We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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More signs of the Indian economic dynamo If this deal goes ahead, it will be the largest example yet of an Indian firm buying a British one. How the world has turned, 60 years on from the end of the British Empire in India.
Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group Plc is set to recommend a 4.1 billion pound takeover by India’s Tata Steel Ltd as soon as Friday, sources close to the matter said.
Corus’ board met on Wednesday evening to rubber stamp the deal but is waiting until Tata’s board meets, which is expected on Thursday or Friday, before making an official announcement to its shareholders, the sources said.
It will be interesting to see how those anti-globalisation campaigners, who in the past were the same sort of folk to demand that the rich West gives aid to “Third World” nations like India, respond to Indian business purchases of British and other European firms. That is the trouble with fighting evil capitalists – one minute they are wearing pin-striped suits and speak in posh English accents, the next, something quite different. It must be very annoying.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Annoying? No. Anyone who accomplishes something like success in business has betrayed the culture of victimology, and therefore can safely be ignored.
Only if they make some comments about the necessity of hard work or free economics or other unsympathetic noises is it necessary for the guardians of all public good to take notice of them, and then only to condemn their status as traitors to their heritage, and not really true members of the Indian (suffering) culture any longer.
In the US, blacks who question black victimology are immediately derided as oreos and uncle toms, and hispanics or others who err in similar fashion have their own set of insults and dismissals thrown at them.
When you believe that any participant in private business is immediately corrupted by evil profit seeking, then any third world capitalist is just another evil mercenary of western capitalist imperialism.
Simple really, when you know how the prism works.
Ahh, no, we can still be made to feel very guilty. It’s all caused by evil western capitalists forcing bourgeois ideas of worker exploitation on frightened utopia-commune-dwelling Indians.
It will be interesting to see how those anti-globalisation campaigners, who in the past were the same sort of folk to demand that the rich West gives aid to “Third World” nations like India, respond to Indian business purchases of British and other European firms.
With blatant racism in the direction of the Indian doing the purchasing, or course.
Remember back when Mittal was trying to buy Arcelor?
Translation: We don’t want Indians and their inferior ways encroaching on our superior European culture.
“Translation: We don’t want Indians and their inferior ways encroaching on our superior European culture.”
No, more correctly we don’t want foreigners taking over all our industries and driving down wages by hiring immigrants from the old country who live 2 families to a flat and work for peanuts.
I doubt executives at Arcelor cared much about wages for the common folk. I think Tim is more on point.
Ah yes, but those self same Indians will be accused of selling out their ethic heritage simply by the fact that they persued advanced education, speak impeccable English and worked hard to become successful.
The left wing nutter ideology demands that non-whites must be resigned to wearing colorful native costumes, perform ehtnic dances and songs for simpering lefties and engage in identity politics (the kind that only conform to leftie conformity of course!)
The ultimate funny libertarian rant:
http://www.philalawyer.net/archives/platform_2006.phtml
Enjoy.
To be fair, a lot of Indians wear pin-stripe suits, and their locutions are about as close to RP as you’re going to get outside the UK (and possibly the US). There’s a lot that’s different about Indian businessmen, but I’m not sure that’s a helpful place to start.
I presume that was sarcastic, right? I mean, you don’t actually believe such bs as to claim that takeovers by those cheap furriners will drive global wages down and make people worse off, as is there is a fixed quantity of wealth out there? Please tell me you were taking the mickey.
If the cost of steel production goes down as a result of things like this, then other goods that are made out of steel get cheaper, which increases the overall size of the economic pie; people have more money to spend on other things, and jobs are created in new fields, etc.
Sigh.
That may be so at the IT and entrepeneurial level but a post coming up soon shows that India still has a very soft underbelly.
Jonathan, I was puzzled as well by that particular statement, which you seem to have dealt with quite admirably.
I certainly do wish the Tata group the very best of luck in dealing with entrenched Euro-Unionism, highly restrictive EU trade practices, which seem solely designed to protect French and German interests, and the various national workforces who apparently lack the will to strive – mostly obvious in that joke that used to known as British Steel. Far better to produce all the steel in India and ship it in under the trendy ‘Corus’ label into Hoek Van Holland.
As for Indian ‘inferiority’ a good friend of mine is very well versed in the Indian education system, as it stands at present – which in its simplicity, breadth and oft difficulty harks back to a more eloquent age of the British GCE university-linked system. In a country of such phenomenal levels of population growth and equally high demand for educational achievement it is apparently insufficient for a student who wishes to progress to greater things to simply achieve a 95 or 96% success rate – rather that to rise upwards you must reach a minimum 99% score in all your exams – of a standard which I repeat are the ones that many of us were used to when we were growing up.
Thus I really would not second-guess the Indian people and certainly would not even hint of them being some secondary state, no matter how much various UK/Euro officials in their Brussels ivory towers may like to pre-judge them.
The press in the US has reported quite clearly that Harvard and MIT are now plan ‘B’ for Indian students who can’t get into the Indian Institute of Technology.
One story featured how the dorms at IIT are set up with the students running things and opening small businesses to serve other students. The entrepreneurial additudes are apparently built into the structure. Can anyone confirm that?
I can confirm the Harvard, MIT, Stanford Plan-B statement by first hand experience. I young lad I mentored at my previous employer went to IIT and he said that coming to an elit(ist) American school is definately the path the second tier student takes.
I presume that was sarcastic, right? I mean, you don’t actually believe such bs as to claim that takeovers by those cheap furriners will drive global wages down and make people worse off, as is there is a fixed quantity of wealth out there? Please tell me you were taking the mickey.
Don’t make me laugh. I’m watching that happen RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES and you’re telling me I’m not seeing it? Screw you and your left/right wing nonsense – when you are working for slave wages watching these evil little cockroaches destroy lives and pad their pockets, you can decide whether or not it’s a good thing.