That was the year that was

Some three years ago when I started writing my columns and blogs, I promised my readers that I would write at least twice a week. I am glad to announce that I have kept true to my word and in the year that was I wrote 104 columns. Like you I was curious about the subjects I had covered and written about during the past turbulent year..

A large number of thoughts were centered on relationships. I wrote about brothers and sisters, a wry advice column on marriage, on the seven stages of fatherhood, on daughters who will break your hearts, on friendship and on dharma and love.

Another favourite topic was the political situation both in the US and India. The disasters in Pakistan were a constant concern as was the despairing turn into savagery and incivility in public discourse around the world. The breakdown of the conservative party into a rag tag of racist rants was another cause for concern.

As usual technology was a welcome respite from the daily ugliness of political life. I wrote about the innovators under 35, about the new types of think tanks, and how technology was up ending the old traditional publishing houses and how the future of books would be different. I wrote about technology and its power to change poverty stricken lands.

The problems of aging and how to cope with these changes were the subject of a few columns on facing life and death, on loosing a loved one, on various rituals of death, the pleasures of retirement and loneliness.

There were a few columns on faith, uncertainty, leadership in the 21^st century, the power of unreason, and the power of failures. I looked for a new paradigm of medicines and how its modern day practitioners were deviating from their Hippocratic oaths. I searched for a receipe of happiness.

And to close I looked for inspiration from unlikely sources- a speech by Andre Agassi and an address by Steve Jobs. Obama was his usual eloquent self in two speeches – one delivered at the start of the year after the shooting in Arizona and the other laying down his personal beliefs in Osawatomie.

You can read all these and more in my blogs for the year.

And a Happy New year to all my readers. I hope to keep up this pace in the new year as well and hope to hear from you.

Lives well lived

Recently, David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times started a wonderful exercise in his blog. He asked his readers that “If you are over 70, I’d like to ask for a gift. I’d like you to write a brief report on your life so far, an evaluation of what you did well, of what you did not so well and what you learned along the way. You can write this as a brief essay or divide your life into categories — career, family, faith, community, and self-knowledge — and give yourself a grade in each area. “ He received a number of replies that he dutifully published on his blog.

I would like to do the same for my readers in India. This desire has been particularly driven by my recent reunion of classmates from fifty years ago where I was wonderstruck with the various turns my friends had taken in their lives. I was determined to capture at least some of their experiences and so I volunteered to produce a brochure for the reunion “ The Class of 1961” and I am now working on a book on the “Pioneers of Offshore Technology in India” on the early days of these developments. But essays from my readers in their own words about the varied lives they have led in the past 70 years would be a particular gift that I would like us to share with our young.

It is true that in our normal lives we have few formal moments of self-appraisal. Occasionally, on a big birthday or after a funeral, people will take a step back and try to form a complete picture of lives, but we have no regular rite of passage prompting them to do so. Old people will reminiscence but the young are oft too impatient of their elders to listen closely to their hard earned lessons from a life well lived. My hope is that these essays will be useful to the young for our young people are educated in many ways, but are given relatively little help in understanding how a life develops, how careers and families evolve, what are the common mistakes and the common blessings of modern adulthood.

Many of these essays will doubtless be inspiring, others may contain life’s lessons of paths to avoid. Some may be from people who passively let their lives happen to them. Others may wish they had had more intellectual curiosity, or that they weren’t so lazy, or that they had not gotten married so young. Looking back, many may be amazed by the role that chance played in their lives. Others may identify a pivotal moment that changed their lives. The most exciting essays may be written by the energetic, restless people, who took their lives off in new directions midcourse. Others may have waited to retire before plunging into passions that had simmered underneath for most of their lives. We will perhaps find that most of us were immensely grateful to live in the era that we did. An amazing number may cherished their marriages of decades or more. And, for almost all, family and friends will have mattered the most.

And, most importantly, these brief essays will I hope offer lessons for the rest of us.

So shed your inhibitions and start writing. I promise  to publish them in the future in my blogs. Send them to me at my address : anilmal@gmail.com.

The future of books- part II

 A few weeks ago I wrote a piece describing how the books of the future will no longer be only words on the page but rather a complete sensory experience. The reader could move from the written word to a piece of music or a video or a picture which would enhance his enjoyment. It seems it took but a nano second for this prediction to come true.


Here is an article describing the last words and thoughts of artists. It is clear that the last thing anyone does or says has an inevitable fascination, poignancy, and poetry. The fascination only intensifies when that person is an artist, in the profession of doing and saying memorable things.


"On his deathbed in the week before he died, blind and in the aftermath of a stroke, Bach had a friend play his organ chorale on the hymn "When We Are in Greatest Distress." Even near the end of his rope, Bach's lifelong perfectionism endured. He dictated a number of revisions to the chorale. At the same time, he renamed the piece, giving it a title from another hymn: "Before Thy Throne I Now Appear." Serene and worshipful rather than tragic, it was his calling card to God."


"None of Mozart's masses and such are as powerful and beloved as his comic operas. The exception is the Requiem. Its first movement, the only one he more or less finished on his own, is the most tragic movement written since Bach. It is music from a man staring into his own grave"


"In his spiritual life, Beethoven was no churchgoer and not particularly interested in Christ; he preferred to deal with God man to man. His music he could only hear in his head now. Some of it has an ethereal quality, some an almost childlike directness, like the first movement of his Op. 110 Piano Sonata—played here by Andrew Rangell. (His set "Beethoven's Final Masterworks for Piano"—the last five sonatas, Diabelli Variations, and late Bagatelles—will be out in January on Steinway & Sons.)

The scope of the late style can be seen in the middle movements of the Ninth Symphony."

So the reader can not read the rather brilliant piece on the last notes of great artists but he can also hear the kind of music they played at the end.

The future is truly here.

Obama's speech and why I still support him

It is great to be back in the state of Kansas. As many of you know, I’ve got roots here. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Obamas of Osawatomie. Actually, I like to say that I got my name from my father, but I got my accent – and my values – from my mother. She was born in Wichita. Her mother grew up in Augusta. And her father was from El Dorado. So my Kansas roots run deep.

My grandparents served during World War II -- he as a soldier in Patton’s Army, she as a worker on a bomber assembly line. Together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over a Depression and fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried -- no matter who you were, where you came from, or how you started out.

These values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known. It was here, in America, that the most productive workers and innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth, and every American shared in that pride and success -- from those in executive suites to middle management to those on the factory floor. If you gave it your all, you’d take enough home to raise your family, send your kids to school, have your health care covered, and put a little away for retirement.

Today, we are still home to the world’s most productive workers and innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefitted from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and investments than ever before. But everyone else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t – and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

For many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over the harsh realities of this new economy. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or sometimes even understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets – and huge bonuses – made with other people’s money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we are still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs, homes, and the basic security of millions – innocent, hard-working Americans who had met their responsibilities, but were still left holding the bag.

Ever since, there has been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity; balance and fairness. Throughout the country, it has sparked protests and political movements – from the Tea Party to the people who have been occupying the streets of New York and other cities. It’s left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock. And it’s been the topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women who are running for president.

But this isn’t just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that have stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for too many years. Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

Well, I’m here to say they are wrong. I’m here to reaffirm my deep conviction that we are greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules. Those aren’t Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values, and we have to reclaim them.

You see, this isn’t the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world’s industrial giant, we had to decide: would we settle for a country where most of the new railroads and factories were controlled by a few giant monopolies that kept prices high and wages low? Would we allow our citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary? Would we restrict education to the privileged few? Because some people thought massive inequality and exploitation was just the price of progress.

Theodore Roosevelt disagreed. He was the Republican son of a wealthy family. He praised what the titans of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy. He believed then what we know is true today: that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. It’s led to a prosperity and standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can. It only works when there are rules of the road to ensure that competition is fair, open, and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for customers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children, or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.

In 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here, to Osawatomie, and laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism. “Our country,” he said, “…means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.”

For this, Roosevelt was called a radical, a socialist, even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight hour work day and a minimum wage for women; insurance for the unemployed, the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.

Today, over one hundred years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.

Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where the workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100, so that layoffs were too often permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. These changes didn’t just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs or the internet. Today, even higher-skilled jobs like accountants and middle management can be outsourced to countries like China and India. And if you’re someone whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don’t have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages and benefits – especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there’s been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, they argue, that’s the price of liberty.

It’s a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker. Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 50s and 60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.

Remember that in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history, and what did they get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class – things like education and infrastructure; science and technology; Medicare and Social Security.

Remember that in those years, thanks to some of the same folks who are running Congress now, we had weak regulation and little oversight, and what did that get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity, and denied care to the patients who were sick. Mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford. A financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

We simply cannot return to this brand of your-on-your-own economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and its future. It doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.

Look at the statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top one percent has gone up by more than 250%, to $1.2 million per year. For the top one hundredth of one percent, the average income is now $27 million per year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about six percent.

This kind of inequality – a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression – hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity – that’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars they made. It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them – that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

More fundamentally, this kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try. We tell people that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, hard work can get you into the middle class; and that your children will have the chance to do even better than you. That’s why immigrants from around the world flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. A few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance fell to around 40%. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a 1 in 3 chance of making it to the middle class.

It’s heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work? That’s inexcusable. It’s wrong. It flies in the face of everything we stand for.

Fortunately, that’s not a future we have to accept. Because there’s another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country – a view that’s truer to our history; a vision that’s been embraced by people of both parties for more than two hundred years.

It’s not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America. It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all society’s problems. It’s a view that says in America, we are greater together – when everyone engages in fair play, everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share.

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy?

It starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is, we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages or pollute as much as they want. That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win – and shouldn’t want to win. Those countries don’t have a strong middle-class. They don’t have our standard of living.

The race we want to win – the race we can win – is a race to the top; the race for good jobs that pay well and offer middle-class security. Businesses will create those jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers; the most advanced transportation and communication; the strongest commitment to research and technology.

The world is shifting to an innovation economy. And no one does innovation better than America. No one has better colleges and universities. No one has a greater diversity of talent and ingenuity. No one’s workers or entrepreneurs are more driven or daring. The things that have always been our strengths match up perfectly with the demands of this moment.

But we need to meet the moment. We need to up our game. And we need to remember that we can only do that together.

It starts by making education a national mission – government and businesses; parents and citizens. In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class. The unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average. Their income is twice as high as those who don’t have a high school diploma. We shouldn’t be laying off good teachers right now – we should be hiring them. We shouldn’t be expecting less of our schools – we should be demanding more. We shouldn’t be making it harder to afford college – we should be a country where everyone has the chance to go.

In today’s innovation economy, we also need a world-class commitment to science, research, and the next generation of high-tech manufacturing. Our factories and their workers shouldn’t be idle. We should be giving people the chance to get new skills and training at community colleges, so they can learn to make wind turbines and semiconductors and high-powered batteries. And by the way – if we don’t have an economy built on bubbles and financial speculation, our best and brightest won’t all gravitate towards careers in banking and finance. Because if we want an economy that’s built to last, we need more of those young people in science and engineering. This country shouldn’t be known for bad debt and phony profits. We should be known for creating and selling products all over the world that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America.

Today, manufacturers and other companies are setting up shop in places with the best infrastructure to ship their products, move their workers, and communicate with the rest of the world. That’s why the over one million construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed shouldn’t be sitting at home with nothing to do. They should be rebuilding our roads and bridges; laying down faster railroads and broadband; modernizing our schools – all the things other countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their shores.

Yes, businesses, not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there. But as a nation, we have always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed. Historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give veterans of World War II, including my grandfather, the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas, who started the interstate highway system and doubled-down on science and research to stay ahead of the Soviets.

Of course, those productive investments cost money. And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everyone to do their fair share. If we had unlimited resources, no one would ever have to pay any taxes and we’d never have to cut any spending. But we don’t have unlimited resources. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

Today that choice is very clear. To reduce our deficit, I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law, and proposed trillions more – including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

But in order to actually close the deficit and get our fiscal house in order, we have to decide what our priorities are. Most immediately, we need to extend a payroll tax cut that’s set to expire at the end of this month. If we don’t do that, 160 million Americans will see their taxes go up by an average of $1,000, and it would badly weaken our recovery.

But in the long term, we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to make the investments we need in things like education, and research, and high-tech manufacturing? Or do we want to keep in place the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country? Because we can’t afford to do both. That’s not politics. That’s just math.

So far, most of the Republicans in Washington have refused, under any circumstances, to ask the wealthiest Americans to go the same tax rates they were paying when Bill Clinton was president.

Now, keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early 50s, when the top tax rate was over 90%. This isn't even like the early 80s, when it was about 70%. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39%. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than you, millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%. One percent.

This is the height of unfairness. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay a higher tax rate than somebody pulling in $50 million. It is wrong for Warren Buffett’s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. And he agrees with me. So do most Americans – Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

This isn’t about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare. It’s about making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get to the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

Finally, a strong middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only because a full blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this country.

But part of the deal was that we would not go back to business as usual. That’s why last year we put in place new rules of the road that refocus the financial sector on this core purpose: getting capital to the entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and financing to millions of families who want to buy a home or send their kids to college. We’re not all the way there yet, and the banks are fighting us every inch of the way. But already, some of these reforms are being implemented. If you’re a big bank or risky financial institution, you’ll have to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes. There are also limits on the size of banks and new abilities for regulators to dismantle a firm that goes under. The new law bans banks from making risky bets with their customers’ deposits, and takes away big bonuses and paydays from failed CEOs, while giving shareholders a say on executive salaries.

All that is being put in place as we speak. Now, unless you’re a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers, or making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you have nothing to fear from these new rules. My grandmother worked as a banker for most of her life, and I know that the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals want to do right by their customers. They want to have rules in place that don’t put them at a disadvantage for doing the right thing. And yet, Republicans in Congress are already fighting as hard as they can to make sure these rules aren’t enforced.

I’ll give you one example. For the first time in history, the reform we passed puts in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders, payday lenders or debt collectors. The man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a former Attorney General of Ohio who has the support of most Attorneys General, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country.

But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to let him do his job. Why? Does anyone here think the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors? Of course not. Every day we go without a consumer watchdog in place is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or member of our Armed Forces could be tricked into a loan they can’t afford – something that happens all the time. Financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. I intend to make sure they do, and I will veto any effort to delay, defund, or dismantle the new rules we put in place.

We shouldn’t be weakening oversight and accountability. We should be strengthening them. Here’s another example. Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender. No more. I’ll be calling for legislation that makes these penalties count – so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business.

The fact is, this crisis has left a deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit. At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis, and working to keep responsible homeowners in their home. We’re going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house. The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who have yet to benefit from historically low interest rates. And they should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, they will also be in the banks’ own long-term financial interest.

Investing in things like education that give everybody a chance to succeed. A tax code that makes sure everybody pays their fair share. And laws that make sure everybody follows the rules. That’s what will transform our economy. That’s what will grow our middle class again. In the end, rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will require all of us to see the stake we have in each other’s success. And it will require all of us to take some responsibility to that success.

It will require parents to get more involved in their children’s education, students to study harder, and some workers to start studying all over again. It will require greater responsibility from homeowners to not take out mortgages they can’t afford, and remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It will require those of us in public service to make government more efficient, effective, and responsive to people’s needs. That’s why we’re cutting programs we don’t need, to pay for those we do. That’s why we’ve made hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars. That’s why we’re not just throwing money at education, but challenging schools to come up with the most innovative reforms and the best results.

And it will require American business leaders to understand that their obligations don’t just end with their shareholders. Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel put it best: “There’s another obligation I feel personally,” he said, “given that everything I’ve achieved in my career and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate provided by…the United States.”

This broader obligation can take different forms. At a time when the cost of hiring workers in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it’s time to bring jobs back to the United States – not just because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for the country that made their business and their personal success possible.

I think about the Big Three Auto companies who, during recent negotiations, agreed to create more jobs and cars in America; who decided to give bonuses, not just to their executives, but to all their employees – so that everyone was invested in the company’s success.

I think about a company based in Warroad, Minnesota called Marvin Windows and Doors. During the recession, Marvin’s competitors closed dozens of plants and let go hundreds of workers. But Marvin didn’t lay off a single one of their four thousand or so employees. In fact, they’ve only laid off workers once in over a hundred years. Mr. Marvin’s grandfather even kept his eight employees during the Depression.

When times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and pay, and so do the owners. As one owner said, “You can’t grow if you’re cutting your lifeblood – and that’s the skills and experience your workforce delivers.” For the CEO, it’s about the community: “These are people we went to school with,” he said. “We go to church with them. We see them in the same restaurant. Indeed, a lot of us have married local girls and boys. We could be anywhere. But we are in Warroad.”

That’s how America was built. That’s why we’re the greatest nation on Earth. That’s what our greatest companies understand. Our success has never just been about survival of the fittest. It’s been about building a nation where we’re all better off. We pull together, we pitch in, and we do our part, believing that hard work will pay off; that responsibility will be rewarded; and that our children will inherit a nation where those values live on.

And it is that belief that rallied thousands of Americans to Osawatomie – maybe even some of your ancestors – on a rain-soaked day more than a century ago. By train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, onfoot, they came to hear the vision of a man who loved this country, and was determined to perfect it.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, or who he was talking to, all would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance.

Well into our third century as a nation, we have grown and changed in many ways since Roosevelt’s time. The world is faster. The playing field is larger. The challenges are more complex.

But what hasn’t changed – what can never change – are the values that got us this far. We still have a stake in each other’s success. We still believe that this should be a place where you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule in our national life – the rule which underlies all others – is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.”

I believe America is on its way up. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America

The Hippocratic oath or the Hypocritical Acts

The three things that I remember about doctors from my early days are : they are always late, their writing is awful and in an emergency you always ask “Is there a doctor in the house?”.  From infancy it has been ingrained into us that doctors are the ultimate saviors and so to be revered almost as the right hand of God. After all on graduation they all take the Hippocratic oath, which states so beautifully their lives objectives:

“ ..I will apply, for the benefit of the sick; all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug... If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.... May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

So I was used to calling doctors in emergencies and they always have responded in the best traditions of this covenant. That is until I went to Las Vegas last month. There I found that the modern version of sacred oath had taken on a different meaning to some doctors. And it happened like this.

On our second day in Las Vegas, I came down with a severe case of food poisoning. Deeply perturbed, my wife called the hotel staff for their hotel doctor and was given two names on their roster. She called the first one- one Dr.(name withheld)- and explained the nature of the emergency, first to the nurse and then to the doctor. Rather than asking details for his diagnosis and prescription, his first (and it turned out later only) questions were whether I had adequate insurance. My wife explained that we not only on Medicare as primary but also had a backup of Aetna provided through World Bank. The doctor declined to take Medicare and when my wife said she would pay cash, he still declined saying that he would not even give a receipt for his services as he was then hassled by Medicare administration. This wrangling continued for some time without any resolution. So we called the second doctor on call- one Dr Siddhu- who spent the entire conversation taking the details of the ailment and suggesting a course of action. As for insurance, he said that we should not waste $ 300 for his bedside visit but that if his course of action did not improve the patient by the evening, it would be better to take him to the local hospital.

In short, in the course of ten minutes we met the worst and the best of the medical profession. One doctor who honored his Hippocratic oath and the other who epitomized the hypocritical hucksters of the profession that plagues the nation who is more interested in money than in curing.

Of course, there’s no question that doctors in the United States make a lot of money, especially compared with their counterparts abroad.  American doctors make, on average, four times what French doctors earn. And it's not just because everyone in America makes more money: The gap between doctors' incomes and those of professionals is far bigger in the United States than elsewhere. In the 1990s, the ratio of the average American doctor's income to the average American employee's income was about 5.5. In Germany, it was 3.4; Canada, 3.2; Australia, 2.2; Switzerland, 2.1; France, 1.9; Sweden, 1.5; the United Kingdom, 1.4. But the core of good health care is the primary care doctor and yet primary-care doctors make significantly less than specialists. While the median salary of a family doctor is $137,000, the median anesthesiologist makes $260,000.

American doctors' salaries are high for several reasons. The first is the cost of education. In France and Great Britain, students go directly to medical school after high school, and their entire educations are free. In the United States, students must first get a bachelor's degree before attending medical school, and the average medical student's debt is $155,000. Then come at least three years of residency, which usually pays less than $50,000 a year. After all that, it's no wonder doctors feel entitled to six-figure salaries. Another reason U.S. doctors get paid a lot is market forces: In a single-payer system like Britain's, the government can bargain down the prices of treatments, which leads to lower income for doctors. No such entity exists in the United States—Medicare is big, but not that big. Finally, there is the notion of opportunity costs. Presumably, many doctors could have opted for jobs on Wall Street or in management consulting instead of choosing to go to medical school. "They sit in the Princeton eating clubs," says health care economist Uwe Reinhardt, "and one guy just got a starting job at Goldman for $150,000. Another guy says, 'I'm going to medical school to take on $35,000 a year in debt.' That leads to a kind of hunger for money to catch up." A fourth reason is the power of their lobby- the AMA- which had managed to limit the number of doctors graduating for well over a few decades.

So the real question is how much is enough? The bottom line is that the medical profession in the U.S makes a good living despite their grousing- much better than the average man but in comparison to the hedge fund managers not so much. But then again do we really want the noblest profession to be hankering after greater profits rather than curing the sick and finding a cure for cancer?

The revolution in the publishing industry

Some five years ago, I had finished my”magnum opus” and was searching for a publisher. I sent my draft manuscript to a few Indian publishers, fully expecting a reply as to whether they were interested in the first book to document India’s search for and mastery of offshore oil technology. 

I recalled that I had written my first book on ocean science and technology some twenty five years ago and had been called to a meeting with the Chairman of the National Book Trust to decide whether it should be published. Mr A.L.Dias looked at the book and said that he could not decide whether the book would be a flop or a best seller but that he would take a chance. That book has by now gone through four editions and still fetches me royalties. So I was expecting a reply but not the one I received. One said that they had too many manuscripts and could not even look at it for at least another six months, the other simply noted that they had the manuscript and would get to it some undetermined time in the future.

Since I was in a hurry- I wanted to see the book in my lifetime- I looked around for an alternative way of publishing and stumbled onto a website “lulu”. Despite its rather strange name, it offered budding authors a new way to publish and market their books.

In those early days these publishers were know as vanity publishers, who produced books at a price to the authors vain enough to want to see their name in print. But "lulu" democratized the process in a most interesting way. Now any author who had a manuscript he wanted converted into a book, would be helped to do it from the begining to the end. Thus people who wrote novels or dabbled in poety, or had a collection of receipes or photographs could all become authors and share their work with the rest of the world without jumping through the hoops of the self appointed editors of the publishing industry.

Once the author had completed his manuscript,"Lulu" offered to have it edited by an editor that you could select online. A number of editors were listed who had been rated by earlier authors and you had your pick of them. You negotiated a price and delivery time with them. The final draft could then be put into the publishing format. You could do it yourself or you could hire an online formatting expert to do it for you, again at a negotiated price. You could design your own cover or again have a design expert do it for you.

The best part of the arrangement was that you did not need to specify the number of copies you wanted printed. It was print on demand where the book was printed and bound and delivered as the orders came in.

The royalty structure was straightforward – lulu took 25 % of the cost of each book sold and the author kept the rest. 

Lulu also offered a marketing plan where they would have the book reviewed, add the blurbs on the book jacket, obtain an ISBN number from the Library of Congress, place the book on various online booksellers like Amazon.com and even organize author parties in various cities. In short, they would do everything the normal publishing houses did except they did it with you in charge of the entire operation.

The best part of this new publishing system was that you could get your book into circulation within four months from the time you completed it.

Since then, the number of online publishing services has grown by leaps and bounds and the cartel of publishing houses has faced completion and indeed some of them are rapidly facing extinction. As an aspiring author, I say "good riddance" and " hooray for technology".

The books of the future

“Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next ten years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart. “

Pat Conroy

While Conroy waxes lyrical on the virtues of book reading, a new wave of reading them is slowly washing over us. No more will books be simply words on a page bound within lovingly crafted covers taking the readers to wondrous places and climes. The books of the future that are now emerging will be far more than mere words.

Imagine if you will that when you read a book about a far away place, you can not only read the authors descriptions but, if you so want, you can actually see the place by clicking a little sign by the side of the ebook page. Or if the author seeks to evoke the beauty and music of the place, a click could transform you through a video or a musical interlude#. Reading Shakespeare can now be more than the words of the bard- you could now actually hear Lawrence Oliver speak those immortal words “ To be or not to be.” *Or if the sights are to be made real, perhaps a click could emanate the smells of these places as well. Reading a book then could be a total sensory experience.

Of course, this would mean that the authors of the future would have to work twice as hard in not only putting words on paper but also collecting the sights and sounds they so describe. Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. Great words, arranged with cunning and artistry, could change the perceived world for some readers. There is no passion more rewarding than reading itself, that it remains the best way to dream and to feel the sheer carnal joy of being fully and openly alive. But now it is possible to go beyond mere words.

But think of the new ways this innovation could change our lives. I was watching the growth of my grandson from the day he was born. Imagine if you could write a book, which chronicled his life day by day, which showed his physical growth, which recorded his first words, which saw him grow from an infant to a strapping young man with his own aspirations and ambitions. No more simple albums for his life but rather an active recorded life instead.

Or imagine that you want your grandson to know his ancestors. In the past this would be through a few blurred photographs or faded memories, but now with these new ebooks, he could actually hear and see you. He could hear your sage advice as he plunged into his life. He could hear your counsel in times of trouble and feel that he was part of continuum of the life of his family.


The real beauty of the ebook will be that you the reader can determine if you simply want to read the book or if you want to have total immersion with sound, vision and even video.

The land of slot machines

I just returned from Las Vegas where we had gone to spend our 40^th wedding anniversary. The one lasting image of this trip was the sound and sights of slot machines. They were everywhere- bathrooms, hotels, gas stations, restaurants. You could not enter a hotel to get to your room without running a gauntlet through a sea of these “one armed” machines. As a matter of fact, all the hotels placed their theaters or shows so that the only way to get to them was if you were willing to walk past rows and rows of these machines, each one singing a siren song of “money , money”. Each of these machines offers a seductive, though thoroughly elusive, “jackpot” and one could see old ladies seriously pulling the slot machine handles in hopes of a major payout.

It turns out that Americans spend more money on slots than on movies, baseball and theme parks combined. There is now casino gambling in 38 states, which use the revenue from gambling to help solve their bloated budget deficits. The main attractions at these gambling halls are the slot machines - there are close to a million of them in the United States, twice the number of ATMs.

Old-fashioned slot machines let gamblers pull the handle and hope for three of a kind. From the player's point of view, here's how it appears:

·      The player pulls the handle.

·      There is a clunk, and three reels start spinning.

·      Then the three reels stop abruptly one at a time, followed by the payout (if necessary).

·      There are lots of bells and whistles all the while this is going on with flashing lights as well.

The "stopping one at a time" part builds suspense. If the first reel stops on the jackpot symbol, then you have to wait for the next reel to stop to see if it is a jackpot, and then finally the third. If all three display the right symbol, the player wins and all hell seems to break loose with loud announcements and lights.

With the passage of time, the old fashioned mechanical slot machines have changed. The modern slots are computerized and are like high tech video games that play music and scenes from TV shows. You can play hundreds of lines at once and instead of pulling a handle, you can bet by pushing buttons, which means each bet can be completed in as little as three and a half seconds. It looks like great fun, but it can be dangerously addictive. And no machine is better for that than the "penny slot," the most popular game on the casino floor. Because the bets are small, you can place hundreds of them at a time. In the past the payout sound was of cents pouring into a basket – but now this has been replaced by a receipt that comes out with your payout. But while no cents pour out, the machines have retained the sounds all right!

Why would you play slots over other casino games? What do slot machines provide that you can't get from the other games? What do Video Slots offer that you can't get from anywhere else? The biggest reason would be happiness. While games such as Blackjack and Roulette may have a better edge than online slots, their players are also constantly stressed and worried. Going over whether hitting or not was the wrong or right move. Fretting about the cards or where the roulette ball ended up.

By contrast, online slots players are carefree and happy go lucky, relaxed and chilled. All you have to do in slots is be able to press a button. You can leave your brain at the front door and take it easy. This is why slots are now the casinos' top revenue maker and their massive success shows no signs of abating. It has grown to the point where casinos would probably be in major financial strife if not for the billions, which slots contributed to their coffers.

Not only is it easy to learn how to play slots but also slots allow the players to play without too much thinking and the games themselves are interesting. Who wouldn't want to play a game of slots that is themed to I Dream of Jeannie or Star Wars? Or maybe The Simpsons or CSI? The nostalgia element, which the different slot machine types provide, is very comforting and reassuring and make players feel at home. Unlike any other game, slots and online slots are able to capitalize on what is hot and trendy in popular culture and create a slots game tied around it. Recent examples are the Desperate Housewives slot machine which was very popular with the ladies as well as the World Cup themed slot machine which revolved around the recent Soccer World Cup. No other game has the flexibility which slots has. In addition the bonus round and secondary games give slots an edge which no other game has. Like you have won access to a secret confined room which has loads of treasure which can be won.

But there is a downside to the slot machine as well. Apparently these can become addictive- sometimes dangerously so! Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada measured how players respond physiologically while they gamble, and showed that the new machines can make them think they're winning even when they're not. The gambler almost always gets some money back: if he puts in a dollar, he might get back 50 cents. But the sounds and flickering lights trick his brain into thinking he came out ahead. It seems that the constant feeling of winning creates so much pleasure that regular players can slip into a trance-like state, a place often called the "zone”. One gambler said that when he's in the zone he couldn't remember his children's names!

There are of course the purists who claim that slot machines represent a regressive tax that penalizes the poor more than the rich while it may raise revenues for the government. "As a revenue raiser, it defies every principle. It's regressive. In other words, it takes far more money out of lower income people's pockets than higher income. It is cannibalistic. In other words, it eats other forms of revenue. When you have your citizens dumping two billion dollars down the slots they're not buying a new car, and you lose that tax," State Sen. Tucker said.

In recent years the venerable slot machine is undergoing a generational shift. For more than a century, since its invention by a German immigrant named Charles Fey in the 1890s, slot machines have required little more than cash, faith and an ability to pull a lever or push a button. But now, a new class of machines, aimed at attracting younger players who grew up with video games, is demanding something else — skill.

Adding an element of hand-eye coordination, however simple, is just one way slot makers are laboring to broaden the appeal of the insistently bleating devices that have proved so popular among older players. Besides new devices that provide an extra payoff for game-playing dexterity, manufacturers have developed communal games that link clusters of machines — which are proving popular with people under 40. Coming soon are slot machines with joysticks, which the industry expects to be particularly popular, and others that will allow users to play in tandem or against one another, much as they do in many Internet games. Industry surveys show that those 21 to 40 — people who came of age as dozens of states legalized casino gambling and cable television channels made celebrities of poker’s best players — have fewer moral qualms about gambling than baby boomers and their parents. Young people are heading to Las Vegas and other gambling hot spots in large numbers. The problem for the industry is that they spend much less time in the casinos than the older players.

But gambling, particularly playing the slots, still pays the bills. Slot machines are sometimes called “beautiful vaults” in the industry because they bring in nearly three-quarters of the roughly $60 billion in gambling revenue that American casinos generate.

Most of the $1 billion-plus that the roughly one million slot machines in the United States take in on a typical day is paid to winners. But about 5 to 10 percent, depending on the casino and whether it is a penny, nickel, quarter or dollar machine, stays with the casino. It is therefore big business indeed!

My wife tried the one cent machines but alas came away with a net gain of a paltry $30 on an investment of $15. Not bad but not great either.