Monday, March 12, 2012

Stuck-at-home generation; How India became America; Pass the books, hold the oil; Japan's rubble economy; Many 'criminals' among new India MLAs

1 Stuck-at-home generation (The New York Times) Sometime in the past 30 years, someone has hit the brakes and Americans — particularly young Americans — have become risk-averse and sedentary. The timing is terrible. With an 8.3% unemployment rate, young Americans are less inclined to pack up and move to sunnier economic climes. The stuck-at-home mentality hits college-educated Americans as well as those without high school degrees. According to the Pew Research Center, the proportion of young adults living at home nearly doubled between 1980 and 2008, before the Great Recession hit. Even bicycle sales are lower now than they were in 2000. Today’s generation is literally going nowhere. This is the Occupy movement we should really be worried about.

In the most startling behavioural change among young people, an increasing number of teenagers are not even bothering to get their driver’s licenses. Perhaps young people are too happy at home checking Facebook. In a study of 15 countries, Michael Sivak, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, found that when young people spent more time on the Internet, they delayed getting their driver’s licenses. “More time on Facebook probably means less time on the road,” he said. That may mean safer roads, but it also means a bumpier, less vibrant economy.

All this turns American history on its head. We are a nation of movers and shakers. Pilgrims leapt onto leaky boats to get here. The Lost Generation chased Hemingway and Gertrude Stein to Paris. The Greatest Generation signed up to ship out to fight Nazis in Germany or the Japanese imperial forces in the Pacific. The ’60s kids joined the Peace Corps. But Generation Y has become Generation Why Bother.

2 How India became America (Akash Kapur in The New York Times) Another brick has come down in the great wall separating India from the rest of the world. Recently, both Starbucks and Amazon announced that they would be entering the Indian market. As one Indian newspaper put it, this could be “the final stamp of globalization.” For me, it signals the latest episode in India’s remarkable process of Americanization.

I grew up in rural India, the son of an Indian father and American mother. I spent many summers in rural Minnesota. I always considered both countries home. Change began in the early 1990s, when India liberalized its economy. Since then, I’ve watched India’s transformation with exhilaration, but occasionally, and increasingly, with some anxiety. I left for boarding school in America in 1991. By the time I graduated from high school, two years later, Indian cities had filled with shopping malls and glass-paneled office buildings. In both city and country, a newly liberated population was indulging in a frenzy of consumerism and self-expression.

More than half a century ago, RK Narayan, that great chronicler of India in simpler times, wrote about his travels in America. “America and India are profoundly different in attitude and philosophy,” he wrote. “Indian philosophy stresses austerity and unencumbered, uncomplicated day-to-day living. America’s emphasis, on the other hand, is on material acquisition and the limitless pursuit of prosperity.” By the time I decided to return to India for good, in 2003, Narayan’s observations felt outdated. A great reconciliation had taken place; my two homes were no longer so far apart. I found myself turning my head (and wincing a little) when I heard young Indians call their colleagues “dude.” Ancient social structures are collapsing under the weight of new money. Bonds of caste and religion and family have frayed; the panchayats, village assemblies made up of elders, have lost their traditional authority. Often, lawlessness and violence step into the vacuum left behind.

3 Pass the books, hold the oil (Thomas L Friedman in The New York Times) Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea with no natural resources to live off of — it even has to import sand and gravel from China for construction — yet it has the fourth-largest financial reserves in the world. Because rather than digging in the ground and mining whatever comes up, Taiwan has mined its 23 million people, their talent, energy and intelligence — men and women. I always tell my friends in Taiwan: “You’re the luckiest people in the world. How did you get so lucky? You have no oil, no iron ore, no forests, no diamonds, no gold, just a few small deposits of coal and natural gas — and because of that you developed the habits and culture of honing your people’s skills, which turns out to be the most valuable and only truly renewable resource in the world today.

As the Bible notes, “Moses arduously led the Jews for 40 years through the desert — just to bring them to the only country in the Middle East that had no oil. But Moses may have gotten it right, after all. Today, Israel has one of the most innovative economies, and its population enjoys a standard of living most of the oil-rich countries in the region are not able to offer.” So hold the oil, and pass the books.

4 China’s largest trade deficit in decade (BBC) China posted its largest trade deficit in at least a decade in February after imports of commodities jumped as companies built up supplies. The deficit was $31.5bn after imports rose 39.6% from a year earlier and exports rose 18.4%, the customs bureau said. Analysts said the widening trade gap may signal deeper economic issues that China will need to address. China has an export-led economy but global economic growth remains slow. Last week, China said it was expecting its economy to grow by 7.5% in 2012, the lowest target it has set since 2004. At the same time, it set an inflation target of 4%.

5 Mass wedding in India ‘prostitute village’ (Dawn) Eight young women whose mothers are sex workers were married in a so-called “village of prostitutes” in India on Sunday under a plan to save them from being pushed into the world’s oldest profession. The event, held in the village of Vadia in the western state of Gujarat, was organised by Vicharta Samuday Samarthan Manch (VSSM), a non-profit group which works with marginalised nomadic communities. The brides, all aged 18 or slightly older, were dressed in colourful saris with their grooms wearing fantail turbans as loud drummers accompanied the wedding party. Women from Vadia village have worked in the sex trade for generations and the marriage ceremony was an attempt to break the cycle of exploitation, said Mittal Patel of VSSM. Mittal said no one had previously wanted to marry a girl from Vadia, which is known locally as the “village of prostitutes”. Men in the village are known to make money by pimping the women to clients.

6 Japan’s rubble economy (Al Jazeera) A year has passed since Japan was struck by the triple tragedy of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. According to figures announced by the country's National Police Agency, the Great East Japan Earthquake left behind 15,854 dead and 3,155 missing - the largest loss of life due to natural disaster in Japan since World War II. The number of buildings affected by the earthquake or the tsunami include 128,582 completely destroyed, 243,914 partly destroyed, 281 completely or partly burned, 33,056 flooded. Approximately 320,000 people lost their homes, of which more than 90% continue to live in temporary housing.

Reconstruction constitutes a special kind of public-works project. The disposal of rubble, given its labour-intensive character, has a particularly marked effect on job creation, at least in the short term. One might call this "rubble economics". It is the inevitable formula for recovery - one shovel load at a time.

7 Many ‘criminals’ among India MLAs (Press Trust of India) More than one-third of candidates elected in the just concluded assembly polls have criminal cases against them, with Uttar Pradesh topping the list. 35% or 252 of the 690 MLAs elected to the five assemblies -- Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhan, Manipur and Goa -- have criminal background, a rise of 8% since 2007. Also, 66% or 457 of the newly elected MLAs were millionaires, according to an analysis of affidavits the candidates had submitted to the Election Commission. The analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch also shows that compared to assembly elections in 2007, there is over 32% increase in the number of millionaire MLAs and about 8% rise in the winning candidates with a criminal past this time.

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