I subscribed to your newsletter around 10 days back and I am glad I did it. As always, the research and effort that you have put into this is incredible. Having a sane voice of logic in these times of biased narratives always helps to make an informed perspective - this newsletter ticks this box perfectly.
Also, the last section is quite enjoyable. I liked the Ideology conversation with Slavoj Ε½iΕΎek and the talk on Guru Nanak in this newsletter.
Keep up the good work - you and RSJ.
Just a little curious here - what is RSJ's full name? :)
I have recently subscribed to your newsletter. I am an average educated individual working in a private sector in early 40s , who seeks insight in policies , economics and sentiments influencing our life. I needed an insight by educating myself with limited resources and make an attempt to understand the problem by trying to attempt a deep diving for the issue at hand. I am fed up with the narratives and whatsapp university educating and spreading shallow myths. Am thankful to both of you for sharing your wisdom. This enables me to create my own perspective which in future will make me a better citizen of our country. Please continue your great work and look forward to your newsletters. Let me know if I can be of any assistance to your efforts.
RSJ, Awesome find! I wish more Indian thought was easily accessible. It seems to me that the problem isn't that dimaag is khaali per se, but that it is filled with kachra. I know this can descend into rank elitism but our over-networked society has basically run into a lot of fundamental limiters. For example, the same technology that helps a place like Taiwan get a handle on the pandemic actually makes things worse for us (all the extremely unfortunate plasma and remdesivir pleas leading to higher R0s with no changes in mortality, or the whatsapp based steroid hoarding leading to weak immune systems susceptible to so many other diseases).
And to build on the facts don't matter point, we also suffer from an acute shortage of facts! Maybe you are right that even if we had all the data in the world, we'd still be this lost, but we really haven't tried transparency. We can't even access district level test positivity data! Real time economic data ( a la raj chetty's tracktherecovery.org) toh bhul hi jaana chahiye.
Also, I'm not so sure about the points on big capital. It is true that GFCF/GDP has fallen, but it's not the big corps that are driving this. The household section of investment seems to be the bigger problem. You can see this in the sector wise capital formation data where the corporation share is more or less at 10%, but the household share has tanked. This probably puts more of the blame on the informal-destructive policies along with the busing of the real estate bubble post 2011.
Anyways, you guys are creating really thoughtful commentary. Keep it up!
If you are one who has an interest in policies, economics, and sentiments influencing our life then subscribe public policy substack blog & share your thoughts with everyone. If you feel hesitate in writing then I recommend you one site where you can pick a free sample of writing and choose words from that sample & make your writing interesting. You can find more info here at https://www.grabmyessay.com/samples which has a wide database of writing samples on every topic. Get confidence & start writing & sharing your Indian thought on public policy blog which is very interesting
Dear Pranay,
I subscribed to your newsletter around 10 days back and I am glad I did it. As always, the research and effort that you have put into this is incredible. Having a sane voice of logic in these times of biased narratives always helps to make an informed perspective - this newsletter ticks this box perfectly.
Also, the last section is quite enjoyable. I liked the Ideology conversation with Slavoj Ε½iΕΎek and the talk on Guru Nanak in this newsletter.
Keep up the good work - you and RSJ.
Just a little curious here - what is RSJ's full name? :)
Regards
Amol
Dear Sir (s) ,
I have recently subscribed to your newsletter. I am an average educated individual working in a private sector in early 40s , who seeks insight in policies , economics and sentiments influencing our life. I needed an insight by educating myself with limited resources and make an attempt to understand the problem by trying to attempt a deep diving for the issue at hand. I am fed up with the narratives and whatsapp university educating and spreading shallow myths. Am thankful to both of you for sharing your wisdom. This enables me to create my own perspective which in future will make me a better citizen of our country. Please continue your great work and look forward to your newsletters. Let me know if I can be of any assistance to your efforts.
Sincerely
Venkat
RSJ, Awesome find! I wish more Indian thought was easily accessible. It seems to me that the problem isn't that dimaag is khaali per se, but that it is filled with kachra. I know this can descend into rank elitism but our over-networked society has basically run into a lot of fundamental limiters. For example, the same technology that helps a place like Taiwan get a handle on the pandemic actually makes things worse for us (all the extremely unfortunate plasma and remdesivir pleas leading to higher R0s with no changes in mortality, or the whatsapp based steroid hoarding leading to weak immune systems susceptible to so many other diseases).
And to build on the facts don't matter point, we also suffer from an acute shortage of facts! Maybe you are right that even if we had all the data in the world, we'd still be this lost, but we really haven't tried transparency. We can't even access district level test positivity data! Real time economic data ( a la raj chetty's tracktherecovery.org) toh bhul hi jaana chahiye.
Also, I'm not so sure about the points on big capital. It is true that GFCF/GDP has fallen, but it's not the big corps that are driving this. The household section of investment seems to be the bigger problem. You can see this in the sector wise capital formation data where the corporation share is more or less at 10%, but the household share has tanked. This probably puts more of the blame on the informal-destructive policies along with the busing of the real estate bubble post 2011.
Anyways, you guys are creating really thoughtful commentary. Keep it up!
If you are one who has an interest in policies, economics, and sentiments influencing our life then subscribe public policy substack blog & share your thoughts with everyone. If you feel hesitate in writing then I recommend you one site where you can pick a free sample of writing and choose words from that sample & make your writing interesting. You can find more info here at https://www.grabmyessay.com/samples which has a wide database of writing samples on every topic. Get confidence & start writing & sharing your Indian thought on public policy blog which is very interesting