Thought For The Day No. 47 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

..psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste...

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less than excellent work.

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM

The Real Asian Tiger

Excellent and thoroughly convincing article on the Seeking Alpha news site...

...if you thought China was, if not the snake (or dragon) in the grass at least the heir apparent to the world no. 1 spot, then think again, Ed Dolan, the contributor argues.

It was India all along. The primary reason in short is demographics. Whereas the fully 'developed' countries such as the US and Japan have a high dependency ratio (i.e. a large number of non-working people who depend on the working population) due to their ageing populations, and the developing countries also have a high dependency ration, but at the other end of the age spectrum (i.e. a large number of children) India is in the 'goldilocks' period in between, and enjoys a lower dependency ratio. I haven't fathomed out yet why ths period is named after the famous children's nursery story, but in any event this is crucial, Dolan argues, to becoming a major economy in the new, G20 world. China on the other hand is already leaving this goldilocks period to join the ranks of the ageing population countries.

Large populations aren't always a good thing of course, they need to be managed properly, but then again neither are rapid changes in fertility rates and here India scores highly over its northern/eastern neighbour again, since China's drop in fertility rate was very rapid (in no small part due to the famous one child policy introduced in the 1970s) whereas India's was much more gradual, and it still has a higher rate than China. Thus the demographic chart is likely to look a lot smoother in India's case.

There are other factors too of course - India is a democracy, more or less, China is not. The fact that English is widely spoken there (as opposed to Engrish) presumably also holds in its favour and, yes, I'm afraid I'm going to have to say it now, as an ex-pat (never would have dreamt of such a thing when I was at home) India was under British rule, whereas only one small part of China (er,...the best part) was, for any length of time anyway.

Don't take my word for it, check out the article here.

Thought ForThe Day No. 46 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

...psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

It has been usual for men to think and to say, "Many men are slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor." Now, however, there is among an increasing few a tendency to reverse this judgment, and to say, "One man is an oppressor because many are slaves; let us despise the slaves." The truth is that oppressor and slave are cooperators in ignorance, and, while seeming to afflict each other, are in reality afflicting themselves. A perfect Knowledge perceives the action of law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor. A perfect Love, seeing the suffering which both states entail, condemns neither. A perfect Compassion embraces both oppressor and oppressed.

He who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free.

A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts. He can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts.

Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence. He may not, in order to succeed, give up all animality and selfishness, by any means; but a portion of it must, at least, be sacrificed. A man whose first thought is bestial indulgence could neither think clearly nor plan methodically. He could not find and develop his latent resources, and would fail in any undertaking. Not having commenced manfully to control his thoughts, he is not in a position to control affairs and to adopt serious responsibilities. He is not fit to act independently and stand alone, but he is limited only by the thoughts which he chooses.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice. A man's worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly, upright, and righteous he becomes, the greater will be his success, the more blessed an enduring will be his achievements.

James Allen

Thought For The Day No. 45 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

...psychiatrist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

Do not search for pleasures; rather, be prepared to find pleasure in all that you do.

John Ruskin

Separated At Birth Part 2...

..inquiring minds want to know

.... Father Ted Crilly (below, right), sometime padre of Craggy Island
parochial house and Radovan Karadzic (above, left), Bosnian Serb mass murderer...

...P.S. part one was only available to those of you who have the dubious honour of being Facebook buddies with me!!...

Big Train

...a very funny sketch show from the UK from about, ooh, more than 10 years ago I think; still very funny in places...

A New Take On Laziness - Seth's Blog..

...Seth Godin's little brother Sethie Godiney writes..

Great post about laziness...time was when it simply meant shirking physical duties, which meant that it was fairly obvious who was being lazy and when, much to the chagrin and disgust of those who had their noses to the grindstone. However, since most of us don't work in the fields any more, the new way of being lazy is very different and not so much of a no-brainer. It consists of 'emotional laziness' - that is, being too lazy to make that cold call (or any type of call), to disagree with someone superior to you or to innovate. The good news is you don't need to get sweating to rectify the situation if you fall into it..

On This Day 350 Years Ago..

...London diarist..

Monday, 5th November 1660...

At the office at night, to make up an account of what the debts of nineteen of the twenty-five ships that should have been paid off, is increased since the adjournment of the Parliament, they being to sit again to-morrow. This 5th day of November is observed exceeding well in the City; and at night great bonfires and fireworks.

...evidently the ghastly and triumphalist tradition had already set in a little over 50 years after the events...