Collectivism

"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred"

(Howard Roark courtroom speech in The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand)

The Blue Cafe

If only any cafe, preferably on the sea side, would be open at this hour of night/morning, then the perfect song would have Chris Rea's The Blue Cafe ! over a cup of coffee

Pity he isn't that popular, same as many others I have written about (Brian McKinight, et al)

May be one day I will have my own Blue Cafe...

Weird day

Got up in the morning with fever, still had to go to office, then to Tampere for a meeting. The ticket system of Finnish railways won’t work; bought the ticket on train with no reserved seats. Didn’t realize I was sitting on someone else’s seat, yet the old lady didn’t ask me to move. There are always good people around here

While coming back in the evening, missed my train by a minute, the train started to slide just when I was about to open the door. Had to wait for one hour for next train and the ticketing system still would not work. The good ticketing ladies were offering coffee coupons to make up for the inconvenience. Couldn’t care less for a cup of coffee but admired the attitude of saying sorry. In midst of all these didn’t realize that YLE cameras were rolling until now when I get a business mail that ends with btw - so you were at Tampere today – saw you on YLE news. Feeling better – the paracetamol is kicking in. Hopefully the day ends with this, no energy left for replying to any more mails.

The ticketing system was not working even on 24th August. Time for VR to change the system vendor.

Fiscal Unification of Euro

The concept of Euro bond was never discussed because never was the difference between Monetary union and Fiscal union so amplified. The way Euro zone was created and members were added, this was already waiting to happen. This discussion could have been triggered in the past, but it was waiting for the recession and debt crisis. Good times always discount warnings. Euro Zone consists of economically dissimilar countries. Consider this; In 2010 GDP of Germany was 2.5 trillion USD, while another Euro member Estonia’s GDP was 14 billion. In 2005, GDP growth of Ireland was 5.3%, while Germany’s GDP growth was 0.8%. To think that with such economic disparity - leading to varied fiscal policies - there could still be a ‘Monetary’ union was always a crisis waiting to happen.

Now when this crisis has come to fore, this is the opportune time has to achieve that fiscal union. Euro bond is that Fiscal union. Just like Ireland could not cool its economy by raising the interest rate of Euro because Germany needed growth, similarly Germany, and France can’t turn away from Greece now. That is if Euro zone has to survive in the present form. If there could be a fiscal union, then there will be truly one Euro, with the member states having co-relating economies. Growth in one would help slowdown in other and crises in one member state will have lesser effect on health of Euro.

Today Greece is being blamed for not shoring up its economy. Even after the first bail out capital and tough austerity measure, there hasn’t been much change in the economy, nor is it predicted to be. Euro is also to be blamed for this. Greece can’t become competitive because it can’t devalue Euro! The strongest evidence in support of this argument comes from the situation of another European country that was not part of Euro zone. We should not forget Iceland, which has gone out of news sheet. The reason Iceland could fend for itself and in few years will be back in shape was only because it could devalue its currency. This can’t be said about Ireland which is still languishing or about Greece.

If Greece can’t change Euro, then Euro zone should change itself to accommodate Greece or let Greece go out of this monetary union. I would be pleasantly surprised if we could have any other resolution to the present debt crisis. It is as much a test of political resoluteness now.

The Sequel - 2

Seven years ago 'Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind' was released. This movie deals with aspects of memory and little sci-fi techniques of erasing memory. I am sure everyone has watched this movie atleast once.

Joel Barish(Jim Carrey) is getting his memory erased and during the process realises some are too precious to be lost. He tries hiding them by going back in his life and shacking his adult memories under childhood times. It doesn't work and they get erased.

(Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind - Line 209 of 'Eloisa to Abelard' by Alexander Pope)