Medical Note

I was ambiguous of my first note, simply because I have lost interest in many fields including medical matters.

1. I lost interest in politics after 50 years of its observation globally.
2. Then I lost interest in religion, that dated back to my childhood but hiding behind the masses who follow one or other form of it. Then after my retirement from active work, this resurfaced in vigour, questioning their contribution to humanity.
3. Then I lost interest in helping (not empathy) the beggars. My idea of creating (including political, I prefer a different word sounding similar but would be nice here) a beggar in any form is counterproductive.
4. Then, to keep me occupied I stared feeding all the dogs, where ever I meet then.
5. Finally, I developed a keen interest in birds after noting disappearance of sparrows, that made me to visit Bird’s Park in Singapore. Then I developed the idea of making bird friendly environment.The cats (snakes,too) are their biggest enemies but the biggest impact is from unregulated agricultural poisoned dished out that get deposited in the ovaries and eggs.
6. Finally Coronavirus came in and it made me to wake up from slumber, as it was.
7. By the way, this piece is medical.
8. We were taught to be very careful when dispensing steroids due to many (some exaggerated) of its side effects. After the loss of two children who were under my care (due to D.J.V.P insurrection in 1989) who could not reach me (cell phones were not available then) physically, I totally revised my policy globally, in Ceylon and abroad dishing out steroids, (especially Dexamethasone) liberally. A reserve course (dose depending on the individual) of steroids was given to each deserving family, with an instruction to take first dose and see any available (Typed Note was dispensed, no computers then) medical person (do not go on looking for me). The reason is, their is delay in action of steroids 8 hours or more. This saved many an agony to many of my patients. Now Coronavirus, there is no treatment. At least to avoid respiratory complications that result from various kinds of interleukins, a fast and furious (this new terminology of mine, furious to mean large and aggressive dose of steroids) dose of dexamethasone should be given, (not chloroquine) with the onset of respiratory symptoms, and if need arises a course of antibiotics.
9. This will SAVE lot of lives.

Honey Bird Nest

Honey Bird Nest

Mathematical Analysis of Politics in a Nutshell

  Mathematical Analysis of Politics in a Nutshell

1.Every thirds person did not bother to cast his or her vote.

In other words 3 out of ten.

2. Every third person does not have a representative of his or choice.

In other words 3 out of ten but two out of three have a representative of choice.

In other words 7 out of ten.

3. 12 million out of 16 million did bother to vote.

In other words 4 million stayed at home.

4. 5% out of the total 76% voting public had destroyed or incorrectly marked the ballot paper.

In other words 1 out of 20 does not give a scant regard to its validity (staying at home was a better option).

A (5%) statistically significant figure.

5. Election commissioner and his team has done a wonderful job of putting out this data accurately within 10 to 11 hours of counting which is a creditable task.

I wish our super-grade public servant Mahinda Deshapriya and his brother Sunanda Deshapriya (old time leftist politician) in political wilderness in USA happy retirement out of politics in Ceylon.

In a way, the voter has closed the door for democracy by his own wish for a long time to come.

You cannot complain but bite the teeth or dust, in return.

Active opposition is the live wire of democracy but that little kindle has extinguished, after 70 years of vibrant but eventful history of our politics.

 

Outlook on Life and World View

Now that I have given a list of probabilities and possibilities in life in general as described by others, including religious leaders, if I do not put my own outlook and perspective, here, I am doing an injustice to this blog site where I have raised even the possibility or probability of aliens living among us using shape shifting technology.
 
I am scientific in outlook and generally empathetic to the down trodden man on the street, and certainly, in a way of Carl Marx ideology but quite liberal in attitude to somebody like Bertrand Russel (borrowed ideas from them liberally).
Charles Darwin was a hero to me and I generally hated the Church but never showed it externally, except leaving the Catholic school abruptly, causing concern to my parents.
I cannot remember the details of my early childhood.
I hated the cloak that the priests wear.
I was forcibly put in a dark room by one of them, probably due to trespassing law of the church.
I neither feared the guy nor the dark treatment.
Then, I was thrown out of the class by the Bible class master, for asking probing questions.
Then from outside during the morning break, I told my friends to ask more probing questions, and eventually all Buddhist children were thrown out and while my Christian friends toiled in the class we played, "catch me if you can" type of games.
By the way, I excelled in short distance running, and the school was known for producing long distance endurance runners.
I had a good friend, named Donald Williams, a Jaffna Tamil, who remained in the class due to his good upbringing and conservatism.
I abruptly left the school and my friend within a month back to Jaffna.
If I remember right, his father was a school inspector of those days.
He kept in touch with me and he failed (would have been a better doctor than me) to enter the medical school.
He ultimately left to Australia, may be to have "one final go" at medicine but failed to keep in touch, like most of my friends who have migrated.
If goals (in his case, father who was a school inspector) were set for children at an early stage, when they fail they go into a core.
My friend Donald in my assessment would have made a model professor of medicine, if he was left to go on his own pace.
I was offered double promotion twice.
I declined, simply because, I did not want to break up with my class friends who were more valuable to me, even to this day, than the teachers of my time. 

Their assessment of me was precise. 
 
I helped two guys who had higher goals having failed the advanced level twice.
I emphasized the need to enter the university as the goal and not to worry about the career.
One entered medicine and had enormous problems including alcoholism but made it through with my tutoring.
The other who failed, has a PhD from America.
I hated PhD, for me a non-returner (just like in Buddhist terminology of achieving the supreme goal) with limited scope.
I cannot remember the questions I raised, probably not philosophical but topical of the day.
I did not like my mother trying Pali stanza on me, either.
I may have asked "Do a kid at my age who was uncorrupted need  the Christian Theology against a simple but budding scientist?"
 
There was again then the Conspiracy of the Church, of conversion and offering government jobs preferentially to Christians.
There was political movement or anti- Christian movement, by Buddhist guys.
I felt they were mad hatters, equally bad.
These guys promoted national dress which I hate to present day.
To me these guys are stupid and intolerant sometime worse than the Church.
Coming to the national dress I new a guy from a leading Buddhist school, who for his own arrogance (he was much junior but a guy with perseverance, if not intelligence) wanted to wear the national dress to the block.
If he asked me then, I would have not only discouraged but physically obstructed him entering, the block.
All done before I knew it.
He made a hash of things and his goal to be part of the medicine department was thwarted by his own stupidity.
The conservatism was deeply ingrained in our time and attacking it from front end was detrimental.
Even back end was not possible.
He was not shortlisted for any of the the permanent or seconded posts with me applying and I had to withdraw five of the six applications, finally waiting until department of pathology felt vacant.
That, I got it by pleading the Secretary of Health, that I hated pathology, please do not send me there.
I got the appointment in double quick time.
Whereas, the guy was not called for a single interview.
He came to see me and asked for help. I said I am not a university guy but seconded officer from health on temporary basis.
On his perseverance, I asked him to apply to biochemistry department, depleted with medical guys with all chemistry graduates who hated me because, I would stand up to them, and in person on medical matters.
He was selected to the permanent staff on probationary basis.
I can remember then, the Dean under whom I was working, asking me about him of his reliability.
I said his goal is medicine and not biochemistry, investing on research under him is liability for the university money, hard to come by then under NM and Sirima.
He had no idea of a research project and one day, he came to me again.
I asked him to come back in two weeks.
I told him to study relationship of grey hair to thyroxine, which he did and I scrutinized his writing before it was presented.
It was accepted by the researched committee without any corrections.
He, within six months disappeared and did not have the courtesy to tell me.
No surprise at all to me.
Years later, he came for a guest lecture in the same department and I was the only listener in the audience.
He was shocked but we had a cup of tea at the canteen and that was the last time I saw him.
The Church press its buttons to a degree and no more.
I would have been expelled from the school but they did not.
I made my own decision to leave the school abruptly, making it easy for them.
These movements probably had made me to be critical of all religions and they could not change my inborn scientific quests.
Even, though, I joined a leading Buddhist school in the city, I can claim that I learned the first few vulgar vernaculars there but in defense of the Christian school, not a single vulgar word but all the niceties to fellow beings.
I did have a liking for Karma (but I want it happening in present tense than in the future tense), in other words its objectivity, in real time and terms.
I was not comfortable with rebirth, since I have to kick the bucket to enjoy it.
Being a medical man for me this life with all its limitations is better to hold onto than give it up lightly.
In that sense, I strongly oppose suicide and euthanasia, even my own dog.

So rebirth was itching point of context.

Having said that, I have had minimal premonition or few deja vu feeling of wanting to go to a country like New Zealand.
Though, the period I spent there was very short, nevertheless, very eventful in real life terms.
I have a strange familiarity with United Kingdom and finding jobs with frequent changes was not to my liking.
For some reason I wanted to leave U.K. and strangely enough ended up down under N. Z.
Just in speculation, not in any way by rationalization, I have a strange feeling of familiarity of having been there in a past life.
For Ceylon, except for lovely warm weather, stunning scenery, waterfalls and large array of birds, I have some aversion, probably due to violent  politics and the ungainly antics of Buddhist monks.
In other words, I am ambivalent about life, rebirth and Kamma, altogether, an unwelcome affliction to all forms of religions.
I do not want to be labeled an atheist but a free thinker with scientific bend.

Peril of Democracy and US Riot Commission Report

It is over 50 years from the 1967 Racial Riots in US and it looks like history repeating itself.
I am not sure how I managed to get a copy of the book (second hand).
It is a comprehensive report, the credit should go to President Lyndon B Johnson for its initiation and the commission members for their impartial reporting.
The book was made available for worldwide distribution because of its political importance.
Ceylon was known for its Racial Riots, well before America and we never get to see even the shoddy reports to read or how the recommendations were implemented.
Our Racial Riots were in 1950s, a decade before America.
We had Buddhist monks plotting to kill politicians, in the name of Buddha-Rakkitha, who was lethal to Dhamma and Politicians.
We had a monk who probably did not kill (I think Ossei Corea did) sent to gallows by concocted evidence or faked evidence.
End result included protracted civil unrest and excesses on both sides.
We have had Whahabi Influenced church and hotel bombing, lately.
The end result is we are shifting towards a military control or government.
The peril of Democracy and some Buddhist monks see it as the failure of the democracy and give blessing to invoke a  military administration.
The book highlights the problem that the black people have.
It projects the black population to almost double by about 1987 to nearing 25 millions.
Their problems include poor housing, overcrowding, unemployment and increasing crime and segregation in metropolitan cities ringed by suburbs where 100% whites are domiciled.
Obama has come and gone but have they read this book and initiated remedial actions?
I think, Big No. 

The Democrats are using blacks and browns as their block vote bank for coming to power. 
 
They would do some patch work but won't have a solution to stop segregation, in ghettos in 1967 but now in metropolitan cities including Washington.
My simile here is Ceylon.
Will America also might slip into military hardware and software?
Democracy at peril both here and America.
Sure, some guys here want to emulate suppressive Chinese regime in China and Hong Kong in Ceylon.
 
I do not think America want to slip and ride into authoritative or military administration.
 
Beware!
 
History is unpredictable both here and far.

Why I have decided to boycott watching CNN?

Very simple.
It is partisan and never any balance in reporting.
Journalists never show any professionalism.
The supporting anchors and participating guys/girls are even worse.
No intellectual inputs but same dumb arguments.
The tipping point was a democratic women of Asian origin whose attack on the Attorney General (who is a public servant) was premeditated and blunt.
To stifle and not to hear the counter arguments.
I cannot see how these women over 80 never consider retiring from politics.
I guess they have no home or children have left them in disgust.
No motherly instinct at all but like witches in children stories.
If they come into power it is disaster for America.
If American politics is so fissured or fractured Putin who is becoming unpopular in Russia gets a political bonus.
I won't miss anything for the next 6 months, not watching CNN.
Same old rigmarole.
My advice for President is to ignore them and focus bashing WHO to begin with and their cohorts in China spreading virus all over the world.
I think airlines, especially Singapore Airline was the major factor spreading the virus.
With positive pressure needing for maintaining an adequate oxygen supply, filtering air of the virus is near impossibility.
Ceylon was saved by Singapore Airline having limited service and due to bankruptcy of Sri-Lankan Airways.
All most 99% of the infected patient came by airlines to Ceylon.
With impending large scale spread in India, we are going to get boatloads of infected patients from India.
Chinese workers except party guys are treated like slaves without democratic norms.
They are going to destroy Honk Kong, too.
All good work of UK down the drain.
BBC News in the meantime raised its standard including weather reporting.

Sensing the New Look of my Blog

Sensing the New Look of my Blog.

It is a dull day today due to election with nothing else to do I started looking at the new blogger. It has changed into a web page with minimum effects. Luckily my knowledge of a text page from my thesis writing I got the hang of it.

It seems like  Google is crunching on web resources. One can customize it to a very limited extent and I cannot remove the label (which I did not put) on the right hand side.One cannot delete them or edit them to begin with. What I did was to hide them (that means the label function is lost). Fortunately my cell phone has better look of the page and the SwiftKey I use for typing does more than what an average keyboard does. I am a keyboard addict and it is making my working easy without typos and errors.The cell phone induces me to make lot of errors and I have to work around them, so that my friends who read them ignore my writing thinking I am gone mad.

Anyway its preview (which I never use ) view keep me in right mind and sense.

It is difficult for an geriatric to work around them but I will survive.

In any case I would retire from this passion soon and enjoy life watching birds in my neighborhood.

Letters and Applications

This amazing Application And Letter Writing from Playstore, helps one to edit prepared formats.

Applications and Letters

Download this amazing Application And Letter Writing from Playstore for easy writing.
This application has prepared letters for editing.
Pretty good at my age.

How I registered myself as a List MP?

It is not easy to become a elected member or MP.
 
It is even difficult to become a List MP
 
Let me describe the protocol.
I got a registered letter from a New Party of Origin (N. P. O. for short) to say, I got to come to the parliament on the 10th of August for registration.
 
This was interesting, I did not register for any party and I do not even have a valid vote.
I gave a call to the secretary, that there was a big mistake made, inadvertently. 

In other words a major error made.
 
Then, she said my name is the last in the list and I have been selected as a valid nominee.

How come?
She said they frankly did not expect as many MPs elected as have happened, in the election.
My name was selected randomly from a current Web page and she forgot to inform me in advance.
She reminded me to bring  certified copies of birth certificate, married certificate, national identity card, certified copy of passport photo and interestingly a certified copy of my father's or mother's death certificate.

She said, if I have any affidavits to support any other names not listed by the election commissioner, if I have any, please let me bring them in addition.
 
I told her I have many affidavits to that claim, and I am the same and the only currently existing guy.
I immediately booked an early morning train ticket for me and a guy to help me, in case I am incarcerated in the lobby of the Parliament.
The list of the affidavits:
1. My name ends with ke but the name in the Election Commissioner's list was ka.
Certification to the effect of ke=ka.
2. Certification of ASB=SBA, of the initials.
3. Certified copy by the election commissioner that I was in the List MPs List.
4. Certified copy from the N. P. O. that I was in their list.
5. By 9.30am we reached the parliament. 
It was a very busy place.
We were not allowed in, since my name was not in the list which the security officer had.
6. I was asked to go to the secretary of the Parliament and get a certified letter to enter my name into the main list.
I had to pay Rs. 5000/=
Special paper Rs.2999/=.
Rs. 2000/= as default fee for the cheque I tendered. 
I do no why 2999 and what happens to the extra rupee!
7. I had to get a letter from the additional secretary for my name to be added in the list for August 10, on the main secretary's list.
8. After about 2 hours, I was called in.
9. I was asked to go to the election commissioner's office and get a new copy supporting my election.
10. I went there,  the officers were nice.
They told me to bring two new affidavits to support the claim, and one for their own records and one to be given to the parliament secretary.
11. I requested 3 copies (one for my record keeping) and paid Rs. 3000/=.
12. Armed with all these, we went back to the parliament.
I gave the extra copy to my agent for safe keeping.
13. I was asked have you been an Ex-MP?
NO.
I was asked to stay in the lobby but my friend was not allowed.
I was asked to pay Rs. 30,000/=.
That included default fee of Rs. 5000/=, which I did not pay, since we had three hour waiting for approval of my agent to sign, as a witness.
14. I had to appoint my friend as my personal secretary and get his name certified as my agent, by the Parliament secretary.
Went back to secretary again.
After three hours, of delay (they were on lunch break), and I got my agent registered. 

By the way, in this country even the dead casts the vote. 
 
They collect all the death certificates and send them to each polling agent.
They have a way about this operation, which I am not privy to.
Yes, when I checked my father in law, long gone had voted, before my checking, the officer at the polling booth.
 
I decided to Not to register my name over 20 years, claiming that I was abroad.
15. My friend had a bright idea.
Let us go and celebrate in the Liqueur Lounge.
We went there and we're told only for registered and Ex-MPs.
What about a soft drink?
No, the answer.
One nice guy there offered us two bottled water from a large bin as compliments.
We collected them and wanted to go to the loo for a vee, vee.
16.There was a big queue of about 500 guys there, all fully douched in alcohol, lining up for a vee, and some on their way veering and veeing.
 
We did not go to the lady's side.
I looked at the watch 2.30pm and decided to rush to the railway station.
As I was peeing, I woke up.
Yes, it was a dream.
Yes I had this dream, because I was holding my urge to vee in my sleep.
 
It was a matter of sleep or dream or vee, vee.

Value, Design and Future Perspective

Our current value will decide the basis of our intended design of the future.
If we go on, without objective/s, we would end up, in a blind alley.
This is so in economics, politics and even worse, socially.
 
It is pretty obvious in Ceylon and US we are heading for the cliff edge.
 
Sometimes, I think we are going backward, politically.
Simply because we do not have potent democratic values and a correct political design of flexibility. 

We are groping in the dark. 
 
The movement is generally, unidirectional and never multidimensional and that is also only towards the future and not the current predicament exposed by the Coronavirus.
I have no inclination on probing these biological, economic and social arenas.
There are lot of guys already driving their efforts including Dr. Fauci, valiantly in many fields including immunology.
 
I need to say few words about him here, for posterity.
His dress is smart.
His sporting hat was fitting but not his throw.
I believe, the ball given to him had lead weight in it.
Should have given him a tennis ball.
His composure was solid, in spite of many political slips, only rivaling President.
His scientific design and presentation were excellent.
His composure was solid and remarkable.
 
He does not go, round about way like politicians.
The recent senate hearing or review was indictment on all the CNN journalists, making their own political slips through, not the scientific know how.
Now, I prefer, more of abstract dimensions that will even envy Steven Hawking.
However, it would fit in with the 5 dimensions out of the 13 postulated in mathematical dimensions.
 
That will leave me dark energy and dark matter and shape shifting technology to ponder and send me to the nearest galaxy outside our own, at least in theoretical sense.

World View or Net of Views

 World View or Net of Views

There are 62 views about  this world and other world systems that the mankind and other celestial beings have postulated.
Interestingly, there are 31 celestial beings described that is half of the doctrines mentioned. 

What this mean is, in every celestial location, there are two groups one opposing the view and one supporting it.
 

So going to any of these celestial domains, one has to live in eternal conflict. 
 
This is where I prefer to have no doctrine, at all, not even one concocted by me personally for my own consumption.
 

I personally prefer truncating this to 20.

Twenty is the arbitrary base I use to recognize, the biodiversity on a particular location.
This is the base 2 multiplied by log base 10, the minimum number of scientific observations, for my own roof top garden environment. 

Any additional criteria do not add to the diversity of views.
 

Imagine each one of the 6 billion wants to create his her own ideology.
The Internet will come to a standstill.
 

So numbers do matter!
 

I must state that these ideas are created in the minds of recluse or meditators, which were never scientifically validated. 

In other words mental opinions of some sort, may be illusions, may be delusions.
 
If I was given full authority, I would have scaled them down to four or five. 

I keep the figure 20 to give a wider birth of respectable opinions and refutation.
 

Since, I have only attacked or disagreed with only one view, and that is also, The Church Dogma, it is a bounden duty for me to expose the 61 other views in existence in this world and beyond.
 

I do not belong to any view but as an enquirer I list those world views here, for completeness sake. 

According to this system there are at least 31 types of beings including, humans, Gods, Brahmas and Maha Brahma. 
 
By the way, our dog who left us, is in heaven, currently acting as the Acting Maha Brahma.
 

Maha Brahma is on an eternal leave counted in eons.
 

The whereabouts of him is unknown and the current predicament in America is solely due to his absence.
 

I have intimated our dog who is currently acting by an email not to get involved in US politics. 

All these doctrines are based on speculation of the past and or the future of the self and the world systems.
 

18 speculations are based on the past experience whether one believes in rebirth or not. 

44 are based on the future rendering of lives of beings innumerable in existence. 

Not only mankind but there is adequate room for existence of aliens. 
 
No mention of lower beings, demons and devils. 

1. In summary there are 4 views about eternalism of the self and of the world.
These are based on remembering past lives. 

2. Then there are 4 views about partial eternity.
Maha Brahma and other Brahmas reside in these worlds outside our system and are the owners of this philosophy.
 

The Church Dogma resides within these four with a creator like Hindu Maha Brahma. 
 
3. Then there are 4 views about finite and infinity of the world systems.
I think rationalists of some kind fit in here, not Ceylonese rationalists. 

4. Then there are 4 doctrines of endless equivocation.
That is only 16 so far. 

5. There are 2 views about fortuitous origination.
These are the beings without body but mind only.
The absence of body makes them to proclaim these two doctrines. 

6. Then there are 16 grounds for percipient existence of immortality making the total 34.

7. Then there are 8 grounds to non-percipient immortality of existence making the total 42. 

8. Then there are 8 neither percipient or non-percipient entities making a total of 50.

9. Then there are 8 doctrines of annihilationism.
This is the denial of all other doctrines.
 

The total is 57 now. 

10. The doctrine of Nibbana here and now are the last 5 of the doctrines, making the total 62.

These 5 are the Meditative experience of the goal Nibbhana.
1. Nibbhana with sensual spheres.
2. Contemplation in first Jhana.
3. Contemplation in the second Jhana.
4. Contemplation in the third Jhana.
5.Contemplation in the fourth Jhana. 

There is no mention about the fifth Jhana. 
 
Having gone through this list of 62, I have decided to remain here and now as a simple being, trying to avoid any insult by Coronavirus. 

None of the above Gods or Brahmas are going to help me, except perhaps a mask and regular hand washing. 
 
I was one who was obsessed with washing hands but for over 45 years, I could not achieve that goal in this world, including the West.

I have refereed an article in 2009, where British women were classified as the dirtiest of all.
 

Not males or guys! 
 
Now I have substituted this protocol with a single glove in one hand with one in my front shirt pocket. 

I now avoid politician's method of distance worship with both hands in air (greetings from a distance to the voter), by default fearing contamination of my glove from my non glove wearing hand.
 
What an evolution of habit in my life time.
 
The immune antidote is yet to be discovered and all energies in the world are towards that goal and the entire economy of the world is going to shrink and collapse.

I want China to collapse first paying the way for democratic means for the masses. 
 
I think the Coranavirus might just as well do that in China, a drastic change to the regimental administration. 

The correct term is modern slavery.

Is the Use of Cell Phone a good tool on mitigating pandemics?

The cell phone is a tiny computer.
It can be used to spread fake news.
Equally, it can be used as a tool to gather data and emerging trends, globally.
Let me start with a current trend of journalists.
I was appalled by the female representative's aggressive behaviour towards the American Attorney General.
Politicians trying to steam role public servants should be deprecated.
Equally CNN journalists were appalling and obsessed with medical matters, that they knew very little. 
 
Opinions and facts are two different things. 
 
Manipulating data is the name of the game (fed up with the useful drug chloroquine, that even the malaria parasite has developed resistance  to ). 

I am appalled by even the medical guys (except perhaps, Sunjaya Gupta) who appear on television.
By the way, BBC weather reporting is excellent and the all guard of mature journalists coming up presenting news (without Coranavirus and Politics) in an enjoyable way.
Good example to all Americans who have become paranoid with politics. 

Coming to the cell phone I have few reservations.
My telephone is just now monitored by Google, while I am blogging this piece.
All most all my blogging is not inflammatory (a pathological term I love as a medical man in retirement). 
I try to inject some scientific notion to good journalism.
My obsession is education and gathering as much valuable data as possible.
The privacy of my opinion is very important to me.
The accuracy of data (not faked) is vital.
The third and foremost how tech- giants use these data for manipulation  of their own agenda and using one sided argument and no balance in reporting. 

Professor Edwards De Bono's lateral thinking come to my mind.
The data get muddled by its own data, is my jargon phrase. 
 
By the way, coronavirus has made me to come out of self-imposed hibernation. 

A balancing act is of paramount importance.

Is the religion a Brain Virus?

I firmly believe that the religion is a Brain virus without specific treatment.
The language evolved very early in evolution.
There are areas of the brain associated with language.
The language is hard wired to brain but religion is not.
There is no god center or religious or moral center for organizing multitude of religions.
It is believed that the second language is localized to the opposite side of the brain to that of the native language.
The form of the languages (phonological, syntactical and semantic are similar) is uniform but why not have them in the same side of the brain?
The answer is simple.

It is hard wired whereas religion has no hard wiring to any part of the brain.
 
With so many religions in existence it would be impossible to accommodate all the religions in the cortical surface of our brain.
Religion probably reside in the sub-cortical regions of where emotion plus or minus fear is generated in response to external inputs.
It is not internalized as with language.
But my real theory is that all religions act as Brain Viruses of incurable nature.
Once it enters the brain it never leaves.
That is the virulence of its behaviour.
I suppose I am not suggesting that we find a treatment for this mania.
Big No.
It is incurable.
We must not allow it to enter the brain in childhood where it stifles the creativity.
Arts and language stimulate creativity but religion stifles any creativity with its dogma.
This is the very reason there is intolerance built into both Christianity and Muslim religions. 

These statements does not reduce the beauty of colossal work of art and creations in the name of religion by Egyptians, Aztecs and Mayans. 
 
This disease of religion started spreading during the last 3000 years.
That is why I say it should not be included (safety for any religion) in the constitution.
The state and religion should be separate and there should not be any special status.
 
The language of course should have a special status especially the link language English.

My Theory of Humonoid Evolution

This was formulated probably 15 years ago, well before the current surge of books on homosapiens.
The theory is based on fixed 50 cell cycles in all mammals.
Linguists claim that all languages share common features.
Basic unit of language which include phonological, syntactic and semantic units are universally used by all languages in construction of communication skills.
In all cultures children quickly and readily learn the sounds and grammatical forms and use them appropriately from very early stages of development.
There is evidence that this capacity to (transmit and receive messages) is an inherited feature of the human brain.
The power of speech come naturally as the child grows (with it the brain maturation) and need not be taught as it is implied by educationalists.
 
Coming to the cell cycle story, the sudden increase in brain size probably suggests that the emergence of language may have begun less than million years ago, perhaps less than half a million. The rapidity of evolution over time could account for the doubling of of brain size by addition of one further cell division in the sequence of some 30/40 mitosis that exists between the first cleavage and the cessation of division in the nervous system giving 10 to 100 billion cells altogether (The total of 10'14 cells in an adult after 45 cell cycles).
The total cell cycle in human is around 50 cell cycles altogether.
The selective advantage that bestow on humans far outweighed the number/size of the brain that followed this unexplained episode in evolution.
The acceleration and improvement in communication in late stages of evolution gave rise to 'recording the new found tool as wanting' possibly less than 10,000 years ago, corresponding with the discovery of fire and stone tools.
The doubling of cells would have happened before 20 weeks of gestation with proportionate increase in the skull size and its bones most likely cartilage that would have caused premature delivery.
Extension of the theory to first cell division would have given twin births, that itself would have caused premature delivery to begin with.
Along with these cell divisions there would have been relative feminization of the foetus with disappearance of body hair, due either to lack of testosterone sensitivity or the skin segment overlying the rapidly growing skull surface having hair distributed over it, instead of the skin (neuroectodermal in origin) appendage covering the rest of the body.
Considering that the prematurity at least of 4 weeks, the infant would have prolonged nursing period that would have given added advantage of prolonged learning period.
Assuming that the two infants were chosen to be nursed with other nursing mothers which would have encouraged the early vocalization of sounds that were imprinted as it were in the subsequent generations.
All the changes were somatic in nature not needing any drastic mutations as such except that the cell cycle out of place and phase (coming on early) promoting relatively infantile looking (lost of body hair) infant.
The cell cycle out of phase may have contributed profuse hair on the skull and sparing the skin elsewhere (hairless).
One cell cycle out of phase by chance incidence would have caused premature or early pubertal growth and increased fertility and raring of children earlier, assuming both were female infants (lot of assumptions).
The onward shift and the pattern of cell cycle probably remained constant giving this subpopulation a gift of prolonged infantile nursing period in infancy and enhanced fertility when adults. The feminization of this subpopulation would have coincided with less rugged bone structure of the skull that did not hinder vaginal delivery (prematurity+less rugged bone of the skull).
None of the above can be supported by fossil studies and cell cycle shift can even cause advanced senility as well as premature growth and early puberty, considering that the there are only fixed number of cell cycles numbering 50.
It is well known fact with intrauterine growth  retardation that there is a shift of cell cycle with advanced intrauterine maturation and early onset of adult diseases such as hypertension and ishaemic heart disease.
The increase of brain cells from 10 billion to 100 billion increased the intercommunication networks in the brain tremendously facilitating memory, learning capacity and language capabilities.
In summary, doubling of genome occurs rarely and once in every 3 to 5 million years.
The relative absence of similar hominods in evolution could be explained by simple cell cycle shift not needing grand genomic changes to account for our evolution.
We are what we are today not necessarily due to grand scale genomics but due to somatic changes that was brought on by simple cell cycle doubling and shifting its mode.
By the way, the skin colour has no relationship with the above scenarios.
The relationship of one melanocyte to 33 odd keratinocytes is constant.
In other words one melanocyte supplies 33 keratinocytes.
It remained black for very long period and the loss of melananosome melanization that occurred in an unknown time created the present American predicament.
If at all White skin should be considered a genetic insufficiency to withstand radiation injury.

Dogs in heaven and Masters in Hell

Dogs in heaven and Masters in Hell

This piece is overdue by over one year.
Three dogs, a one Muslim, one Christian and one Buddhist all went to heaven and their respective masters went to hell just before the last presidential contest.
Their crimes were related to removing opposing candidate's posters plastered on public places and walls.
The current election commissioner was reprimanded at about the same time by Apaya Director to stop all plastering in public places, lest he will be call to Apaya duty by default (I think Apaya duties will be more honourous than conducting elections in Ceylon).

The three dogs had a plan to rescue their masters bounded duty vested on them by birth right heaven or hell.

The Muslim dog now heavenly bound came to his master and ask him to rescue all pigs in wet market in China and Hong Kong.
The added benefit is that the Coranavirus could be curtailed.
He obliged.
 

The Christian dog came to his master and asked him to change the hard wiring of the brain and criss-crossing of fibers (not the Cross), so that parallel thinking is made possible instead of one god, one big bang and one universe of creation.

Let it be multi-verse.
 
He said OK.

The Buddhist dog came to his mater and asked to save all Jumbos of Asia and Africa.
The special tasks he had in Ceylon were banning elephant parades in the name of Buddha and destroying all the Hashish Cultivation protected by political guys in the name of vegetable gardens.
The electrical fences built hindering free roaming of elephants should all be dismantled.
The master hesitated a bit.

Why?
The election commissioner has  banned all alcohol and hashish sales until the election is over.
 

Can I wait for another 10 days.

OK but hurry up after the election lest the Army commander might claim the ownership of eradicating drugs in this blessed land.
 
By the way, the police also vie for accolades.

Scripture or Stricture?

Both Scripture and Stricture by appointed authority have no valid currency to deal with man's predicament with Coronavirus.
But good hygiene and restricted behaviour may curtail the virus.
It is interesting to see, when Turkish are bent on turning a Church to a mosque, when Church itself is feeling the pinch of the Coronavirus economic downturn and survival.
They are asking money from the government for maintenance.
These colossal structures have no space other than cultural museums for display.
What we need is more schools with lot of space than places of worship that offer no protection from natural but viral causes.
The architecture of the schools have to be redesigned and working hours extended to SHORT sessions of three or more schedules fitted in from 7am to 3pm  like in the all times.
The classes should be small with little context of short duration of 20 minutes.
One can assimilate only first 20 minutes of a standard one hour lecture.
The sermons, including Dhamma should be of 5 minutes stanza or psalms.
Lot of space should be (Intranet Not Internet) given to software but in a tablet instead of a laptop.
Of course I use my laptop for games and cell phone for blog pieces, with lot of mistkes.
I use SwiftKey, which is pretty elegant but adds its weight by way of corrections.
That was the reason for lot of mistakes.
Our Internet was severed due to outstanding non payment (was not due to financial reasons but due to the virus scare, I did not go to the city to pay bills) of bills.
I instead used the cellphone for blogging.
An interesting development.
In this scenario big books should be put on fire which I have started already.
With Internet the library as a place of learning may cease and they should be turned to museum pieces.
What I mean is that places of worship has no meaning in this century.
All religious places will naturally die a slow death except for small ceremonies (birth, wedding and death).

John Lewis death signifies what a gap there is.
Why blacks have separate Churches in USA?
 
Is the god white, black or brown?
 
I ponder and wonder.

Why these Avalanche of Ideas in this post?

A simple reason is that I read an interesting book by a guy with the gift of writing.
His writing was on a big presumption that science has captured all the mankind's ills, as they were poverty, famine and illness, including infections.
He is not a medical man but a writer.
The Coranavirus has broken his scientific premise.
So keeping an open mind is vital for our survival not politically incorrect gimmicky.

Is the religion an extreme of identity crisis?

I believe the religion was created to overcome the fear of the unknown.
The popular mysteries were earth quakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and cyclones.
Instead of relief it perpetuated more and more of fear.
Original sinners sin was passed down to the rest.
In addition, the fear of the god's recrimination and punishment was introduced as an institution.
There should be an antithesis to this fear mongering.
Then the emancipation would come automatically.
I tend to believe Sir Bertrand Russel, that religion created more harm than good.
It is time to abandon all religions.
Unfortunately Turkey the seat of most of the original thinkers origin is going back to all dogma of Mohammedans.
 
Capturing the museum was a big Original Mistake.

Is language redundant in critical thinking?

I think the language (apart from communication) was created to give a form of reference to the magnitude of lies mankind has propagated during the written history about 7000 years or less.
In the evolution of language the words of expression became very expansive.
Instead of separation of reality (if there is such thing) from personal perception or intuition, the two became entangled without an escape route for both.
The idea became idealism owned by the proponent of the idea, entrapping the owner in a self-propagating dogma.
 
Instead of language of wisdom, the the language of confusion took its roots.
 
The language of confusion and the intended lies gave birth to dogmas of various kinds including the institutionalized dogma of the Church.

One way entry with no return.
 
Words of confusion and lies rule the world today.
 
When will the world escape from this bondage to faked news and prejudice?

Is the mind a wave or particle?

Mind is a mystery.
Putting it on the electromagnetic spectrum as an agent of energy is not really out of place.
If it responds to the physical brain, then it ought to be in particle form.
If it is independent of the brain's electrical signal system, as a particle it ought to manifest itself as a wave.
Or is it neither particle nor wave?
Or is it outside the spectrum of energy?
 
If it is not a form of energy "What the hell it is"?

Is there is something called "Good Research"?

I think that good research is vital for human progress.
To begin with a proper evaluation of the current situations and themes of interest is mandatory.
The proposed theme should not be any longer than, that is necessary for the proposed 'context' to be validated or refuted on a future date with more refined data.

The bottom line is that the currently available data should not be massaged or faked to satisfy the proposed argument.
 
An open system of thought 'devoid' of hidden agenda is of paramount importance.

Is there a limit to analysis?

How did we get here intellectually?
It was philosophy to begin with.
Right questions were the beginning.
But we never got the right answers, to begin with.
Lots of dogmas had to be insinuated.
But one dogma remained institutionalized.
That is the Church who had the authority to stifle the questioning.
The strictures had the upper hand in answering any question that was raised.
But strictures never revised its dogma or abandoned the God and His creative power.
Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin and many others had the observation power and analysis which gave way to scientific thinking.
The testing ability to test a hypothesis came much later.
Can the science answer all the questions?
From Newton to Einstein to Hawkins dabbled with Singularity to explain but we are yet to arrive at the final goal.
Are we stuck now?
I would use Buddha's approach here.
Buddhist way of life is to reach the ultimate goal or Nibbana.
It is like a boatman crossing a river.
Once one has reached the land he anchors the boat to the boathouse and carry on regardless.
He need not carry the boat on his shoulders.
We need to drop all philosophical dogmas to begin with.
Then the god and his creation dogma.
I think we need to drop the scientific dogma, too.
Not absolutely, but at least until we find a solution to Coranavirus, we need to keep some form of science in our arson or tools.
 
My belief is that science as we see it has limitations.
We gather data visually or instrumentally.
Instruments at least visual are limited by the speed of light.
We are still unable to beat the light barrier, as with sound barrier.
New Science would emerge once the Light Barrier is broken.
Then dark matter and dark energy will be at our dispensation.
Beating the dark energy barrier should be our next target.
But we must beat the light barrier to begin with.
The light dogma is next to be left at the boat house.

Do the journalists act like professionals?

The simple answer is, No.
Almost 99% of them are not.
I will dish out American journalists.
CNN journalists have become democratic candidates.
Dish out material in favour of Democrats.
Fox News is basically an extension of the Republican arm.
White House correspondents are reading prepared material probably not wanting to dispense with the Three Course Meal that they love to be a part of and partake them with academic flair.
On the whole no balanced reporting.
This is true with BBC, too, except the weather reporters growing old who mix technical words with simple English.
I love their (weather reporters) presentations.
That is the only reason I watch BBC.
News is simply Coranavirus reporting and politics and nothing more.
No wonder their ratings had hit rock bottoms.
Coming to Ceylonese Media and reporting, they seem to vomit out the propaganda of a particular party.
That is also the party boss and not the ordinary guys/girls at grass root level.
Weather reporting hopelessly out of date.
If they say sunshine, I will make sure, I carry an umbrella and if rain forecasts, if they dish out, I drop the umbrella, vise versa.
The paper is usually reedited old piece by an octagenerian who is politically more close to the grave than current events.
This is not due to lack of technology but due to fear of recrimination by the political masters and the editors who surrender the academic freedom to government advertisements.
They survive on the advertisements and not the sales of the paper.
Few journalists have joined together with little money and produced ANIDDHA but it dwindled with the Coranavirus.
Political parties put their literature on our letter box.
I use them to fire up the refuse bin collection, without reading them.
Coranavirus has shown the impotence of the of our politicians both in power and opposition.
If not for the paid up advertisements we won't know who we are voting for?
Regarding Trump, I love his antics, especially against China and impotent WHO.
As a medical man, I am independently critical of its role.
WHO should not be a breeding ground for ageing technocrats of Africa and Asia.
However, I have posted all their recommendations (not crisp in dispensation) in this site for my future reference.
Our journalists have one mode of language, either Sinhala or Tamil.
No versatility in English at all.
SWRD killed our second language, the versatile and simple English.
By the way, I hate the accent of Indians.
It looks like, the Chinese of Hong Kong are much better (thanks to British) than Indians in handling English.

Are we going backwards?

I firmly believe so.
I am generally optimistic and spread Somanassa or cheer up attitude to life.
For some unknown reason way back in 2015, I thought 2020 would be the year full of optimism, in politics, economics, and social wellbeing.
I worked towards this goal, and in my writings I emphasised the need for such an outlook.
There was a consortium of ideas and most of the people loved this renaissance.
Little I realized that the guys / girls in the forefront (I am not at all surprised) came with ulterior motives.
To eat the political breadcrumbs or rise to posts that they are not suited or qualified.
Maru Sira and Scumbags not only ruined this optimism but played the way for the rejected family ideology to resurface ("then sapai ne the attitude") slowly but increasing in payload.
I never thought in my wildest medical dreams that a virus so insidious can hit us to rock bottom in all spheres including general fear of disease and death.
For some unbelievable reasons, in the 10 of my mysteries viral flu was the last.
I did relatively enough research on this virus and have posted them in this blog site.
The doom and gloom will continue after the completion of the election.
For some unknown reason the birds in my locality had disaster after disaster from cats and the snakes.
The pictures of the bul bul nest and munia nest that were attacked are posted here.
Strangely in January I touched a cobra on its back while opening the post box, inadvertently. I had the presence of mind that I touched it and withdrew gently and when I glanced towards (scale's direction gave me the clue) it's head it gave me a little glance and slipped away to the neighbour's garden.
I was frightened for months.
Then there was this nasty wild bee who was trying to build a comb in the post box.
A little chemical spray holted its intentions but 7 months later it is back again.
If it is a normal bee hive I would have encouraged its building.
In winding up only a single bee landed on my wrist and did a survey for about 20 minutes but it never returned to build a hive.
Things are bad to animals including our Jumbos.

Does political correctness hold its ground?

As I see it, political correctness is a misnomer.
In a magnet opposing poles get polarized.
If there are only two parties, the polarisation is pretty obvious.
The smaller parties like a magnet with less influence would exert its power when positioned well outside the bigger parties.
Very often like a small magnet that get pulled into the bigger magnet, the smaller party get sucked into the bigger party ending its intended role.
What politics does is polarisation of an idea without a the set of tools to utilize the political wisdom to benefit the polity the idea (not the policies) was originally intended for.
It ultimately metamorphasizes to a family brand of buscuits for a single family to enjoy.
The best example is seen in Ceylon.

What is the impact of 2/3rd majority to a functioning government democracy?

The two third majority kills the wisdom of a democratic system.
It leads to anarchy and nepotism.
Is there a way to resuscitate democracy?
Imagine an assembly of 200 members. Suppose a single party or a coalition of parties get a thumping majority.
My proposal is that the winning party/parties should keep 100 plus one vote and donate the others to the opposition.
There is a caveat here.
The opposition should elect 10 "non voting members" excluding the donated ones.
In other words the opposition has 89 votes of discontent to oppose the ruling party/parties.
A no brainer in political wisdom but with an important exception.
In a vital issue the opposition has the right to call the non voting members to aquire the extra vote of the ruling party under its fold making the tally exactly 100.
The result is a tie or stalemate.
The assembly goes into consensus mode of operation.
In this scenario 10 non voting members become the upper assembly of operation once voting power is vested upon them.
This is somewhat of a scientific approach.
I don't think it will ever happen in our august assembly.

Twitter or the munia nest

Twitter nest.
I do not know what happened to the young birds.

Bul Bul nest

This stupid bird made the nest within reach of the snake the predator.

Political economy of finance-capital

 Reproduction

Political economy of finance-capital

June 26, 2020, 5:56 pm

by Kumar David

The hypothesis of this essay is that the current global recession, and the depression which will follow in the middle of the 2020s, arise from the nature of actually existing capitalism in the US and the West; COVID-19 was merely a catalyst. This capitalism, called hegemonic global finance-capital, is not the textbook capitalism of Smith, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill or the amended versions of Keynes and 20th Century economists. All that is called classical economics. Marx’s critique in Kapital-I also relates to the classical version. In the writings of all great economic thinkers and particularly Marx you will find signposts pointing to finance-capital but not a full-blown theory.

The difference is simple and visible all around. One way to illustrate it is to name institutional actors, another is to say "Look at the variance between what the Chinese economy does and what America does". The mega actors in the US economy are banks, investment houses, institutions which buy and sell assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, financiers of commodity trade in oil, food and metals), real estate dealers, currency traders and dealers in funny things called hedges and derivatives. These are the giants; their universal tool the dollar. Ford, General Motors, manufacturers, Standard Oil and Mobil, they are not champs any more. The big shift in power is from production to finance. Power resides in Wall Street, not Detroit or the Appalachian coal fields.

The other way of making the point is to consider the differences between the economic activities of the US and China. The latter is all about production of goods – commodities as they were once called. Its banks and financial institutions are primitive compared to their American counterparts. China still cannot collate, finance and place a mega-billion-dollar transaction in global markets. The biggest investments were negotiated and signed-off, till recently, in Hong Kong (Shanghai and Shenzhen are getting a small slice now). But China is the supreme workshop of the world.

All this is empirical, not a definition of structure. Classical production-led capitalism is well understood. A few keywords will do: Borrow when necessary > invest in plant > procure materials > employ wage labour > MAKE > sell > appropriate a surplus (profit) > compete > do it all again (reproduction). In a healthy economy the cycle grows ever bigger, profits, plants and the economy expand and population swells. England was the great progenitor; then China in four recent decades drew 400 million people from the countryside into an industrial economy - in the process it all but banished poverty. The nitty-gritty of financing, banking, facilitating distribution, transport, insurance and marketing needs an activity structure. Classical capitalism is the totality of the interacting parts of this activity structure; it keeps the production and distribution processes alive.

Of course, from the beginning those who dealt in money only, had a place. Borrow money when necessary I said! But from whom? Investors would be syndicated by banks which managed and underwrote deals. Deposit the profit, accumulate and reinvest, I implied. Financial conglomerates and banks to the fore. Insure, issue letters of credit and so on. Well the East India Company started life as a body of investors did you know?

Finance-capital came into its own when the money part of the economy become dominant; when handlers of money grew more powerful than manufacturers, when bankers conquered industrialists. The theory goes back to Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital published in Vienna in 1910 - he had been propagating it from earlier. The key concepts: a) A huge aggregation of capital had taken place over the decades and capitalism’s structure was no longer the same, b) capital had become monopolist and was no longer competitive, and (c) movements of capital to colonies was opening new vistas (tea plantations say). This last aspect attracted the word imperialism. I am not sure how valid Hilferding’s second point about monopoly is today (Apple vs. Samsung vs. Huawei vs. Sony?). And today the word imperialism is more about military than investment hegemony. His focus on amassed capital and its functioning as the force dominating the economy, however, remain central and cardinal.

The structure and complexity of modern finance-capital is deeper than any analyst before WW2 had foreseen. The nature of recent crisis, particularly the 2008-9 Great Recession and 2020 recession are unlike previous crises which were linked to overproduction, supply-demand imbalance and the ups and downs of the business-cycle. Nor are they similar to the supply-side shock and stagflation conundrum that followed oil price hikes. Instead, recent crises are located in the domain of finance and arise from instabilities in that system itself. In 2009 it started with mortgages, subprime loans and the unravelling of financial derivatives which in turn threatened the very existence of some of the biggest banks in the US and Europe. The world of finance, the structure of financial systems, started coming apart. This was the first ever major collapse of a financial system per se.

If a financial crisis does not originate in supply-demand imbalance, overproduction, loss of markets due to defeat in war, or supply-chain disruption, then what dynamic causes it? It arises from malfunctions of the financial sector itself. Say banks are overstretched by pursuit of excessive lending since as financial institutions they make money only by expanding their balance sheets (recall subprime mortgages); say hedge and investment funds are overstretched as creatures that live in a world of financial speculation and risk taking; say government runs deficit upon deficit and borrows into trillion-dollar indebtedness; say student and credit card debtors are defaulting; say inequity of wealth and income are so large that living standards of most people is falling. Then what?

Hyman Minsky’s answer was this. There will be a god-almighty psychological collapse (the Minsky Moment) because the very inmates of the financial universe will panic and lose confidence due to accumulation of risk. They will dump what they can making things worse. The central bank will panic and burn the midnight oil running its printing presses (they call it Quantitative Easing QE). It doesn’t get better after a few ups and downs; eventually recession turns into depression. The Great Depression of the 1930s devastated manufacturing, agriculture and mining but it too, psychologically, was sparked off by events in the financial sector – a wrong turn on interest rates in that case.

Nissan Motor Co may close down in USA; the biggest car rental Hertz has filed for bankruptcy - it also owns Thrifty and Dollar. The biggest Trucking company Comcar which has 4,000 trucks has filed for bankruptcy so has America’s oldest retailer JC Penny. The Biggest investor in the world Warren Buffet lost $50 billion in the last two months and the biggest investment company in the world Blackrock which manages $7 trillion is signalling disaster. The biggest mall, Mall of America, has stopped making mortgage payments. Emirates is laying off 30% of its workforce.

It is estimated by website https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/retailers-reel-commercial-landlords-issue-thousands-default-notices which I cannot vouch for that 12,000 to 15,000 businesses will close. These well-known retailers have announced closure: J. Crew, Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Forever-21, Walgreens, Sears (can’t be!), Nordstrom, Macy’s (what!), Bose, Kmart and more. I find all this hard to believe but that’s what the web says. And to rub salt into these wounds, massive mortgage loan defaults, credit card defaults and auto loan defaults are expected. Unemployment claims reached an all-time high of 40 million out of a 160 million working population. When people are broke consumer demand falls and the economy goes into a conventional production-cycle type recession, then a depression. GDP will decline by 5.2% world-wide in 2020; US GDP will fall by over 6%. I don’t see much sign of an upturn in early 2021. There will be a see-saw in 2021-Q3/Q4, maybe into 2022/23, but the die is cast. There is no logic or reason why a money printing, money speculating system of finance-capital can recover health or hegemony.

The economic universes of the 1930s and the 2020s are vastly different from each other; their trajectories will diverge but I am reproducing graphs of 1930s economy in America to make a few points. The huge rise in unemployment and the collapse of the stock market (DOW) first in 1930-32 and then in 1937 is what is called the two W-shaped recessions which straddled the Great Depression. Unemployment in the US right now is not much below 20% and this is not far from the worst in late 1933. However, while in the 1930s stock prices were depressed right now all stock indices are going through the roof reaching record highs – asset price inflation. How different! This is a specific feature of how the Fed is responding differently to crises in the era of finance-capital; it is ‘going monetary’ like crazy. Collapse in the era of finance-capital invokes mad money printing and zero interest rates since central banks have no other tools to respond with.

However, the crucial difference between the Great Depression and the current crises of finance-capital is not economic contraction but debt. Yes, the economy contracted -8% (1930), -6% (1931) and a whopping -14% in 1932. The expected contraction in 2020 will be -6% to 6.5% and most likely 2021 will also be a bad year but the really significant difference is that from as early as 1932 debt declined from as high at 260% of GDP to below half this ratio by 1940. Conversely debt (US and global) is going through the roof now. Capitalism knows how to address crises in the era of finance-capital only by gigantic financializaton. In rough numbers US National (government) debt will stand at $24 trillion at the end of 2020 and the corresponding figures for Household (personal) debt is $16 trillion. Corporate debt is hard to pin down as it depends on what you include; it could be anything between $35 trillion and $70 trillion. Using $50 trillion as a compromise for Corporate debt, the total indebtedness of all sectors combined in the US is about 400% of GDP!

It is reasonable to keep an open mind about how the global economic pendulum will swing; inflation or deflation, inflationary or deflationary stagflation, and international spread or containment thanks, hopefully, to China’s economy holding firm. We are in uncharted waters and the responses of central banks is unpredictable and utterly unconventional because bank overlords themselves are muddled and jinxed. We also need to bear in mind that the world economy in this century is intricately interconnected – globalisation, global supply chains and finance. The worst of the Great Depression was confined to the Americas and Europe, the rest of the world was sheltered. Not so this time; it will hit the poor with the force of a Richter Scale 9.9 earthquake.