fat green paypackets.
Today, life is not so simple, with all those private sector IT and Semiconductor companies around throwing big bucks (or small change, if you're an American) at engineers. Engineers earn much higher but unpredictable salaries, live in apartments that are increasingly unaffordable, and can aspire to achieve and earn orders of magnitude more than their predecessors did, but at the cost of a lot of stress. A positive development? Depends on the way you look at it.
How did all this come about?
It all started with "liberalization" and the "global" patent system. The HMTs and C-DOTs of the world could now not count on a captive market, and needed to compete with the Casios and the Ericssons of the world. Certainty of employment was now a thing of the past, at least for the majority. On the whole, liberalization was pushed down the throats of a largely sceptical Indian public.
And then came outsourcing, starting with simple outsourcing of low-level tasks. A large semiconductor company from a southern US state pioneered in-house offshoring over 20 years ago, and Indian outsourcers like Infosys and Wipro found their feet in the nineties doing Y2K conversions on the cheap. Indian engineers still migrated by the droves in search of the Greencard dream, and found working for some of these companies an alternative to doing a masters in the US. Nothing had changed dramatically, but the winds were picking up.
Yeah, all those H1Bs started becoming more visible.
Yes, and then came the H1B controversy - apparently, US Engineers felt threatened by all those strange looking H1B engineers who "took their jobs" and worked for (gosh) lower wages. So began the movement in the US to restrict H1B visas and "protect" their jobs. Really? Perhaps engineers aren't as smart as they proudly claim to be, and missed the fact that "their" jobs could easily be sent offshore.
The offshoring trickle of the nineties became a flood in the early 2000s. Bangalore started creaking under the load of all those Johnny-come-latelies. One would have to say that the pace was far too much for Bangalore to bear with equanimity. The city is a decidedly less pleasant place than it was ten years ago. China bore the flood better, but I doubt they were fully prepared for it either.
So, rather than competing against a strange looking H1B who would work for 10% less wages, Americans were now competing against similarly strange looking Indian and Chinese engineers in India and China. Those engineers managed to earn enough to lead an opulent life while working for what Americans considered "small change", all due to exchange rate arbitrage.
Why arbitrage? Aren't your salaries just lower out there in the third world?
Not really, unless you define the currency markets to be perfect by definition. If a loaf of bread costs Rs. 10 in India and a dollar in the US, is there any justification for a dollar to be worth Rs. 50 rather than Rs. 10? It's more complicated than just the price of bread, but you get the drift.
Purchasing power parity is what should set exchange rates, but that's rather difficult to measure, and markets don't seem to converge to whatever that rate is.
The Indian currency, though not held steady by the Reserve Bank of India, is highly undervalued internationally, due to our trade deficit (thank you Oil), fiscal deficits (thank you Big Government), and the like. The Chinese currency is undervalued due to their Central Bank controlling exchange rates. Starting with an amount that's a quarter of a US salary, one can buy about the same in goods and services when it's converted to Rupees or Renminbi. Given that they can convert their dollars at an inefficient market exchange rate, employers gain the benefit of exchange rates. That, combined with the much larger workforce and more competition for jobs mean companies can pay much less in those markets for equivalent talent.
Equivalent? Are you saying those strange looking Indians and Chinese are as good as American engineers? Surely not?
Sure. You can easily find engineers of equivalent talent, if not experience in India and China. Those countries have reasonable if not top-class educational systems, and a large population will throw up enough talented engineers due to sheer statistics. And from the Hatter's personal experience, much of the purported extra ability and innovation that Americans claim doesn't quite exist. Sure, your average MIT grad will do much better than the average Indian degree-mill engineer. However, grads from top Indian universities are equivalent in talent to those from anywhere else. I have found exceptional talent from absolutely no-name universities in India as well, but that's mostly still an exception. American engineers reap the benefit of a much better technological infrastructure and business-friendly environment that surrounds them from childhood, but that's something that can and will be replicated over time in Asia. That is just a matter of time.
So it's all over?
No, but America has a trump card - immigration.
Everyone wanted to go live there once. And a lot of people still do. And even more would, if they reverted to the friendly America of the 20th century.
Americans reaped the benefits of immigration for a long time, and seem to be turning their backs on the one factor that made them great. India, China and Japan are still relatively insular, unlike the America of a couple of decades ago. Shut your doors, America, and see your competitive advantage evaporate in a few decades.
Yes, the writing is on the wall, but the fat lady hasn't quite begun her music. My take on what America can do to retain her preeminent position is this:
Here's an Indian perspective, the flip side of what you read on how bad things are in America:
About 25 years ago, before globalization, most Indian engineers had a nice easy life - work for a public sector engineering firm like BEL or BEML or HAL or C-DOT or even ISRO, earn a steady if not spectacular salary with regular promotions, live in "quarters", and in general lead a predictable and stress-free life. Thanks to protectionism, most of these public sector firms had guaranteed markets for their products, and could support a large workforce in relative comfort though not opulence. The more ambitious of the engineering lot migrated to the US through the Masters/H1B/Greencard route and settled down there to earn fat green paypackets.
Today, life is not so simple, with all those private sector IT and Semiconductor companies around throwing big bucks (or small change, if you're an American) at engineers. Engineers earn much higher but unpredictable salaries, live in apartments that are increasingly unaffordable, and can aspire to achieve and earn orders of magnitude more than their predecessors did, but at the cost of a lot of stress. A positive development? Depends on the way you look at it.
How did all this come about?
It all started with "liberalization" and the "global" patent system. The HMTs and C-DOTs of the world could now not count on a captive market, and needed to compete with the Casios and the Ericssons of the world. Certainty of employment was now a thing of the past, at least for the majority. On the whole, liberalization was pushed down the throats of a largely sceptical Indian public.
And then came outsourcing, starting with simple outsourcing of low-level tasks. A large semiconductor company from a southern US state pioneered in-house offshoring over 20 years ago, and Indian outsourcers like Infosys and Wipro found their feet in the nineties doing Y2K conversions on the cheap. Indian engineers still migrated by the droves in search of the Greencard dream, and found working for some of these companies an alternative to doing a masters in the US. Nothing had changed dramatically, but the winds were picking up.
Yeah, all those H1Bs started becoming more visible.
Yes, and then came the H1B controversy - apparently, US Engineers felt threatened by all those strange looking H1B engineers who "took their jobs" and worked for (gosh) lower wages. So began the movement in the US to restrict H1B visas and "protect" their jobs. Really? Perhaps engineers aren't as smart as they proudly claim to be, and missed the fact that "their" jobs could easily be sent offshore.
The offshoring trickle of the nineties became a flood in the early 2000s. Bangalore started creaking under the load of all those Johnny-come-latelies. One would have to say that the pace was far too much for Bangalore to bear with equanimity. The city is a decidedly less pleasant place than it was ten years ago. China bore the flood better, but I doubt they were fully prepared for it either.
So, rather than competing against a strange looking H1B who would work for 10% less wages, Americans were now competing against similarly strange looking Indian and Chinese engineers in India and China. Those engineers managed to earn enough to lead an opulent life while working for what Americans considered "small change", all due to exchange rate arbitrage.
Why arbitrage? Aren't your salaries just lower out there in the third world?
Not really, unless you define the currency markets to be perfect by definition. If a loaf of bread costs Rs. 10 in India and a dollar in the US, is there any justification for a dollar to be worth Rs. 50 rather than Rs. 10? It's more complicated than just the price of bread, but you get the drift.
Purchasing power parity is what should set exchange rates, but that's rather difficult to measure, and markets don't seem to converge to whatever that rate is.
The Indian currency, though not held steady by the Reserve Bank of India, is highly undervalued internationally, due to our trade deficit (thank you Oil), fiscal deficits (thank you Big Government), and the like. The Chinese currency is undervalued due to their Central Bank controlling exchange rates. Starting with an amount that's a quarter of a US salary, one can buy about the same in goods and services when it's converted to Rupees or Renminbi. Given that they can convert their dollars at an inefficient market exchange rate, employers gain the benefit of exchange rates. That, combined with the much larger workforce and more competition for jobs mean companies can pay much less in those markets for equivalent talent.
Equivalent? Are you saying those strange looking Indians and Chinese are as good as American engineers? Surely not?
Sure. You can easily find engineers of equivalent talent, if not experience in India and China. Those countries have reasonable if not top-class educational systems, and a large population will throw up enough talented engineers due to sheer statistics. And from the Hatter's personal experience, much of the purported extra ability and innovation that Americans claim doesn't quite exist. Sure, your average MIT grad will do much better than the average Indian degree-mill engineer. However, grads from top Indian universities are equivalent in talent to those from anywhere else. I have found exceptional talent from absolutely no-name universities in India as well, but that's mostly still an exception. American engineers reap the benefit of a much better technological infrastructure and business-friendly environment that surrounds them from childhood, but that's something that can and will be replicated over time in Asia. That is just a matter of time.
So it's all over?
No, but America has a trump card - immigration.
Everyone wanted to go live there once. And a lot of people still do. And even more would, if they reverted to the friendly America of the 20th century.
Americans reaped the benefits of immigration for a long time, and seem to be turning their backs on the one factor that made them great. India, China and Japan are still relatively insular, unlike the America of a couple of decades ago. Shut your doors, America, and see your competitive advantage evaporate in a few decades.
Yes, the writing is on the wall, but the fat lady hasn't quite begun her music. My take on what America can do to retain her preeminent position is this:
- Make it easier for talented engineers and entrepreneurs to migrate. That was your USP, don't give it up. Make it easier for people to come to America to innovate. Introduce an Entrepreneur visa of sorts that doesn't involve a lot of money.
- Remove the H1B cap, but make H1Bs portable across companies. Your choice is not to compete or not with that H1B holder, but where you compete. You might as well do it in your backyard. And making H1Bs portable can do much more for fighting wage erosion than any caps.
- Find a way to let the dollar depreciate. Perhaps establish a new international reserve currency, convince the Chinese to stop buying your debt, and stop trading oil in dollars. That will make your Chinese goods at Wal-Mart costlier for a while, but will stimulate engineering and manufacturing in America.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Chidambaram goes crying to America
On the anniversary of 9/11, our good ol' Home Minister PC has gone crying to America. Some would say he couldn't have picked a more ironic date to do his whine act on.
Others may say he should do something about the problem, rather than go whiney-whiney. Still others may wonder what PC's boss Dr. MS was doing at Sharm-Al-Shaikh with his brotherly love bit if his government believed nothing was being done across the border.
But they're wrong. They do not understand, they of little wisdom.
This is the Congress after all. After all, they got voted back into power after 26/11 having done nothing. If the strategy ain't broke, why risk it by actually doing something? Whining doesn't lose votes. Actually doing something just might.
Others may say he should do something about the problem, rather than go whiney-whiney. Still others may wonder what PC's boss Dr. MS was doing at Sharm-Al-Shaikh with his brotherly love bit if his government believed nothing was being done across the border.
But they're wrong. They do not understand, they of little wisdom.
This is the Congress after all. After all, they got voted back into power after 26/11 having done nothing. If the strategy ain't broke, why risk it by actually doing something? Whining doesn't lose votes. Actually doing something just might.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)