31^st December

Today – 31^st December 2016. Whenever I scroll down my news feed, I see numerous post related to the year 2016. Everybody perceives in their prejudiced mind that this whole year has been horrendous. But, ask yourself: has it really been?

The first thing we will ever remember about 2016 is the US Presidential election. And, the election of Donald Trump to the White House is arguably the sole reason that makes people think 2016 didn’t at all go well. However, ask yourself: do we just care about whatever happens in the US? Come on, people. The US is just one country among the 196 countries in the world. We can’t judge the whole year by whatever happened in one corner of the world. We got to think about what good happened for the rest of 6.5 billion people.

Firstly, as I have always said, Donald Trump is not a devil – as people hilariously interpreted from the cover of TIME Magazine. The business confidence is at record high, following the tax cut policies of the President-elect. Above all, the little-considered US ties with other countries such as Russia and Vietnam have improved. While the same move has been repeatedly criticised by the media, I see this act as a bold move to comply to a new era of globalisation. If you think that Trump’s increasing inclination towards Russia affects the US, then you perhaps do not deserve to live the 21^st century.

As the world will move towards new resolutions and new aspirations from the very first hour tomorrow, I want to make efforts to make all of us realize what went north while people remark everything went south. Let me start with Gambia’s win.

On Thursday, Dec 1, 2016, Gambian people won and the 22-year-long authoritarianism bit the dust. Not only was this a new hope for Gambia, but also a great win for world democracy.

Now, Gambia will become the center of venture capital for the European Union and several other countries. Moreover, the pathetic Brain drain will gradually reduce, following the effective implementation of Adama Barrow’s promises: economic revival, axe rights abuse and walk a democratic path. Simply put, the stifled economy will be allowed to survive freely.

I recall Obama’s words: ‘Change is never easy, but always possible.’ Hence, Gambia, one of the smallest and the poorest countries, and its people serve as a teacher and an inspiration for us. They send a message to fellow Zimbabweans: it’s time to over throw Mugabe; to the North Koreans: Kim Jong-un isn’t your God and to the Syrians: the ‘better’ might be on the way, you deserve it. In the same away, Gambia hurls mud at Yahya Jammeh and all the authoritarians that ever existed. Just like Americans celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, Gambians are celebrating freedom for the first time. The other countries should celebrate a new entry into their friends’ list.

Secondly, let’s consider our win over malaria and poverty. According to the UN reports, Sri Lanka became the latest country to be declared malaria-free. Likewise, the Americas are also safe. While the African nations are still fighting, we saw significant progress in other health sectors such as AIDS treatment. At the same time, the number of people living in poverty has more than halved since 1993.

Following the COP 21, the world economies have started making efforts to tackle the imminent threats of Global Warming. Although not yet a milestone, the flattening stage of carbon emissions can be seen as a promising way to move forward.

These were just a few examples I wanted to share to show how far the world has travelled within the last 12 months. In the meantime, we faced numerous tragedies as well, including Truck-attack in Berlin, Orlando nightclub shooting and execution of an estimated number of 300 people in Tripoli, Libya. However, these misfortunes shouldn’t come as discouragement, but an inspiration to turn the way around in 2017.

With 2016 at its end, 2017 knocks on the door. It’s going to bring us myriad opportunities alongside an ocean of challenges. It’s upon us: whether to make 2017 a better year, or a worse.

Hope all of you had a great Christmas.

Happy New Year 2017!

Corruption Could Be Good

I bet the topic distracted you. And, it’s perfectly normal because the corruption is often associated with misconduct in our society. However, could it be considered as a reasonable practice in a developing country like Nepal? Perhaps.

Chris Blattman, a well-known economist, argues that corruption greases the wheels of prosperity. He is indeed right to some extent. If we juxtapose an underdeveloped economy and the prevailing corruption, the best possible thing we can observe is the way corruption – bribery, deception, and duplicity – smoothens the operation of some firms, individual or groups. Corruption, particularly bribery, is one of the most efficient ways for firms to easily get through the pre-existing red tape and bureaucracy. Illustratively, an individual might pay a certain amount of bribe to a government official so that he/she gets the business permit promptly – far sooner than the governmental legal procedures would take. In this case, the corruption acts as the optimizer to reduce the opportunity costs of waiting. This cost-reduction strategy, under repeated practice, could have a cumulative effect on the growth of the economy. The business would be able to start and contribute to the gross domestic product earlier than anticipated. While this would lead to an increased prosperity among the individuals, an abuse of the business permit could be probable.

Mahatma Gandhi famously said – “If the law is just then it is my duty to obey; if it is unjust it is my duty to break it.” Perhaps, Gandhi referred to the British rule when he said this. But, it still applies today as well – in all sectors of our society. Pre-1990, India strategized to restrict toy production to cottage industries. As the time passed by, the same Indian markets got inundated with the cheap toy imports from China. This overlooked consequence destroyed the threshold sale of the domestic industries. Probably, if the Indian government wasn’t obsessed with this legislation, then the bigger companies could emerge in the market to give a tight competition to the Chinese giants. This exemplifies a policy failure. In contrast, would it have been a policy failure if the interested Indian firms had forced the government to legislate otherwise? Well, this would be a form of lobbying and corruption – an abuse of power – but a visionary decision for the economy. This instance shows that firms might use external forces to gain something which is unfairly illegalised or regulated. A car distributor might illegally import luxury cars from abroad without paying the taxes. Of course, it would be a tax evasion; the distributor would have to pay bribes to the cargo officials; at the same time, this would provide cheaper goods to the people. Here, I am not talking about evasion of every tax but the common practice among businesses to try to avoid those taxes, which inevitably puts pressure to raise prices.

Generally, corruption acts as a parasite which feeds upon the innocence of the citizens of the country. However, in the short term, it tends to act as a grease in the government system. In contrast, in the long term, the same grease turns into a rust in the machine.

STANDS OF DONALD TRUMP AND HILLARY CLINTON, US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2016

Finally, it’s November. After the most unconventional election campaign US – even the whole world – saw in the last few months, we are ultimately on our way to facing the election day followed by the results.

At this point, many people seem to have been undecided about who to vote and why to vote. So, to help the voters to find the right candidate and to aware the world about the stands of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I have broken down the issues into Yes/No questions. The source of the data is npr.org.

ECONOMY

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Wants to restrict companies from moving profits overseas	Yes	Yes
Wants increased tax burdens on wealthier Americans	No	Yes
Wants to reduce taxes on low- and middle-income earners	Yes	Yes
Supports Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform and Consumer Protection Act	No	Yes
Supports reducing the corporate income tax	Yes	No
Supports increasing the minimum wage	No	Yes
Believes labour unions are beneficial	Pro-worker	Yes
Wants to increase spending for infrastructure to create jobs	Yes	Yes

TERRORISM

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Supports the use of drone strikes	Perhaps	Yes
Wants to deploy American ground troops to combat ISIS	Yes	Reluctant
Wants to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay	No	Yes
Supports the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”	Yes	No
Supports increased screening of refugees	Yes	Yes
Wants to ban refugees from countries deemed not to have proper vetting mechanisms	Yes	No

FOREIGN POLICY

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership	No	No
Wants to increase tariffs on trade partners	Yes	Yes
Supports the Iran nuclear deal	No	Yes
Supports sanctions on Russia owing to aggression in Ukraine	No	Yes
Wants Treasury to designate China a currency manipulator	Yes	No
Supports continued American participation in NATO	Hesitant	Yes
Supports keeping some ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq	Yes	Yes
Okay with allowing the number of countries with nuclear weapons to increase	1	No

1 Trump thinks it’s going to happen anyway.

HEALTH

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Wants to replace the Affordable Care Act	Yes	No
Supports the expansion of Medicaid and Medicare	No	Yes
Supports mandatory vaccinations	Hesitant	Yes
Proposed a plan to combat opioid addiction	Yes	Yes
Supports a woman’s right to an abortion	Whimsical	Yes
Supports action to make child care more affordable	Yes	Yes

GUN POLICY

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Wants an assault weapons ban	No	Yes
Wants to ban gun purchases for those on no-fly lists	Yes	Yes
Wants to close the gun show and Internet sales loophole	No	Yes
Supports gun-free zones	No	Not spoken of

IMMIGRATION

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Wants to invest in increasing barrier to entry on U.S.-Mexico border	Yes	Yes
Wants to deport all immigrants living in the country illegally	Not Clear	No
Supports a pathway to citizenship for residents in the country illegally	No	Yes
Wants to allow Syrian refugees to settle in the United States	No	Yes

SOCIAL SECURITY

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Wants to privatize Social Security	No	No
Wants to raise the retirement age for Social Security	No	No
Wants to fund Social Security through some form of tax increase	No	Yes

EDUCATION

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Supports the Common Core state standards	No	Yes
Wants to make public colleges and universities debt-free for students	Yes	Yes
Supports publicly funded early-childhood education	Not very clear	Yes
Supports school choice programs, like private school vouchers	Yes	Not Clear
Believes teachers unions protect bad teachers	Yes	Not Clear
Supports tying teacher pay to evaluations	Yes	No
Supports reducing the number of standardized tests	Yes	Yes

RACIAL AND ETHNOC MINORITIES

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Believes black prison population is disproportionately large	Likely	Yes
Supports Black Lives Matter	Yes	Yes
Supports police body cameras	Yes	Yes
Supports restoring the Voting Rights Act	Calling for security	Yes
Supports Justice Department investigations into local police	No	Yes
Supports training programs to reduce bias in police departments	Yes	Yes

SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS

ISSUES	Donald Trump	Hillary Clinton
Believes Obama’s Supreme Court nomination should move forward	No	Yes
Would re-nominate Obama’s choice for justice	No	Perhaps

Those were the stands of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on major political, social and economic issues.

I urge every eligible American to go out and vote on November 8. No matter your choice, each vote will count for the future of the United States and the entire world.

It’s your turn, Americans. Get up and vote!