Viswanathan K's Thoughts

This line by Lord Palmerston is very famous: “England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests.” Those lines, of course, hold true for all other nations too. While cynical, it would seem to be the basic concept of every nation’s foreign policy. That is why Michael Totten’s line provoked such ridicule on the Net: “Foreign Policy 101 dictates that you reward your friends and punish your enemies.” Andrew Sullivan tore into it, and for good measure dragged George W. Bush’s administration into it! “It’s a spectacularly dumb statement, reflective of neoconservative tribalism rather than sensible foreign policy. You can tell it’s of neocon provenance because if its crudeness and simplicity. It’s the kind of idiotic thinking that (Bush’s vice-president) Cheney holds to.” The Saudis seem to have forgotten this basic principle and assumed that the US was their BFF (Best Friends Forever). No wonder they were so ...

It’s amusing how religious edicts have had an impact on the banking sector through the ages. Both Christianity and Islam forbade the charging of interest on loans. This was done with good intentions: to prevent excessive interest charging by the likes of moneylenders and loan sharks. But they seem to have forgotten to consider the practical impact of not charging interest. First, there’s inflation that eats away the purchasing power of money as time passes. Charging interest had been a way to compensate for inflation while issuing loans. Second, there’s always a risk of someone being unable to pay back the loan, willfully or otherwise. Charging interest was and is a way to compensate for that risk. So when Christianity and Islam forbade their flocks from charging interest, they effectively killed the entire lending industry in their communities. Enter the Jews to fill the vacuum. Judaism only prevented Jews from charging interest from fellow Jews, so apparently the Jewish God was OK wi...