They're Rioting in Kashmir

Ask an American about Kashmir and they'll usually assume you are talking about Cashmere wool sweaters. The wool for which now mainly comes from Cashmere goats raised in China and Mongolia. But the rioting reported in recent days in the news is in an area governed by India, more formally known as Jammu and Kashmir.

Most recently, the rioting was triggered by the famed threat to burn Korans by America's most famous (for now) religious bigot, the Reverend Terry Jones. That is an easy idea for Americans to dismiss: Islamic religious zealots misbehaving because they heard the words of hate directed to them by a Christian zealot.

I doubt the rioting in Kashmir has much to do with Reverend Jones. It has much more to do with the basic problems of Kashmir that have changed very little since the British Empire was forced out of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. While I believe that the U.S. should mind its own business, which has not been going well of late, Kashmir is a matter that should be better understood by every American citizen because it is part of a pattern of injustice that ties in with Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia and overall Moslem perception that they are not being treated with respect.

The nation of India is a modern creation from a portion of the British occupation of the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan (later dividing into Pakistan proper and Bangladesh) was the other portion, and the two new states were designed to have separate religious identities: Pakistan Islamic, India Hindu. In addition to a few modern-minded people who do not subscribe to religious myths, each of the two nations not only had a number of minority religious groups (India is still 13.4% Moslem), but encompassed a patchwork of ethnic groups as well. In particular Pakistan included many in the Pashtun ethnic group, which is also the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. There are even 11 million Pashtuns in India.

Relations between India and Pakistan got off to a bad start when ethnic (really religious) cleansing resulted in large scale atrocities as millions of Hindus moved from Pakistan to India and Moslems moved from India to Pakistan in 1947.

Kashmir occupies a special place in this mosaic. The British had not conquered India all at once. Along the way they made a variety of deals with the various local rulers. When they left the subcontinent [See also Partition of India] the recognized principalities that had never been fully incorporated into the British Empire were given the option of joining India, joining Pakistan, or becoming independent, but those that did not join India voluntarily or under pressure were later occupied and incorporated by military force. By Independence Day only Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Junagadh were still independent.

Contrast what happened in Junagadh with what happened in Kashmir. "Junagadh was a small seaport state on the coast of Kathiwar with a Hindu population and a Muslim nawab. The Nawab opted for Pakistan but after a few weeks Indian troops occupied the state and a plebiscite declared for Indian union. Pakistan took no action ..." [Percival Spear, A History of India, Vol. 2
page 241] Hyderabad also had a Muslim ruler over a Hindu majority population; India's tanks rolled in to take control in 1948. [Take note, Ghandi-freaks].

"There remained Kashmir which was in a class by itself. It was a fringe state, adjacent to both the new states, and could reasonably have joined either. It was also a mixed or conglomerate state, a state as it were by accident, formed through the chances of recent political history. It had a Hindu ruler; to the east it had a Hindu majority centre at Jammu, in the Vale of Kashmir itself the population was overwhelmingly Muslim ... The Hindu ruler played for time and still had not acceded to either side in October when a Pathan irregular force ... raced towards the capital Srinagar. In a panic the ruler acceded to India." And so a Moslem majority, Hindu ruled state was formed. "Pakistan called for a plebiscite to which initially Nehru agreed in principle. But he was never able to accept any proposals for carrying it out. A brief war flared up ... settled by a United Nations truce in 1948." [Spear p. 241-242]

Americans who often think its no big deal to be friends with people of many ethnic backgrounds, religions, and levels of wealth, have trouble comprehending that in other nations tribal, ethnic, religious and even caste identifications can remain very strong. They often overrule otherwise good people's ability to think fairly about human relations. But we do know that powerful people seldom want to give up power, and so governments almost never voluntarily cede territory no matter how right and just it is.

My hope would be that oppressed people in Kashmir can see that, in demanding their civil rights, they should uphold the civil rights of every person. Americans need some further work in that regard too. I am glad we stopped Terry Jones from burning the Koran. I believe that criticizing religions is part of our cherished freedom of the press and free speech. But if Mr. Jones is so sure Christianity is superior to Islam, he might try his luck and befriending Moslems and explaining what he sees as the difference. The real winner is the person exposed to two or more religions and modern rational thought who then makes a choice based on free will, not social coercion.

Paul Krugman's Blind Eye: 1938

Paul Krugman's September 5, 2010 New York Times Op Ed, 1938 in 2010, turns a blind eye on many of the economic and political realities of both 1938 and 2010. I don't think this is because space in an op ed column is short, and the realities were (and are) two complex to cover completely in a short essay. He ignored what contraindicated the pie he is selling. Paul Krugman is a pretty astute guy, even the Nobel Prize committee thinks so, so let's take a look at his blind side.

Krugman's basic thesis in 1938 in 2010 is that in 1938 the Great Depression had a comeback because of lack of federal deficit spending. He goes on to say that the massive deficit spending during World War II (the U.S. officially entered the war in December, 1941, but began re-arming seriously in 1939) led not only to the end of the Depression and prosperity, but also to the long-term success of the U.S. economy during the second half of the 20th century.

Economic cycles are not really simple downward or upward slopes. Even in aggregate (on the macroeconomic level) they exhibit short-term changes of speed and direction. If you look at sectors (for example housing, or medical services, or steel production) they are typically not fully synchronized, and each sector has its ups and downs on a monthly or even weekly basis.

In the 1930s two command and control economies were growing: the communist economy of the U.S.S.R. and the German economy under National Socialism. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal failed to produce similarly spectacular results mainly because it was not as centralized or as well thought out. Of course command economies do not always do well; sometimes they fail spectacularly. Same for capitalist free-market economies, and even for mixed economies. But in the late 1930's the global economy was reviving mainly because of the expanding German and Russian economies, which were about as command-control as you can get.

Germany was also re-arming. Eventually other European nations felt they also had to re-arm, and eventually even the U.S. re-armed. This stimulated the economies of the re-arming nations. But the nation that benefited most was the United States. The British Empire, that cruel monster, borrowed money from the U.S. and bought armaments or the makings of armaments (steel, in particular). This external stimulus, plus the fact that the U.S. economy was already in a late-Depression natural economic upswing, is what caused the U.S. economy to be clearly in an up cycle in 1940.

Of course the massive U.S. debt run up during World War II stimulated the economy. But the debt was not what was responsible for postwar prosperity. Our global imperialist-industrialist rivals had their factories bombed to smithereens. Or in the case of Japan, vaporized.

If anyone in the world wanted to buy anything made of metal, after World War II essentially the only source would be the U.S. Even to rebuild their own factories Japan, Germany, Italy, and France had to buy machine tools and steel from the United States. Only the U.S.S.R. retained significant industrial capacity at war's end, and they had lost 20 million people in the war, which knocked back their economy but good.

If Mr. Krugman wanted to engage in historical re-enactment arguments, he could urge Obama to bomb factories in Germany, China, Japan, Korea ... That would be a lot more effective than even greater deficit spending.

Krugman used a false historical analogy, but he still could be right when he says the U.S. economy would benefit from more federal stimulus. On the other hand, maybe when you have economic rivals that are not prostrated by war, stimulus backfires because it almost always uses resources inefficiently. The argument will go on. But using 1938 as a 2010 comparison is comparing two very different situations.

Republicans Try to Keep Recession Alive

The Recession is dead. Gone. Passed away. Kaput.

But the Republican Party has elections to win in November. They, and the media outlets they control, are trying to keep the recession alive, constantly throwing out the terms "slowdown," and Double Dip.

I'm not saying the Democratic Party deserves very much credit for ending the recession. Many of the measures put into place to save the economy during the crisis are fairly attributable to the administration of George W. Bush. Of course, the awful policies that caused the crisis were put in place by "consumers are fair marks" politicians from both sides of the aisle and powerful cronies of Bush and Clinton. But the downturn also had the usual cyclical components, and the upturn has been a fairly typical story of the upward rebound part of the cycle.

Usually the business community, which is largely Republican, likes to talk about the resilience of free markets and the American economy. They like government handouts, tax breaks, and low interest loans too, but that is just human nature. Most of them believe the Great Depression would have ended more quickly if FDR had not created the New Deal.

But Fox News and company, even spilling over to NPR, have been harping on a double dip recession for six months now. Where is it? Despite trying to scare businessmen out of making new hires, consumers out of consuming, and everyone out of buying a home despite rock bottom prices and interest rates, the recession just is not showing any signs of life. The big European crisis fizzled when Germany reported its economy is growing quickly. China is doing great, so are Austrailia, Canada, and India. Russia is in a bit of trouble, but that has done wonders for the U.S. agricultural sector.

It could be that bond traders are more powerful than you think, since the main financial market to benefit from this "catastrophe is just around the corner" thinking is the bond market (think Goldman Sachs). But I think it is mainly political.

The Democratic Party just happens to be sitting on its collective ass right now, holding the Presidency, Senate, and House of Representatives. The economy is turning up. Normally that would be the makings of sure-fire electoral victory in November. But if there is widespread perception that the economy is going to fail again, even if that is not true, it will help Republican candidates in November.

Are there problems ahead of us? There always are. Global warming is more serious and its effects are coming sooner than most people think? Do Americans now have to earn their jobs in the global marketplace, as Carly Fiorina says? Yes, after having it way too easy after World War II, in which everyone's factories except our own were destroyed, this is only getting back into balance. There is a lot of room for improvement in the U.S. economy, and mostly that has to come from people working hard, being creative, and taking risks. The government won't do it for us, and won't do it as well as we can.

If you are still unemployed, best to redouble your job search efforts. Talented but unable to find a position as lofty as the one you had? Get in at the ground floor somewhere. Buy or manage a franchise when you learn the business. Stop whining. (Even Greens like me can only take so much whining from people who have had so much past privilege and can't cope with a little adversity.)

There are a bunch of things local, state, and federal governments could do to help, but they won't, so I'll discuss those topics later.

The recession is over. Do the best you can in this up cycle, be more careful what you spend your money on. If you own long-term bonds get out of them before they decline in value. There will be another recession somewhere down the road, sure, so shore up your finances and make sure that the next time executives have to lay off workers (and management), you are one of the indispensable people who is kept.