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Money printing and inflation

2011-05-11T00:08:00.002+05:00

The single biggest issue everyone has on their mind right now is probably the rising cost of living. Protest from 'youth' and others have called on the government to somehow reduce the rising costs. It seems that, no one has actually adequately explained to the public, what actually is going on, and why things are getting more expensive. So let me try.

First, money is a medium of exchange and a store of value. Being a sovereign nation, we (as in government) creates our currency Rufiyaa. The notes on itself has no intrinsic value[1]. The only value the Rufiyaa has is the fact that people accept it in exchange for other goods and services.

Secondly, money is printed by the government and injected in to the economy. People use the money to exchange goods. If not for the money (created by legal tender, or arising naturally), we would be trading in barter.

Suppose I sell a laptop for Rf7000. I have no intrinsic use of the Rf7000, except that I can use those to buy product/service that I need, or save for future use. If there is a higher demand for laptops, the prices tend to rise (just like other goods). Generally, given a quantity of Rufiyaa Q in the economy, the general price level P of goods remain the same (this price level P is reflective of cost of living as measured by various indices such as Consumer Price Index). However, the price level P might change in two ways.

One, if the production of goods keep on increasing, then the price level will generally reduce (given a fixed quantity of Rufiyaa Q). This is because there will be same amount of Rufiyaa chasing more goods, in effect, each Rufiyaa is able to purchase more goods. This is called an increase in the 'purchasing power' of Rufiyaa.

Second, if for some reason the quantity of money Q is increased at a faster rate than the production of goods, then the reverse will happen. Much more Rufiyaa will be chasing same or (slightly increased) goods. This additional demand placed on the goods will cause the prices of goods to rise, ie a rise in the general price level P. In effect, more Rufiyaa will be needed to buy the same good, thus reducing the purchasing power of Rufiyaa.

So how does, and more importantly, why does Q (the quantity of money) increase? There is only one answer: The government prints them![2].

But why? To answer that, we have to look at how governments get money to meet its expenses. Government, gets money from few sources: Taxes/fees, borrowing/loans (local or foreign), foreign aid, printing currency, or leasing/selling assets. To meet its expenses such as wages, infrastructure, loan repayment, etc, it has to get money from one of the above methods. Whatever program of expenses the government has (be it civil service or parliament salary, harbours, pensions etc), the government has to engage in one or more of the above means to finance its expenses, for which the public will ultimately have to pay.

If the expenses of the government can be met with revenues (via taxes/fees), then there is no need to resort to other methods. It is only when the government expense is more than its revenue (ie. when it has a deficit budget), that the government has to resort to borrowing or printing of money. Some argue that there is nothing inherently wrong[3] with borrowing (local or foreign) as long as it is for productive, revenue generating capital expenditure or to correct some short term imbalances.

Historically, raising taxes is politically less desirable. Loans depend on the credibility of the government to repay it back, especially foreign denominated ones. Selling assets is a short term solution, which leaves us with printing money. Printing money is very attractive to politicians, as there is no need pass legislations to print them, or there is no pressure due to raising taxes. Thus, large deficit budgets over many years can be financed only by increasing the quantity of money. As previously mentioned, increasing Q (faster than the rise in productivity) will result in a rising of the price level, ergo inflation.

As this new money gets injected into the economy, more Rufiyaa will be chasing the same goods/services, thus putting upward pressure on the prices. The rise in prices does not come immediately. It comes when the new money circulate throughout the economy. Where the government injects the money has an important effect on who actually benefits from such money.

Suppose that, due to rising costs, government decides to print Rf100,000 per each citizen and distribute it simultaneously to each and every citizen. The question is, will this solve the problem of rising costs (with an extra 100k, aren't we all better off)? The short answer is No. At first, people will start spending the newly gotten money. As more and more people place demand on goods/services that they would otherwise not have placed demands on, the prices rise. Ultimately, the general price level stabilises at a point where we are not better off. Our nominal income has increased, but our real income (adjusted for purchasing power) has declined, because we now have Rufiyaa that has much lower purchasing power! And we have reduced the real value of our savings.

Obviously, the government does not print the money and distribute equally as stated above. But it does print and inject the new money somewhere. The newly created money is injected via government expenses such as salary, benefits, capital expenditure etc. The people who gets this new money first are government contractors, consultants, civil servants and others salaried on the public purse. When they go and spend that money the prices have not risen yet, so they get great benefits. Ultimately, the new money circulates to others such as friends, kanmathee fihaara, coffee shops, etc. By the time the new money reaches down the chain to common worker, the prices have risen in the market, and they have to pay for higher price from the same fixed income! Thus, inflation is a very very regressive tax[5] on ordinary people (especially those on fixed income). The poor (whose incomes are already small, and have less savings) are hurt most as their wages and savings will have less purchasing power!

So what is the solution? Balancing state budget by reducing expenses, matching that with reasonable taxes, or in short, government living within it's means. Note that I didnt say live within 'our' means. 'We' the ordinary people are trying to live within our means. Our expenses match with our incomes (though it is becoming more and more difficult lately), or we borrow only in emergency or for investments. Ofcourse, we also have exception to this rule, but generally we are law abiding citizens that are just trying to live within our means. It is the government[4] that has always and consistently mismanaged it's finances, but we the people have to ultimately pay.

[1] - It used to be that world currencies were backed fully or partially with gold/silver or some other commodity. This is no longer the case, and is called 'fiat' currency. What 'backs' such currency is the productive output of goods and services that people accept by exchanging the currency.

[2] - Technically in today's world, the central bank does it on behalf of the government via various methods such as bonds/T-bills etc. Printing per se may not occur, it might be just an entry in an electronic account. In addition, there are many other tools available to the central bank to control money supply.

[3] - There is still the issue of sovereign loans, where the incumbent government borrows heavily for pet projects inline with the election year. The issue is that the debt has to be ultimately paid by the citizens (the politicians will be long gone), which is sometimes a very heavy burden. You and your children are subject to this debt, which you have not consented to in the first place!

[4] - Government here meaning the entire State apparatus including judiciary, executive, independent institutions, parliament etc.

[5] - It is generally agreed by most economists that a low level of inflation (1% to 3% per year) is healthy (and there are good reasons why). There are situations where injecting money may not cause inflation, such as when the economy is in a recession/depression, such as what they are currently doing in US with Quantitative Easing.

The Dollar Shortage

2011-03-29T17:24:00.003+05:00

It has been widely recognized that Maldives is facing a 'shortage' of US Dollars. The official pegged rate of MVR 12.85 to the dollar has been there for quite a while. However, it has become very difficult to buy USD for 12.85 anymore, atleast in significant quantities (if you call 500 dollars significant).

Ordinary citizens have to queue at BML to obtain USD at $100 per person per day (at $1 or $10 denominations). This is in no way adequate for most people. Ofcourse, there is a different class of people who do get thousands in $100 denominations from the same bank. The only alternative to ordinary people and businesses is to find another seller. Sure we could get USD for 12.85, but usually the going rate is 13 or even above 14 rf for the dollar.

Now the government has started cracking down on people who sell US Dollars at a rate higher than MVR 12.85. Unfortunately, this will result in even more shortage of dollars and will affect the ordinary people most. Government is shutting down the only other avenue available for ordinary people to get USD. Those who have good connections can get plenty even now.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, shortages are created precisely by price fixing. No harsh penalties or crackdowns can fundamentally solve the problem. People go to blackmarket and buy at high prices not because they like it, but because thats their only choice.

If the argument is that there is enough dollars, and that the resort owners are hoarding it, then what makes sure that they will sell even now? How is government going to force them to sell at 12.85? How does penalizing ordinary people engaging in voluntary trade help to solve the problem at all?

Even worse, from what I hear, it will become illegal to trade foreign currency if you are not licensed. This means I cannot sell say $200 to a friend of mine even at 12.85! How ridiculous is that? Isn't that curtailing economic freedom?

End the tyranny

2011-01-30T01:50:00.002+05:00

The recent uprising in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere shows what happens to people when they are oppressed for so long. It is a natural human urge to be free, and this freedom is a basic fundamental right. Whether this be civil, political, religious, economic, freedom underlies the very essence of being a human.

It is very fortunate that Maldivians have been able to topple a 30 year dictatorship without resorting to such a revolution. However, we Maldivians have a very long way to go to establish what amounts to basic rights.

We have achieved political freedom, ie the right to elect our leader and representatives.

We have made progress in civil freedoms by having free press and media (relative to what was before).

We are making steps towards more economic freedom by abolishing special privileges (tuna export and tourism oligopoly), replacing regressive taxes with flat taxes (out goes import duty, and comes 15% flat profit tax).

We have not made progress in establishing religious freedom. There is a tyranny by majority when it comes to religious freedom. It is very true that majority (or even 95%) of Maldivians are muslims, but that gives absolutely no ground for oppression of the minorities.

Lets put it this way. If we do accept that having the right to choose one's religion is a fundamental right, that right should be protected for all humans, irrespective of what religion they choose (or not choose), or how many of them there are. Them having few in number is completely irrelevant.

If such minorities are oppressed, it is not a question of if, but a question of when will they have their own Jasmine Revolution to free themselves from the shackles of such tyranny.

Maldivian Copyright Law: A Brief Look

2010-12-14T19:05:00.003+05:00

A lot of Maldivians working in the arts and creative industries have been calling for an intellectual property law. At last, for the first time in this country, a comprehensive copyright law has been passed.

An intellectual property regime can be both a blessing and a curse. Before everyone jumps up and down celebrating, we have to look at what exactly is written in the said law.

I have had a very brief look at the draft available [direct pdf link], and it is has some glaring problems in my opinion. Some points that come to my mind.

1. The copyright period is way too long. The current law states a period of 50 years since the death of the author, in the case of multi-author, 50 years from the death of the last-dying author.

This is an overly long duration; something like 15 to 20 years is more reasonable in my opinion. Overly long, and restrictive copyright laws actually stifle creativity and innovation, rather than improve it. And it is very likely that this period will be increased to 75 and to 100 years by lobbyists anyway in the new future.

2. It makes it a punishable offense to use anti-DRM devices/software. For those unfamiliar with what DRM is, they can refer to a good writeup at Anti-DRM site.

In section 33 it states

"Haggu thah himaayai kurumah beynunkuraa fannee vaseelaithakaai rights management informations ge hagguthah”

It states in clause 33.(haa).1:

"Fannee masakkatheh nuvatha aduge recording eh nuvatha broadcast kuraa echheh alun nu ufeddheygothah hedhumahtakai nuvatha efadha kameh control kurumahtakai vaseelathehge gothun beynun kurumah ufaddhaafaivaa evves echheh ge beynun nuhifey gothah hedhun nuvatha ekamah huras alhan beynunkuraa nuvatha kuraane faraathakah vikkumah nuvatha kuyyah dhinumah evves kahala echeh ufeddhun nuvatha efadha ehcheh raajje etherekurun"

and in part 3 it states:

"Huddha akaa nulaa electronic rights management information negun nuvatha badhalu kurun"

I am not a lawyer, but i think the above two clauses actually makes it a punishable offense to use anti-DRM (digital rights management) software. In the law it states Electronic Rights Managemet, which is the same thing as Digital Rights Managment.

The equivalent law in US is DMCA, which has come under immense criticism, but we are duplicating that here. Such measures actually make it illegal to use open source software to watch DVDs (since they bypass region protection, a primitive form of DRM), and other software that cracks modern DRMs.

It gets more interesting; it actually makes it punishable the mere act of building such a thing, or raajje ah ethere kurun. Does that mean downloading such software will also be illegal? Downloading is also rajje ethere kuraning I guess.

And that part

"huras alhan beynunkuraa nuvatha kuraane faraathakah vikkumah"

puts a big liability on the developer or seller. How is the seller/developer to know how it will be used by the end user? Does this mean selling or giving or creating torrent software is illegal? After all torrent is predominantly used for copyright infringement. But should we penalize the developer for that? Isn’t that even a more draconian thing? Those two are just tip of the ice berg. Good thing it doesn’t cover patents! There are good reasons to oppose such draconian laws, rather than welcoming it with open arms.

Housing crisis?

2010-11-05T14:30:00.000+05:00

As everybody knows, Male' is a highly congested city. Probably the city with the highest population density. Hence, Male' has been described as a city burdened with a housing crisis (in addition to the strains placed on roads, ports, land, waste etc).

But in reality, there is no housing crisis at the fundamental level.The crisis that you see in Male’ region is a manifestation of a crisis in services to outer islands. The reasons people from the islands come to Male' are

Education for children
Health services
Jobs and economic opportunity

Given that government (current, previous and other past governments) has taken the responsibility for providing education and health services, it is apparent that the real crisis is the inability to provide these services to outer islands.

Not only that, Male’ supremacists do not really want the islands to be developed/self sufficient or have any notion of self-determination. This is reflected in the policies that Male' based central government has followed for decades (I am not pointing finger at Gayyoom only, this includes Nasir as well).

The people of the islands have been denied the opportunity to use the resources available to them (which is not much really) to their benefit. This is reflected in agricultural/fisheries/tourism/customs policies.

Just to give some specific examples:

1. The people of GDh. Thinadhoo were quite well off in the early Nasir era. They had couple of their own shipping lines to import stuff. They did not have to go through Male’. But some Male’ supremacist thought otherwise, and forced them to sail their ships through Male’, making things expensive, and inconvenient, and at the mercy of Male’ bosses. Their self determination was ruined. No wonder they revolted against Nasir.

2. The uninhabited islands have been semi-titled to Male’ people (though not always) under the name of ‘varuvaa’ system. This deprived the real farmers in islands of opportunity. Instead what should have happened is the lands from agricultural islands should be titled to the actual farmers in islands under tax free and long term basis.

Even the ones who got islands under varuvaa did not have secure property rights. There was no legal contract and the island was always subject to be taken by government if and when required. This reduced investments from these people because they were not sure of the lease. Only people who actually invested in agriculture were people who had good connections within the governments (who then knew that their varuvaa island will not be taken away).

3. The tourism ‘Master Plan’ is a real plan to cartel-ize the whole tourism sector. It enables only high end tourism to be viable, making only those with lots of money able to compete. Instead, atoll people should have opportunity to do low to medium end tourism. That decision does not have to come from central government in Male’ only now. If more people were given the opportunity, that would have already begun in Maldives.

4. The lucrative business of tuna export has been made an oligopoly. This has caused numerous difficulties for fishermen. I have written about this couple of times here and here.

With all these restrictions and monopoly privileges to selected few, it is no wonder that island people suffered terribly, and they have to depend on Male’ for every single thing. This has created such a high demand for apartments in Male’, and hence the rising rents. The wages have not kept up with rising living costs.

Thus, the housing crisis is not the real crisis. The real crises are the failed policies that have been pursued for so long.

Economic ignorance

2010-10-23T11:48:00.002+05:00

The recent move by BML to block foreign account holders from using debit card overseas has sparked some criticism towards BML as well as towards the foreign workers here in Maldives.

There were some in the comment section in favour of prohibiting foreigners from taking USD out of the country as a supposed solution to the problem (emphasis mine):

Adam on Wed, 20th Oct 2010 8:19 AM

This is a good move by the bank, Maldives being a very small country (actually the smallest country in the region) needs to protect itself from going bankrupt… By allowing forigners who are paid in MRF to withdraw in USD or any other currency is just insane…and frankly the bank was stupid to tie the forign issue to this very practical issue… ie they should have made it impossible for people who have MRF accounts to deal in other currencies…. lets take the example …in Maldives almost all major currencies including (the ruppes from neighbours) are accepted…but the same recognition is not given to MRF… so unless we can actually go to Lanka or India and change our MRF to thier Rupees why should Maldives become bankrupt because rich forigners drain the dollars out of maldives !!!

@ibrahim Mohamed on Wed, 20th Oct 2010 9:30 AM

I guess its time that we control the sending of money out of the country. We should find out the actual pay for teachers and doctors and should only allow what they earn to be send out of the country. However it is found that most teachers earn more than their pay through private tuition services to students which should be made illegal. Similarly foreign doctors work in private clinics in spite of the pay they get from government hospitals and health centers. Such malpractices hog up lot of foreign currency which should stay in the country. Teachers and doctors who want to do private tuition service and private practice should leave their job if they want to be in private practice. We can only control foreign currency leakage by monitoring money laundering in the country and allowing only the amount of pay entitled to foreigners to be taken out of country. Now we have a fury of leakage of dollars as we don’t control money laundering. I know some foreign countries which have strict rules on money laundering. For a small country with a crippled economy, which heavily depends on foreign labor such control is vital.

Well, thats just pure nonsense. I sent a comment a follows:

@Adam on Wed, 20th Oct 2010 8:19 AM
and
@ibrahim Mohamed on Wed, 20th Oct 2010 9:30 AM

What an utter ignorant economic nonsense!

@Adam
“By allowing forigners who are paid in MRF to withdraw in USD or any other currency is just insane”
What you are suggesting is that we pay the foreigners in our own printed MRF (which is useless to anyone outside of this country btw), and STOP them from converting it to goods and services via an intermediate currency. The only reason a paper currency is valuable is people accept it for exchange. So if you deny them the convertibility, you are denying them their hard earned wages (because they are foreigners)!! The only one insane here is you.

ibrahim mohamed:
If you don’t want them to earn by private practice, government could always sign a contract with them that states as such. No need to make it illegal (meaning applying the same broad stroke to everyone).

You say: “…allowing only the amount of pay entitled to foreigners to be taken out …”
Who determines this ‘entitled’ amount? If they are earning that money by providing a services of which they public is willingly paying, then the public is saying they are entitled to that money. It is not you, me or the government who determines what someone is entitled to earn, as long as they earn it with honest work.

“…strict rules on money laundering…”
Do you even know what money laundering is? Are you suggesting that the foreigners who earn and work here, who are only seeking to exchanged mrf to goods and services are money laundering?
“…which heavily depends on foreign labor such control is vital…”
We depend on foreign labour, but we should have policies that discourages them from coming. Nice logic!
–
Why only foreigners? By what logic is BML targeting them? There will always be a scapegoat, usually the foreign workers here. Social problems? blame foreigners. Currency problem? blame foreigners. Economic problem? blame foreigners!!

The problem is very simple. Just like any other good, high demands raises the market price. Whether you look at clothing, food, housing, oil, services etc. The same is true for currency. High demand for USD has raised the real market value of dollar relative to the MRF, or MRF value has dropped due to inflation. So by putting a price control on currency, you create a shortage. No amount of rationing, or harsh penalties on foreigners/locals will solve the problem (unless you want to confiscate their earnings). Let go of the currency peg, or at least devalue MRF to a value more near to market price. Black markets are created precisely because of aggressive price controls, whether on currency or any other good. Economic history witnesses this fact.

Well, unless ofcourse the resort owners are hoarding the dollars for some reason. This could very well be a reason too, but it does not explain why dollars are available in plenty from black market at about MRF 14. Why do they not hoard it until price reaches 18, 20 or 25 even?

The truth is BML lacks credibility now. Even ordinary people who used to have dollar accounts do not keep their dollars in their account. Why should they? It is impossible to get that dollars back if you deposit it! People would rather keep their money under their mattress (well, not literally).

But blaming that on foreigners who are rightfully sending their hard earned money to their families is ignorant and absurd. As one famous economist Murray N. Rothbard said:

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."

Co-education & privatization

2010-10-08T09:30:00.000+05:00

The recent uproar over the supposed co-education policy (mixed boy/girl) has got me thinking.

The issue is whether the public schools should have mixed boy/girl classes. The way I see it is that the problem comes only regarding 'public' school, ie the ones managed and run by (hopefully representative) government.

It is apparent that some people want co-education, while others object to it. The 'correct policy' has to be decided, preferably by debating it in the public. But even then, its impossible to get all to one side. By putting it to public vote, we are in effect asking to find a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem. Rarely one does come across a such a solution in trivial problems either, let alone a complex issue like this.

One way around this problem is to actually semi-privatize most (if not all) schools and to introduce a school voucher system. A voucher is equivalent to the amount the government currently spends per pupil in public school system. Each student (well, the parents actually) will get a voucher, and the parent can decide to which school they want to send their children. This way it increases diversity and choice available to parents, while still retaining the public funding.

Thus, some schools will offer co-education, while others will offer single sex schools. Some will try different methods/mediums of teaching, while others will offer non-mainstream subjects. The schools (rather their management) will have to compete to attract more students by offering better facilities that parents like. The voucher is entitled to the parent, not the school. This is akin to the existing schools getting budget funds allocated by attracting more students.

The schools should be as much independent from government as possibly can. If Ministry of Education is to dictate hours/gender/subjects, then there won't be much of a choice. Government can still retain some basic control if thats what the people want.

By privatization, I don't mean just changing the management to a private party. The school should decide which hours/uniforms/methods of teaching and curriculum too. Curriculum is especially relevant, because it is too important to be left to be decided as a one-size-fits-all thing.

I think in the not so distant future, the question will come whether to teach the theory of evolution to students. Understandably, that will be even a bigger uproar. There is no reason to think that all schools should or would follow one policy. Each school can decide for themselves, and parents can send their child to one that teaches evolution or not. After all, evolution is just a theory. So is relativity.

Faith - Forced and Free

2010-09-20T21:25:00.000+05:00

Some people just never step down from this moral high ground of insisting that everyone else believe the same as he/she does. And they are willing to use force to make sure that their dreams come true.

This is especially true of people that everyone should follow one religion, in the case of Maldives Islam.

It is true that the Maldivian constitution says that all citizens should be Muslims, which brings us to the notion of so called 100% Islamic country. Just because it is written in a legal document does not make it true. If it was the case, the world over would have solved all problems of poverty, crime, etc. It will only be a matter of writing 'everyone in Maldives is above poverty level' in the constitution, problem solved!

Some say, we should revoke the citizenship of people who become apostates or worse killed (let alone the fact that death penalty for apostasy is a debatable issue). So by that logic, to make Maldives a 0% poverty nation, we can revoke the citizenship of people who fare below the poverty line. To make 0% crime/fraud/corruption nation, we can revoke the citizenship of criminals, fraudsters and corrupt people (hmm, come to think of it, that would get rid of most of the politicians).

The fact of the matter is, by definition, faith is something that comes when someone wholeheartedly accept and believe. It can come only through conviction. This can only happen when a person is free to believe. When he is forced, then he can only act like he believes. This only creates a hypocrite out of him, and we have plenty of that in this country.

When you really look, it is precisely the freedom of conscience that enables you, me and everyone else to be Mulsims too. It just happens that this freedom of conscience is not protected for people who hold a belief that is different from majority backed state mandated belief.

If one day Maldivian constitution states "...Maldives must be 100% christian.." or atheist or buddists and enforced by force of law, it will be the day Muslim scholars (& majority of maldivians) of this country advocate for religious freedom. Its a pity that they don't realize its just the other side of the same coin that some are living in already.

Those who advocate faith by force, should consider the day when the force is not with you. When people of different belief have that force (via majority or whatever), is it ok for them to impose their own belief by force?

Using perl and awk for data extraction - Part 3

2010-09-10T17:40:00.002+05:00

In part 2, you saw the small perl program written to extract data. The code uses fair amount of one-liners and perl syntactic sugar. In addition, it uses functional style of programming where appropriate.

Lines 1-13:
Just startup lines and variable declarations. You could use variables without declaring first.

Line 18:

@userinput = <>

This grabs contents from standard input and store in array @userinput. The <> actually grabs the whole content to memory, be it file or from standard input. This is not advisable to be used in production code.

Line 21:

$colheader = shift(@userinput)

This grabs the first item from array @userinput using the shift function. It also reduces the number of elements in @userinput.

Line 22:

chomp($colheader)

The first line stored in $colheader contains the newline character as well. This newline character is removed with the chomp function. Strictly speaking, it removes the input record separator as specified in perl special vairable $/, which by default is newline character.

Line 23:

my @cols = split(",", $colheader)

Splits the contents of $colheader based on delimeter ,(comma). The split function returns an array of strings. This gets stored in @cols, resulting in @cols containing the column names.

Line 27:

$colist = join('', map {$i++ ; "-v $_=$i "} @cols)

This line consists of two parts, firstly the use of map function, and secondly the use of join function.
The map function, "maps" or applies a given function to each member of a list. Suppose you have a line that says (where @numbers = (1, 2, 3, 4)):

@results = map(square, @numbers)

This will apply the function 'square' to each member of the array @numbers. The result will be an array of elements that contain (square(1), square(2), square(3), square(4)). If square is a function that returns the mathematical square of its arguments, then @results will contain (1, 4, 9, 16).
Similarly, instead of a function, you can give a code block within curly braces {}, to be applied to each member of the array given. In this case the code block is

{$i++; "-v $_=$i "}

Note the trailing space just after i. This means, for each element in @cols, run the piece of code in the curly braces. The code in curly braces does two things:
1. increment variable i
2. returns a string of the form "v = $_=$i "
In perl, $i occurring within double quoted text strings will be parsed and hence its value will be substituted. $_ is the perl special variable that contains the current argument, ie the element from @cols that is under consideration
Suppose @cols is (length, width, height), then the result of map function will be

("-v length=1", "-v width=2", "-v height=3")

This resulting array from the map function is directly used by the join function. The join functions just 'joins' the elements of a string array separated by a given string. Here we are using the null string '' as separator, ie just directly join. As a final result, $colist will contain something like

"-v length=1 -v width=2 -v height=3"

For those interested, perl's map function is very similar to lisp's mapcar or haskell's map function.

Line 30:

my $cmd = "|awk -F, -v OFS=',' $colist '$cond { print $ext }'"

This builds a command line syntax for calling awk from perl. Note the use of unix pipe | at the beginning. This will cause whatever we send to be piped to awk program. -F, specifies that field separator is ,(comma) and -v OFS=',' specifies that output field separator to be used is also comma. Since this is a double quoted string, $colist is parsed and its value is substituted, rather than the literal $colist. Same for $cond and $ext.

Line 33:

open (AWK, $cmd)

This is perl standard way of calling shell commands. You could use ABC, BLAH, FOOBAR or anything instead of AWK.

Line 34:

map {print AWK} @userinput

Here again I use perl's ability to do functional programming. It runs the code {print AWK} to each element in the array @userinput, ie it sends each line in @userinput to the command shell as specified in line 30.

Using perl and awk for data extraction - Part 2

2010-06-25T21:00:00.011+05:00

In Part 1, we have seen how to extract specific columns and their combinations using awk variables $1, $2 etc. In this part, you will see how to use the column names instead of $1, $2. This will make things very much clearer.

In awk, you can use the -v option to pass variables to awk. So for example:

cat data.csv |awk -F, -v OFS=',' -v tag=2 -v width=6 \
'$tag ~ /f1/ {print $tag, $width}'

Here, in addition to the built-in variable OFS, two new variables are passed with the -v option. They are 'tag' and 'width' with values 2 and 6 respectively. Hence within the {}, we can use $tag which gets evaluated to $2 (since tag=2) and $width evaluated to $6 (since width=6). The result is that the line is much more readable since we are using the column names.

When you have many columns, it is very difficult to pass column names to awk via the -v option manually. You will have a long list of '-v element=1 -v tag=2 -v len=3' etc. Instead, few lines of perl code can grab the column names and build actual awk command with -v options. Perl is well and good enough to actually do what awk itself does, but then would be re-writing awk program in perl.

Thus, the perl program will do just the following:
1. Accept two arguments, namely, the condition part ($tag ~ /f1/ part), and what to extract (the part within {}).
2. Read standard input.
3. Grab the column names from the first line from the input.
4. Build the -v list of column names.
5. Run awk with the conditions, what to extract and -v list of column names.

The complete perl program pfilter0 is shown below:

1 #!/usr/bin/perl
2 #USAGE: pfilter0 'cond' 'ext'
3 # where  cond is test condition to be applied by awk
4 #  ext is what to extract (the part within {}
5 
6 use strict;
7 use warnings;
8 
9 my @userinput;
10 my $cond = '';  #conditions or regex to match
11 my $ext = '';  #cols or expressions to extract
12 my $colist;   #column names as -v format for awk
13 my $colheader;  #first row containing the column names
14 
15 $cond   = defined ($ARGV[0]) ? $ARGV[0] : '';
16 $ext    = defined ($ARGV[1]) ? $ARGV[1] : '$0';
17 
18 @userinput = <>;
19 
20 #grab first line as containing column names
21 $colheader = shift(@userinput);
22 chomp($colheader);
23 my @cols = split(",", $colheader);
24 
25 my $i=0;
26 #build awk's -v format list of column names
27 $colist = join('', map {$i++ ; "-v $_=$i "} @cols);
28 
29 #build the awk command line pars with ',' as input \
    and output delim
30 my $cmd = "|awk -F, -v OFS=',' $colist '$cond 
                    { print $ext }'";
31 
32 #pass the @userinput to awk
33 open (AWK, $cmd);
34 map {print AWK} @userinput;
35 close AWK;

Now you can use the column names automatically:

-- Extract tag, len and width from all where tag matches f1
cat data.csv | ./pfilter0 '$tag == "f1"' '$tag, \ 
                                     $len, $width'

-- Extract len * width from all footing elements
cat data.csv | ./pfilter0 '$element == "footing"' \
                                     '$len * $width'

-- Using regular expressions. Extract everything where tag 
   is f1 or f2 only,
-- not other fx
cat data.csv |./pfilter0 '$tag ~ /f[1|2]/'

-- Extract tag from all columns of rect type
cat data.csv |./pfilter0 '$element == "column" && \ 
                              $type ~ /rect/' '$tag'

Part 3 will explain how the code works.

Using perl and awk for data extraction - Part 1

2010-06-14T00:40:00.007+05:00

It is quite often that you come across a delimited text file containing important data. Often asked is how to manipulate and extract important information from such data. There are commonly three possible ways to manipulate such a file:

1. Put into a spreadsheet program and use formulas or macros to extract data.
2. Import the data to a database and use query language to extract the data.
3. Use unix/linux tools such as awk and perl to get the data.

Method 1 is not very flexible as you are restricted to simple formulas unless you get down to programming with macros.

Method 2 is a bit too combersome for simple tasks.

Linux/unix offers very powerful tools for data manipulation. Here we will use awk as the primary data extraction program, with a small perl program as a front-end to enable the use of column names.

Introduction to awk
Awk is a powerful pattern matching program that reads delimited text files and outputs lines matching a given search pattern. Originally written for unix in the '70s and named after the initials of its authors, awk has various incarnations. Any modern awk will suffice for the task at hand. I am using GNU awk (or gawk) version 3.1.6

Listing 1.1 gives shows the file data.csv. It is a comma seperated text file with the first row as the names of columns. The data is actually a listing of elements in a building such as foundation footings, columns, beams, walls etc. Not all the elements have values for all columns.

Listing 1.1 - data.csv

 element, tag, count,  type,  len,  width,  height,  area,
 footing,  f1,     2,  rect,  1.1,    0.9,     0.3,      
 footing,  f2,     4,  rect,  1.0,    1.0,     0.3,      
 footing,  f3,     1,  quad,     ,       ,     0.3,  1.85
 column,   c1,     4,  rect,  0.2,    0.2,     3.3,      
 column,   c2,     2,  rect,  0.2,    0.3,     3.3,      
 column,   c3,     1,  circ,     ,   0.35,     3.3,      
 beam,     b1,     4,  rect,  4.1,    0.2,     0.4,      
 beam,     b2,     3,  rect,  3.0,    0.2,     0.4,      
 wall,       ,     4,   ext,   16,   0.15,     3.3,      
 wall,       ,     2,   int,   24,   0.15,     3.3,      
 wall,       ,     2,   int,   24,   0.15,     3.3,      
 door,     d1,     1,      ,     ,    0.9,     2.6,      
 door,     d2,     4,      ,     ,    0.8,     2.6,      
 rfmt,     f1,     5,   t10,  1.4,       ,        ,      
 rfmt,     f1,     6,   t10,  0.9,       ,        ,      
 rfmt,     f2,     7,   t12,  0.8,       ,        ,      
 rfmt,     f2,     4,   t10,  0.9,       ,        ,

Now lets try some awk commands. Commands to be entered in shell start with a $ (indicating prompt). They are split to two lines with a \ to fit to screen. You can use with \ or without slash in one continuous line. First cat the file and pipe to awk:

Display the first column. $1 refers to first column, $2 to second and so on. The -F, specifies that comma is to be used as field separator in the input file. The commands to execute as given inside {} enclosed in '':

$ cat data.csv |awk -F, '{print $1}'

Display columns 1 and 2 seperated by comma:

$ cat data.csv |awk -F, -v OFS=',' \
'{print $1, $2}'

Display the sum of columns 4 and 6:

$ cat data.csv |awk -F, -v OFS=',' \
'{print $4 + $6}'

Display the column 2 and product of column 4 and 6. Awk's internal variable OFS specifies the delimiter to be used in the output:

$ cat data.csv |awk -F, -v OFS=',' \
'{print $2, $4 * $6}'

You can specifiy the condition to be met before the curly braces: Display column 1, column 2, and sum of column 4 and 6, where column 1 is 'footing':

$ cat data.csv |awk -F, -v OFS=',' \
'$1 == "footing" {print $1, $2, $4 + $6}'

Or you could use more sophisticated regex matching as well: Display column 1, column 2, and sum of column 4 and 6, where column 2 is 'f'-something:

$ cat data.csv |awk -F, -v OFS=',' \
'$1 ~ /f./ {print $1, $2, $4 + $6}'

Instead of using $1, $2, we could use column names derived from the first row. Will look into this in the next part.

Protectionist Professionals

2010-05-27T03:04:00.000+05:00

It is a natural human tendency to dislike your competitors and work hard to outdo them. After all, that is the very essence of a market economy. In an industry where there is healthy competition, there will always be new comers who give the established ones a run for their money. There will be cases where the big players become not-so-big or completely bankrupt.

20 years ago, IBM, DEC, Gateway were the big names. Today no one talks of DEC and Gateway, and IBM is not the giant it used to be.

10 years ago, Google, Mozilla, Facebook were barely heard. But today, they are household names.

With all that fierce competition, the consumers are the winners. They get better and better products (or services) and at cheaper prices.

Similarly, the building design industry in this country is a very competitive industry. There are companies big and small, and there are freelance practitioners. The prices have consistently come down, and quality have improved (depending on who you ask). But this won't be the case for long if some people get their way. The issue at hand is the case of licensing of practitioners.

There is no problem with licensing per se. Afterall, proponents argue that licensing always has been that it protects the public from incompetents, charlatans, and quacks. The problem is that the licensing tends to become categorized and stratified so that new people get to participate in the lower class first. More importantly, it restricts entry and reduces competition within the field.

Now if someone can tell me how reducing competition will reduce prices, give consumers more choice, make service providers more innovative, then I would like to hear that argument.

It appears that here in Maldives (just like every where else), the existing established players are feeling the heat from the new coming competitors. No one is disagreeing that the new comers will have less experience etc. But the question is, should the existing players be given control over the future of the industry in the name of protecting the public? Should they be allowed to put up barriers to entry and reduce competition? Should they be allowed to insulate themselves from competitors? After all, if what they say is true (that they are more experienced etc), why are they so hesitant on competing on a level playing field? Why can't they deliver better services to their customers than the new ones?

Is it not a conflict-of-interest that people who get to sit on the licensing boards are the ones who will feel the competitive pressure from the new entrants? I wonder what such a body's code of conduct says about conflict of interest!

We don't really need a regimented licensing regime. What we need is a certification system, much like the independent certifications such as A+, MCSE, CCNA etc. That way, we remove the conflict of interest, and also while giving the public proper information about someone's qualifications. That way we remove the politics from the professions.

Spoken like a true liberal

2010-03-29T20:26:00.006+05:00

I am often criticized by liberal Maldivians because I refuse to censor religious groups.

I am criticized because I won’t crack down on the fundamentalists.

But my point is this: the ends do not justify the means.

You cannot arrest and imprison people just because you disagree with their views.

Moreover, the battle between liberalism and fundamentalism is a battle of ideas.

Liberally-minded Maldivians must organize, and reclaim civil society if they want to win this battle of ideas.

People with broader viewpoints must become more active, to create a tolerant society.

A few nights back, 32 young people came to see me.

They were furious about the rise in extremism.

To my mind, these are just the sort of people who need to reclaim civil society, if they want to foster a more open-minded society.

We must defeat the rejectionists, who hanker for a return to authoritarian rule.

We must overcome the vested interests that want to stymie economic progress.

And we must win the battle of ideas against extremists who want to replace democracy with theocracy.

I believe we will not win by going for a crack-down, or a witch-hunt or mass arrests.

To my mind, violence only begets violence.

---
President Nasheed at Maldives Donor's Conference, March 2010.

Full speech available here. Unlike the self-styled liberals in Maldives, especially in the blogosphere, who calls for the crack-down on extremist (their words, not mine) religious groups, President Nasheed knows what liberty is. Same message goes for those who call for violence and hatred, and those who use religion as a political tool. Oppression and crack-downs are not the way forward. We should move away from authoritarianism & totalitarianism to freedom, peace and tolerance. George Orwell put it best when he said,

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

---
Photo - courtesy of dhitoons

The representative plumber

2010-03-27T21:07:00.000+05:00

In any society that is growing and developing, there will be a need for construction of houses and other buildings. For this they would need, out of the many trades, plumbers. Suppose, to address the needs of the society, they envision the following scenario:

The society is divided logically to territories of 5000 inhabitants each. Each unit will be allocated a plumber chosen by a popular vote. This plumber is called a Master Plumber or MP for short. This MP is supposed to cater for all the plumbing needs of his territory. Same goes for the other territories and MPs.

The MPs go to work to a nice big palace called the Citizen's Plumbhouse or CP. The CP was quite expensive so that it had to be donated by some friendly country. They are to be paid comfortably from the public purse, after all how can they work if they are not paid? If a citizen in a certain territory is not happy with his representative MP, he can try to vote him out couple of years later. Until then he has to get his house fixed by his MP whether he likes it or not.

Looking at the scenario above, it is quite obvious that such a system will fail miserably to cater for the plumbing needs of the public. MPs don't draw their earnings from productive service to the public. There is no room for dismissing an MP when he is performing poorly. There is no incentive for MPs to do good service unless its the election year.

But when it comes to the matters of the state, such a system is supposed to work? Yes it would work wonderfully for those who know how to game the system.

Creating value in the design profession

2010-03-05T14:44:00.002+05:00

If there is one thing common between architects and engineers, it is their frequent complaint that clients do not value their work. That they always go for the one who quotes lowest for the design work. That those new graduates are flooding and undercutting the established ones. That they are somehow 'industry ge agu vattaalanee'. Or something along that.

This is especially prominent these days where there is less work to go around, and the prices has come down. The question asked is thus, how do we make clients value our work? If you take away the nice choice of words, the question basically comes down to, how do we make clients pay high price for our work?

The reason the prices are bid low is because there is healthy competition in the market. Usually, new upcoming players are the ones who bid low, and they sometimes get frowned upon by the experienced ones. Sure, new ones have less experience and will probably be of low standard than that done by an experience one. But this is not necessarily always the case. Thus, there is lots of talk about regulations in this field. Regulations are usually needed in any industry, but they have to be fair and should not restrict competition. Thus the talks about regulations usually boil down to these:

1. Creating a fee scale for the provision of services, ie price controls.
2. Creating licenses for practitioners.

Of course, these will be put forward as a way to 'create value', improve quality, to provide recognition etc.

Of these, regulations of type 1 are the worst. Suppose for example that a fee scale for design is set to min Rf 3 to max Rf 6 per sqft per floor, then those who's work is valued below Rf 3 rate will not be able to find work. Say a client wants to develop a 1000 sqft plot to 5 floors. At Rf 3 rate, the price is 3 x 5 x 1000 = Rf15,000. That means the minimum price one is legally allowed to offer for that project is Rf15k. If an experienced designer A and a not-so-experienced designer B offer the minimum allowed price, there is no reason why a client will choose B. Since he has to pay Rf15k anyway, why bother go to B? Maybe if B offered something like 12k, he might go. But B is not legally allowed to do that! Thus such a price control will be disastrous for the new comers.

Regulations of type 2 are also designed to prevent new-comers easy access to the market. It will be full of categorisation and rules so that the established players will get the lucrative projects. New ones can keep doing small projects.

But how do we improve quality if we are not paid high? is a regular question. If high price is the requirement for quality work, maybe one should see the quality of environmental impact assessments done in Maldives. Each report is USD4000+. As for the quality, let their clients and EIA evaluators be the judge.

Free speech? What free speech?

2010-02-24T20:25:00.004+05:00

The recent disciplinary action against DhiFM for covering the protest outside the President's residence on 28 Jan 2010 is a way to control the infant independent media in the country. Such acts will stifle the development of free media in the country.

Lots of people support the disciplinary action based on one or more of the following reasons:
1. Freedom of expression does not mean you can say what the hell ever you want.
2. The coverage was PROMOTING the protest rather than REPORTING it, which is not ok.
3. Journalists should be subject to journalistic ethics and responsibility.
4. Free speech does not mean you can yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre.

Lets examine the above one by one:
- If (1) is true, then it begs the question, does freedom of expression mean you have to say what someone else wants? If it is not you who decides what you should say, then who does? Who holds this authority? If there is such an authority, is there a meaning to the term 'freedom of expression'? It is free from what now?

- Does the mere act of covering it constitute promoting it as in (2)? What about the people who went around on pickups announcing to participate in the crowd. Do they not have that freedom? If one of them gives an interview and asks the viewers to participate, is it the media's fault, if it is a fault at all?

- Who defines these journalistic ethics as in (3)? What responsibility and to whom?

- (4) is a very famous one often repeated by those who want to stifle freedom. Actually one has the right to yell 'fire' in crowded theatre. What is s/he supposed to do if there is a fire? Does it not become an obligation in that situation? That makes it an obligation that we don't have the right to exercise! Actually the case of (4) is quite broad, which I will address in another post.

It is my opinion that such actions by the government will reduce the media freedom. Actually the fact that it is a licensed regime indicates that there is no room for free media and free speech.

What about the others?

2010-02-12T12:21:00.002+05:00

It has been one year since the announcement of the government created Engineer's Cartel, officially known as National Building Professional Accreditation Regulation (NBPAR). As of now, it effectively creates a cartel of engineers (called Professional Engineers or PE) who are insulated from competition, the details of which I have discussed in an earlier post. As predicted, those engineers who do not have the magic stamp found it harder to get work. This is more prominent during a recession like now where projects are few and far between. I myself have met many clients who went elsewhere because I don't have the stamp (though I qualify for it). I have resisted joining it because it was against my professional code of conduct. But I can only hold out for so long.

As such I have proposed major amendments to the regulation to remove the monopoly power from the PEs. The details have been posted here. These amendments are being made to the regulation, and it has been put out for public comments from MHTE. Hopefully, it will be finalised and come into effect soon. Unless the existing PEs put a stop to it.

With clients taking projects elsewhere, and in light of the fact that the amendments are through, I have taken membership as a PE. But I just wonder, what about the other engineers who do not qualify. Where do they go?

Bin Laden, Noam Chomsky and Climate Change

2010-01-30T17:01:00.000+05:00

If there is anything common between Osama bin Laden and Noam Chomsky, it is their criticism of American imperialism across the world. Only that bin Laden is waging the battle in the deserts, while Chomsky is battling it out in the intellectual sphere.

Unlike his normal religious calls for Jihad, Bin Laden blamed America and the West's industrialisation for causing climate change. In addition, with reference to Chomsky, he portrayed US foreign policy as that of the policies of Mafia. Maybe this was a reference to what Chomsky said back in November 2009.

Also, Bin Laden attacks at the heart of American imperialism by calling to get rid of the US dollar as a reserve currency. Maybe he supports a Gold Standard, whereby politicians and their cronies cannot control the supply of money at their whims. Interestingly, such gold standards are advocated by Islamic organisations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and also by the Far Right.

Breaking a cartel

2010-01-22T14:30:00.001+05:00

In a previous post I mentioned about the problems with the current NBPAR regulations as implemented by Ministry of Housing, Transport and Environment

The regulation effectively creates a cartel of engineers, called 'Professional Engineers', who get special privileges in the building approval process. The problems associated with this system has been mentioned in my previous post linked above.

Luckily, the Ministry has listened to opponents of such a regressive scheme. As such, during a meeting (between practising engineers and MHTE) in late September 2009, I submitted a paper (with input from like-minded engineers) outlining an alternative proposal. The changes are proposed in such a way to remove the unfair advantages the PE gets and to prevent the marginalisation of the new and upcoming engineers. The paper is produced below:
------

ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL FOR BUILDING APPROVAL

1. Introduction

The current system of building approval, where MHTE undertakes the structural checking of the said buildings has been in place for many years. Recently, in early 2009, MHTE introduced NBPAR (National Building Professionals Accreditation Regulation). Under this regulation, an accreditation scheme was created, where practitioners with selected qualifications were given the accreditation. Currently, there is a single category called A1- Professional Engineer, or PE.

Buildings designed or checked and stamped by a PE do not undergo any further structural checks at MHTE. As such, the overall building approval process is greatly expedited. What is left is municipal and planning regulation checks, which are undertaken by the local authority (such as Male' Municipality and HDC).

2. Problems with NBPAR

There are serious issues with the existing NBPAR regulation, and the accompanying building approval system relating to PE. Major issuess are listed below:

1) The experience requirement for qualifying for a PE is very stringent, and favors the already established and experienced engineers. The criteria given is quoted below (NBPAR, p23):
  a) a minimum of 3 years of structural engineering design experience relevant to building work across an appropriate range of buildings out of which a minimum of 2 years of working experience as a structural checker in a relevant government authority OR
  b) a minimum of 4 years of structural engineering design experience relevant to building work across an appropriate range of buildings out of which a minimum of 3 years of working experience under a certified professional engineer registered in this Regulation, subject to the Registrar’s approval OR
  c) a minimum of 7 years of structural engineering design experience relevant to building work across an appropriate range of buildings subject to the Registrar’s approval.
Note: Under the Experience requirement for the registration of professional engineers, clause (c) is only applicable for the year 2009.

2) Criteria 1(c) is applicable to year 2009 only. This is the only practical mechanism in the regulation to enable new engineers to qualify for PE. By restricting the criteria to year 2009, practicing engineers who attain 7 year experience in 2010 or there-after is not eligible. As a result, they will have to pursue another three years working under a PE as stipulated in 1(b).

3) Criteria 1(b) makes it impractical for new practitioners to work under a PE. In addition, the scope of working under is not clearly defined. It is not apparent whether this means the new engineer has to be employed by a PE, or the PE has to supervise the work of the new engineer, or PE should be stamping the works of the new engineer.

4) Criteria 1(a) is obviously made to favor engineers working or who already has worked at MHTE.

5) A PE can stamp his own structural drawings. Given that there are approximately 15 engineers who qualify for PE, the result is that a handful of PEs get a disproportionate advantage as their submissions are expedited. As a result, new engineers are unable to find work and are legislated out of the market. This reduces competition and ultimately will result in higher costs and lower quality of output in the industry. It is understood that reducing the number of suppliers stifles competition, and ultimately results in lower quality and higher costs.

6) The NBPAR regulation has no parent Act or law. Hence it is unconstitutional.

7) The NBPAR regulation does not have any requirement for site supervision experience. Site experience assists in making practical design decisions. Technically, an engineer designing for years in office, without any site visits can become a PE under the current regulation.

3. Proposed alternative

This alternative mechanism for building approval rests on the following principles:
1. A better informed client base provides considerable market-based regulation, hence the regulatory body can utilise this mechanism.

2. The regulatory body should work in the interest of the general public. All regulators should consider the economic costs incurred by the public. It is a right of the public to choose who they hire for their projects, and should be given relatively free choice in this. Overly restrictive regulations are counter productive.

Based on the above principles, we propose the following amendments to the NBPAR regulations:
1. A PE should not be able to stamp his own drawings. It should be stamped by another PE. Non-PE engineers can get the drawings stamped by a PE. Existing procedure of non-stamped submissions should also be retained. This reduces the problems of item 5 as stated in section 2.

2. Loosen up the experience requirement for PE qualification. Our suggestion is 3 years of design and site supervision experience. No distinction should be made between engineers 'working under' a PE and those who are not. No special provision required for engineers who worked at MHTE.

3. Significantly reduce the fees charged by Male' Municipality, though technically this is not part of NBPAR. This is because, additional stamping will incur additional costs to the public and also this reduces the workload of the regulatory body. Hence it is advisable to reduce these fees charged by the regulatory body.

4. Design engineer shall be responsible for the design (whether signed by another PE or not).

Also of note:
1. The above mechanism can also be adopted for checking compliance to architectural or planning regulations.
2. In cases where a design is not compliant to the regulations (but was designed and stamped), the designer and/or stamping professional can be penalized via temporary revoke of license or other suitable penalties.
3. Parent law or Act for the regulation has to be enacted.
4. As the ultimate responsibility for regulating still rests on the government, the regulatory body should undertake random checks of the stamped drawings,
5. A well informed public plays an extremely important role in a productive industry. It is better to spend the resources on increasing public awareness, than creating overly restrictive and regimented sets of regulations. This protects the rights of the public and preserves the competitive spirit of the market, which ultimately will result in better services.

----------

Government's Religious Policy

2010-01-14T13:05:00.000+05:00

Last night on TVM program 'Q&A with Miqdad', the SMS question (paraphrased) was:

Are you satisfied with the government's religious policy? yes/no

On one side was MoIA minister Dr. Abdul Majeed, MP Ahmed Rasheed. On the other side was MP Dr. Afrasheem and MP Mutthalib. With lots of attacks and counter-attacks from both sides (and Miqdad unable to moderate), the show had to be abruptly stopped without any concluding remarks, because they ran out of time.

Before answering the above question, one must consider another crucial question. What could a government's policy towards religion be in the first place? There are three possiblities:
1. President himself becomes the supreme authority on religion. He decrees what is and what is not allowed as per his interpretation of religion.
2. A group of scholars is selected to be the authority on religion (MoIA/Fiqh Academy).
3. Government gets out of the business of being the authority on religion

Option 1 has been tried during the Maumoon regime, where he cuts and molds religion to his discretion. Religion was being used as a political tool for controlling the population. Obviously, only Maumoon and his cronies who got control were happy with the policy.

Option 2 is the current one that is being tried. A selected group of people (Adhaalath) party has the current monopoly over MoIA. A lot of people are satisfied with this policy. This was clearly seen in the SMS results for last night with ~70% voting yes. But the MoIA has been criticised from both ends of the spectrum (liberal/modernist to conservative/'extremist'). I wonder how many of the supporters of the current policy will feel when and if MoIA is monopolised by some people who they don't like (perhaps Afrasheem & co, the Dots or any other).

The third option has not been tried. Both option 1 and 2 make everyone else follow the whim of the one in authority, whether they like it or not. Everyone is clearly aware of the corruption and nastiness of the political game. Is it not time that we evaluate a policy where religion is not left to the whims of the politicians? Religion is too important to be given to politicians to be made a weapon of mass control.

Subsidised journalism

2009-12-17T12:59:00.001+05:00

The main obstacle to independent journalism in Maldives was the state control during the previous regime. People yelled left and right to give media freedom and to remove the influence by the state. Now that media has somewhat been freed, the Maldives Journalist Association (MJA) is saying they can't be too free! They claim they need financial support from the state via subsidies to keep the government accountable. They claim that their independence will not be compromised if the subsidy were allocated by the state, rather than the government (forgetting to mention that the government is a subset of the state). Hmm, makes one wonder, who is going to make the state accountable then?

Of course, its not for the love of money they are doing it, it is only for the social good "to protect and preserve independent journalism in the country". If not, its doomsday and "would have an adverse effect on this burgeoning democracy".

President of MJA said "We have 300,000 people [in the Maldives] and that’s not enough of a market for fully private enterprise". I wonder where he has been living all these years. It is the fully private enterprise that gives us the pen, pencil, paper, computers, phones, contractors, engineers, architects, lawyers etc. Sure, lots of them studies on scholarships, but the services they provide are available in the realm of private enterprise, and don't rely on state subsidies. Maybe the contractors, engineers, architects, lawyers, teachers and others should ask for subsidies. They are a vital part of a functioning society.

This guy proposes to give subsidies based on circulation, and this guy's newspaper (Haveeru) is the most circulated. Maybe just coincidence? He also goes on to state that fully privatising media ownership would consolidate control in the hands of a few wealthy individuals. Well it already is. Maybe he should concentrate on abolishing the high fees charged for licensing by TAM, which the MJA itself criticises. That will be more beneficial for the upstarts, and prevents consolidation in the hands of the wealthy.

Secret anti-counterfeiting trade agreement

2009-12-09T16:19:00.000+05:00

The world over, politicians are trying to control how people live their lives. These politicians are backed by powerful corporations, lobby groups, vocal minority and sometimes the majority. Corporations want to control people economically to the detriment of economic freedom of the people. Vocal minority wants to control the rest to the detriment of the civil liberties, while the majority plays the number game of denying basic rights to the minority because they are few in number.

The powerful countries are now exporting their own system of laws via the international organizations. Currently, the heavyweights such as US, Japan and EU are negotiating a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny. The contents of the agreements are kept under wraps, only available to the corporations and sponsored politicians. They refuse to release the details of the agreement, which in time will be forced upon the rest of the world. In fact, US Trade representative Ron Kirk is quoted to have said that the parties will be walking away from the negotiations if the content is made public.

Whats more, the EU council has res refused to release the documents when asked by FFII. A good analysis of the leaked documents can be found here.

In broad terms, its a treaty designed to give even more power to the powerful corporations in the developed countries. Hollywood will be the world copyright police. The big pharmaceuticals will be the world patent czar on medicine. The big software companies will become the lord of software patents. It proposes "criminal measures against infringements without motivation for financial gain", which seems to be a direct attack on the open-source software developers.

So did the people world over elect the supposed representatives to suppress our freedoms? Whatever happened to the role of the government to protect life, liberty and property? Is there legitimacy to a government and their policies that do nothing to protect the fundamental liberties of the people?

Fatally flawed freemarket

2009-12-01T13:15:00.006+05:00

Above is the BBC survey results. Click on the image to reach the BBC article.
Wikipedia defines freemarket as:

A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud. The terminology is used by economists and in popular culture. A free market requires protection of property rights, but no regulation, no subsidization, no single monetary system, and no governmental monopolies. It is the opposite of a controlled market, where the government regulates prices or how property is used.

The following are probably true for the above survey:

- The software (Excel or some statistical software) used to collect and analyse the data ran on an operating system (Windows, OSX or Linux) powered by powerful hardware. All of these were supplied to BBC via capitalism.

- The BBC site is powered by Apache webserver running on Linux operating system [1]. All of these are Free software, provided to them by an almost laissez-faire industry of Free and Open Source[2] software.

- The hardware and software that you are using to access this site and BBC site are provided to you by freemarket.

Given that there is no industry in the world where there is no regulation, the computer industry (both software and hardware) is probably the least regulated industry of all. It is also probably the only industry where the products (hardware and software) becomes cheaper while quality and features improve day by day, despite the massive devaluation of currency by central banks.

However, this industry is also coming under attack from regulations and also powerful corporations seeking special privileges in the form of patents, draconian copyrights, stupid internet regulations and others. All of these stifle innovation and reduce competition in the industry.

So maybe, just maybe, the deregulated nature of the computer industry is what makes it highly competitive and innovative, which results in better and cheaper products.

Not to mention that BBC itself is funded by mandatory TV licensing fees taken from the public! Whether you watch BBC or not is irrelevant, if you own a TV, you must pay BBC.[3]

[1] Technically, Linux is just the kernel, but the word 'Linux' is also used to refer to various distros.

[2] Yes, Free and Open Source software are very much a free-market phenomenon. The profit in this industry is largely non-monetary, though most software companies have jumped on the open-source mantra. It is clearly laissez-faire, because anyone can start a FOSS software project to scratch their own itch. There is absolutely no artificial barrier to entry, no prior permission or license from government, no restriction on price or features or what you can call your software, no regulatory requirement to meet a standard (infact, its all self-regulated via de-facto and other voluntary standards as set by IETF, IEEE, W3C, OSI and others).

[3] Yes BBC does produce good quality documentaries, and news coverage is very good.

I want my rights, but I wont give yours

2009-11-23T14:14:00.001+05:00

The recent bill to outlaw places of worship for non-Muslims infringes on the fundamental rights of a large portion of the expatriate population in Maldives. It goes to show the lack of tolerance and respect for people who do not think the same as we do.

We are ok to invite them with job offers because we derive an economic benefit.

We are ok to invite them to our beautiful islands because we derive an economic benefit.

We are ok to sell them alcohol because we derive an economic benefit.
We are ok to go to their countries for our holidays and medical treatments because we are benefiting.

We are ok to watch their TV and movies and subject ourselves to the cultural/religious influence because we like the entertainment.

We are ok to study in their medium and their universities and pass in their exams because it betters ourselves.

But when it comes to their fundamental rights, we are not ok because we don't like it. We come up with all sorts of excuses of cultural/religious disharmony, etc etc. Is harmony achieved by denying the rights of people? Those who support the ban are probably the ones who would first yell 'freedom of religion' if and when non-Muslims wield much power over their rights. Or do they not believe that freedom of religion is a fundamental right?

We have thrown away the tyranny by dictator and replaced it with tyranny by majority.

Freemarket or Corporatocracy?

2009-11-13T02:22:00.000+05:00

Recently, the famed econometrician John Perkins was interviwed on DemocracyNow!. The interview was about his new book. Also he talks about his previous book titled "Confessions of an Economic Hitman".

In his Hitman book, he describes himself as an 'Economic Hitman (EHM)'. These EHMs were hired to lure third-world countries into huge loans that they would never be able to repay. They went in to pursuade the third world leaders of the benifits of huge infrastructure projects. The projects were then financed by the international financial institutions such as World Bank or IMF. Obviously, the loans comes with conditions so that the contracts itself is awarded to American or European corporations. Not that IMF/WB don't give productive loans and good advice sometimes, they sure do.

It is no wonder then that these corporations make immense profits from the loans given to the recipient countries. Developed countries tax their citizens and give this money to the financial institutions, who in turn funnel this money to the powerful corporations in the developed countries. The third world country is then forever put in debt.

I sometimes wonder why some people condemn these problems as a problem of free-market capitalism. As far as I can see, it is these powerful governments who fund these institutions. Only with their backing and funding (taxed from their own citizens), can these institutions survive. The corporations have influential lobbyists making sure this money is funnelled into their coffers via 'aid'. This is pure corporatocracy. Social welfare for the politically connected!

The powers of the military

2009-11-03T15:41:00.001+05:00

A recent article on DO, which towards the end states that

"...the military is ready to confront and solve any terrorism activities within the country, affirmed the Vice-Chief of MNDF"

Are they really ready to confront any terrorist activities. If so what kind of powers do the military have in combating such activities. Do we know what the capacities and limits of the military/police are when it comes to combating them?

Do they have broad powers to spy on citizens in the name of fighting the terrorists? Are they allowed to torture them? Maybe they are labeled 'enemy combatants' and denied due process. The activities of the military need to be put in the open and discussed at the Majlis level. There powers should be clearly defined and limited. Or are they just 'state secrets' to serve the greater good?

Talking of state secrets, it was not long ago that there was massive outrage about the discovery of the NSA's dragnet domestic surveillance program in USA. The Bush administration's use of the 'state secret' privilege to thwart the lawsuit against ATT caused much uproar seems to be forgotten. The current Obama admin is using the exact same methods to block the investigation of not only the illegal spying, but also torture and rendition too.

I am not sure whether it is even illegal to spy on citizens here in Maldives. For all we know, it might have been occurring for as long as we remember.

Talk about talent!

2009-09-28T19:09:00.002+05:00

One of the best storytelling I have seen.

Freedom -- go to hell

2009-09-24T14:03:00.001+05:00

Some people take it to the streets to protest against liberty and freedom. They apparently abhor the 'western' liberalism and democracy. Liberal I mean in the classical sense.

But I wonder, is it not the evil western liberal values of freedom of expression and freedom to peaceful protest that allows them to stand there holding the banner in the first place?

A global what?

2009-09-05T12:15:00.000+05:00

It didn't come as a surprise to me to hear that corporations such as Microsoft are advocating for a global patent system, where one of their senior lawyers stated:

In today’s world of universal connectivity, global business and collaborative innovation, it is time for a world patent that is derived from a single patent application, examined and prosecuted by a single examining authority and litigated before a single judicial body.

...and controlled by a single party such as Microsoft!

By its very nature, patents are controversial, especially the software patents which is relevant to software developers such as Microsoft. Patents have become a means to control the small and individual player's innovation. Software patents are more like mathematics.

Is it because, Microsoft is facing possible fines related to a patent infringement in their Word product? Or is it because they are facing stiff competition from Free software, and feels the need to threaten them to get more market share.

Reasons aside, I think Microsoft should work on getting their (as in US patent system) house in order before they export it to the rest of the world via World Intellectual Property Organisation. But wait, that's not going to happen; the US system is beyond repair. With everything getting patented left and right, one cannot write a program that doesn't infringe on a patent. Just recently, Google received a patent on the design of their homepage. Google wasn't even close to being first in minimal clean homepage design. Even if they were first, why should they get a monopoly? Maybe Maldivian architects should patent their architectural designs now, and engineers follow suit with structural designs (claiming rightfully that design patents are granted in some countries).

Otherwise they won't innovate and produce nice efficient designs, would they?

Gotta go clean up my desktop and patent my innovative-super-clean-minimal-user-friendly desktop.

Breaking the monopolies 2

2009-09-01T00:25:00.001+05:00

In an earlier post, I wrote in support of the government's decision to break the fish oligopoly in this country. The reason being that, such legislations are only in the interest of selected parties at the expense of the general public. Unfortunately, like everywhere in most of the world, Maldives fares no better at making sure that politicians are able to pick winners and losers.

Now its time to break the other duopolies in this country, ie the ISP and telecom providers. The two ISPs, namely Dhiraagu and ROL, provide poor and expensive packages (infact webhosting is 100 times more expensive as Dhivehi Observer noted). Everyone is well aware of the reduction in prices of Dhiraagu when Wataniya came into competition. We can still take a step further and allow complete competition in the marketplace for Internet and telecommunication service providers. Infact, this is how it should be in every industry. No artificial and restrictive barriers to entry should be placed (like some proposed in another industry). After all, we don't legislate how many construction companies, design firms, clothing shops, computer sellers, web development companies should be there. So why should it be any different for these services? Competition will enhance consumer choice and also reduce prices.

Upcoming startups does not necessarily have to provide universal coverage. Some might infact do. Others might specialise in niche markets or provide speciality services such as VoIP. The technological barrier to entry is quite low with dropping prices of server and network gear, and the abundance of numerous open-source software stacks which are available for free. Plus, the established providers may not innovate or explore the new emerging technologies in the areas of wireless communications, let alone the established technologies of webhosting.

On freedom of the mind

2009-08-16T13:45:00.001+05:00

Couple of nights ago, I saw few minutes of talk on the 'Islaamee Dhiriulhun' program. There were three young guests on the show with the host asking them questions. One of the guests was talking about the Maldivian culture and its relation to Islam. He goes on to mention that all Maldivians were Muslim and that we should should try to minimize the cultural influences of the West. The other guest mentioned that Islamic golden era produced many great scientists and philosophers.

That got me thinking. Are we still in the days of make-believe where Maldives is a 100% Muslim country? Do they not know that there are many atheists, Christian and sects among Maldivians? Whose interest is it serving when politicians and public figures lie when they say Maldives is a 100% Muslim country?

Or is it because it is defined that all Maldivians are Muslims? This begs the question, are we Muslim by definition? Or are we Muslims by belief? I am a Muslim not because some constitution defines it. I am Muslim because of what I believe. As being a Muslim is all about belief and submission, how could one override the meaning of Muslim to say someone could be Muslim even if that person does not submit to God?

Everyone should have the right to believe what they want. The freedom of the mind is the most important freedom. Things such as freedom of speech and press, that our politicians fancily talk about, can only be realized with freedom of thought. Anyone who suppresses people's freedom of thought (be it for national, cultural or religious reasons etc), is a person who wants to control people's lives.

These freedoms are what we are born with, not what we obtain from the State. Each individual is sovereign over that individual's mind. No one, not even the State, has sovereignty over one's mind.

Will the real engineer please stand up!

2009-07-23T19:10:00.002+05:00

As I mentioned in a prevoius post, various regulations are being proposed and enacted in relation to the building design sector.

One of these recent regulations that has come into effect is the National Building Professional Accreditation Regulation(NBPAR), which is available for download (direct pdf link).

Basically, the regulation proposes to 'accredit' professionals (architects, engineers, surveyors etc) who works in the design sector. The accreditation being that, certain selected professionals get special privileges, such as being allowed to undertake the design of larger projects, or special treatment during normal government approval process.

Normally, if a client wants to design his house or any building, he hires an architect or engineer. There are registered architects and engineers who are allowed to sign the relevant municipal documents, which is based on having a certain level of academic qualification. This regulation is fine and good. Having completed the design, the client (or on his behalf the designer) submits the drawings to the municipality, which then checks (for municipal, planning and structural compliance) and gives a building permit. This process usually takes about two months.

The currently active NBPAR regulation creates a category of engineers called 'Professional Engineers'. These PEs have magic stamps bearing their names. When these PEs stamp their drawings, the municipality do not check the drawings for structural compliance, and the approval is given after municipal and planning checks. Hence the process is very much expedited. The idea being that, these PEs are experienced enough that no further structural check is required by the authorities.

Which is fine and dandy, until one looks at the criteria for being eligible to become a PE. In Category A1 - Accredit Professional Engineer, the experience requirement given on page 23 states that:

The experience required for registration of an applicant shall be either one of the following requirements.
a) a minimum of 3 years of structural engineering design experience relevant to building work across an appropriate range of buildings out of which a minimum of 2 years of working experience as a structural checker in a relevant government authority OR

b) a minimum of 4 years of structural engineering design experience relevant to building work across an appropriate range of buildings out of which a minimum of 3 years of working experience under a certified professional engineer registered in this Regulation, subject to the Registrar’s approval OR

c) a minimum of 7 years of structural engineering design experience relevant to building work across an appropriate range of buildings subject to the Registrar’s approval.

Note: Under the Experience requirement for the registration of professional engineers, clause (c) is only applicable for the year 2009.

Item (a) is a clause put in to give PE status to existing civil/structural engineers who are working at municipality or construction ministry.

Item (b) is not applicapable as this enforcement of this regulation has just started this year. There is NO one who has 6 months (let alone 3 years) working under a PE.

Item (c) applies to most new engineers, but states 7 years, which is an overly long duration AND it applies to year 2009 only. This means any engineer whose experience reaches 7 years in 2010 or thereafter is not eligible! He has to go back to either (a) or (b).

And no, (b) just does not work in the real world. What it says is that one has to work under a PE for 3 years atleast. I know in developed countries charter-ship and the like are given after working under chartered engineers. But here in Maldives, there are very few opportunities, and the industry is very young. Fresh engineers will not get opportunities to work for existing PEs, and the PEs wont be able to hire that many new engineers as well. Most of the new engineers will have to freelance (as they currently do). Hence (b) cannot produce more PEs.

Hence, anyone who currently qualifies for PE (be it via a, b or c) gets the PE status and very few if any new PEs will be produced. And the PE are given special privilages during checks by authority, and hence they are able to grab more clients. The new graduates won't get the chance, as they don't have these privileges.

It is sad that these regulations are actually benefitting the ones who already have a competitive advantage due to experience and reputation. Some notable engineers have raised issue with using the world 'professional'. They say, it has a specific meaning in the world industry and what we are doing is diluting that name. This I agree. But we have a much bigger problem with the regulation, which unfortunately these prominent engineers are oblivious to, since they themselves qualify for PE. Currently about five or six engineers have taken the magic stamp.

More and more engineers are taking the magic stamp, and it will be even more difficult to revert this regulation. Some PEs now agree that the regulation is biased in their favour, though not enough to work to revert or atleast ammend the regulation.

--------------
Disclaimer:
I personally do qualify for PE status, but so far I have not taken the magic stamp. However, lot of people are asking me "Are you a PE?", and gives funny looks when I say I have not applied. I try to explain the reason why. Obviously, the clients prefer PEs as they can get drawings approved quicker. But if this continues for too long, I might have no choice but do as the saying says:

If you can't beat them, join them!

on liberty and freedom

2009-07-13T14:29:00.002+05:00

The recent ban of Airtel has resulted in a bit of a backlash towards MoIA and Adhaalath party. Lots of people have been condemning the ban.

Most of the objections have been due to the fact that Airtel is quite popular among the Maldivians and is being used by a lot of people. It is far cheaper and has more channels than the local cable providers. As such, the religious reasons given could be just an excuse to disguise the behind the scene lobby efforts by the existing cable providers.

But the funny thing is, there will be no public revolt when the government blocks a website, or bans something used by a few people. A ban is a ban, whether it is of a popular item or not. As such, the real question is, do we really want the government telling us what can and cannot be used by us? Have we already given up our liberty and freedom, so that some of them can be given back to us piece by piece by the state? Or are we born free with freedom of thought and expression?

Protective tariffs and taxes

2009-07-01T09:49:00.004+05:00

A journalist Jameel who owns a local print newspaper and farmer Fareed who grows watermelon for a living were talking in a local cafe' about their life and work. They were joined by mutual friend Mohamed who sells music CDs at a local corner shop.

Jameel: Fareed, how is your farming business? I hope it will be good since Ramazan is near.

Fareed: Not too bad, but I am finding fewer and fewer buyers each day. Last ramazan was worse than the previous one. Not sure if this ramazan will be any better.

Mohamed: How so? People still do eat watermelons, especially during ramazan!

F: The imported watermelons are eating into my revenue. They are cheaper than the ones I grow.

J: I am having some problems too. Few people are buying my newspaper, despite more marketing and improved content. All they want to do is surf the net and maybe read some news here and there in blogs. It is putting mine and other newspapers out of business. I have an online version of my paper too, but people link to me without permission!

M: Same here. Not many people buy the CDs now. They would rather download from iTunes or over torrent. But I am not standing still! I am doing something about it!

F & J: Doing what?

M: I am proposing a bill via my MP to put a tax on internet traffic. That way people who use more bandwidth will be taxed more, part of which will be used to subsidize the CDs. It will prevent businesses from bankrupting and causing unemployment.

J: Thats interesting. I could use a similar tax. A tax on blogs and news aggregators. In addition, I am going to propose linking without permission as copyright infringement.

F: You guys are brilliant! I can use your ideas to propose high import taxes on watermelons. And chilli, lemon and mangoes too, because I am actually growing those too.

Jameel and Mohamed didn't appear too happy.

J: Fareed, but that will increase my living costs. And I eat a lot of chilli too!.

M: Yeah thats not fair Fareed.

F: But in my farming island, there is no shop where I can buy music CDs or newspaper. I love music, but my only choice is downloading from iTunes. I have to read news and watch videos on the internet especially on youtube. So my internet traffic is quite high.

M: But I am doing this to protect jobs.

F: Me too.

J: Come to think of it, I also use a lot of internet traffic in my newspaper business. I don't download any music. So I don't think its fair to tax us.

F: Maybe these taxes are not a good thing then.

J: I think so too.

M: I agree.

Thus ended the arguments about protective taxes. One would think that such stupid laws don't float around in the political sphere. But no, there are people who are seriously suggesting to bar linking and paraphrasing to copyrighted material and taxing internet.

Such laws only serves the interest of the lobby groups at the expense of everyone else. These laws invade the privacy and freedoms of individuals. It is sad to see that everywhere, the laws are more about controlling every aspect of our lives from what you wear, what you eat, where you go, what you read and what you believe.

The party maslahathu

2009-06-18T10:15:00.002+05:00

Today you often here on TV, the politicians frequently say something along the lines of

"Parliament members should work in the interest of the public rather than the party"

Or in dhivehi

"Party ge maslahathu kurinaaruvaa rayyithun ge maslahathaaigen masakkai kurun"

You will see politicians congratulating themselves for promoting citizens' interests rather than party interests. This begs the question--If their party interest is not the same as the citizens' interest, isnt there something wrong with their parties? Are they not admitting themselves that their party has an interest different from the citizens?

This brings us to the question, what do these parties stand for? What are their philosophical, ideological or pragmatic approach to addressing the economic, social, cultural and host of other issues that need to be addressed. Everyone agrees what the problems are (drugs, child abuse, etc.), but the differences comes in HOW to tackle those issues. It is not sufficient for the parliamentarians to say they will work in the interest of the public. They have to explain HOW.

The answer to the question of how is not that clear cut. It depends on the party's or person's political, religious, economic and social orientations. It depends on what they really stand for. Is party X the defenders of democracy at all cost? Or do they firmly believe in establishing Sharia Law? Or do they stand for liberty and freedom?

I stand for liberty and freedom. What do you stand for?

Breaking the monopolies

2009-06-01T19:41:00.004+05:00

When you go around in Male' shopping for a jeans, or anything for that matter, you get to decide from where you want to buy it. You can decide whether you want to buy from the local corner shop, or you want to buy from the supermarket where the product comes in good packaging. A perfume X available for 100/- at the supermarket might be available at 95/- at the local corner shop. There is healthy competition.

Suppose one day, the government decides that it is in the interest of everyone that the government decide who sells perfume. The idea being that, the right to sell perfume will be given to selected 4 or 5 parties, hoping that the public don't have to worry about fake products and low quality perfume. Do you think such state granted monopolies will actually improve quality, reduce price or benefit the public in general at all?

Well, such a thing was done in the land of Elvisdam. A similar thing has been ongoing right here in Maldives, the exclusive right to export tuna had been granted to selected companies. What right does the state have to give away the country's resources to selected parties? Does that really improve the conditions of fisherman or the small entrepreneur?

Fortunately, the news has come that the current government is atleast thinking of abolishing the state granted monopolies. These monopolies are one of the main reasons for the troubles faced by the fishermen. Some parliamentarians, during their campaign, promised to solve the problems of fishermen. But what everyone had in mind was more subsidies in fuel, ice and loans. Such subsidies hurt in the long run, and make the fishermen dependent, rather than independent and self sufficient.

Ofcourse, the question remains of how to actually abolish the monopolies. They too have made massive investments, and there should be appropriate compensation. There will be jobs lost and many other problems in the short term, but it is the sour but right medicine that we have to take.

In addition, in the recent news conference held by the employment ministry, it was stated that the exclusive monopolies given to so called 'expatriate workers importing agencies' need to be broken. That's right, state should grant no monopolies here too.

Is scarcity a monetary phenomena?

2009-05-17T10:45:00.000+05:00

A fellow blogger posted an article titled "Change the Rules of the game or Game itself?", where he mentioned the The Venus Project, and made claims in relation to the lowering of prices of mangoes such as:

For once, if we take the money out the equation, there are plenty of mangoes there a lot of people could eat instead of letting it rot in the market.

This is a bold claim to make. Is scarcity really just a monetary phenomena? If there was no money, there won't be any scarcity?I think not.

Taking money out of the equation does not remove the scarcity of the mangoes or any good for that matter. There is no infinite supply of land for mango trees, nor an infinite supply of farmers to grow them, nor an infinite number of traders and vehicles to bring the produce to the consumers, etc. Simply saying removing money out of the equation does not remove this scarcity.

Laws of supply and demand is the reality whether we like it or not. Whether money is involved or not. In barter as well, you would give up something more valuable in exchange for something that is more scarce. Money is a means to an end. It is not an end in itself. Remove money, we are back to barter, and the problems of scarcity will remain.

Even assuming that the Earth has enough natural resources for the world population (as the Venus Project claims), it takes time, energy, skill, tools, machinery to make the resources to a consumable form. As such, it will always be a matter of trade off between where to put more time and energy to say growing mangoes or other tasks.

At a cursory glance, the Venus Project appears to advocate a central authority to control every aspect of our life in the name of humanity. It states:

Considerable amounts of energy would also be saved by eliminating the duplication of competitive products such as tools, eating utensils, pots, pans and vacuum cleaners. Choice is good. But instead of hundreds of different manufacturing plants and all the paperwork and personnel required to turn out similar products, only a few of the highest quality would be needed to serve the entire population.

Is it not the competition that drives innovation and creativity? What is the incentive to make the single highest quality product? Such central-planning never works.

And it is not even self consistent. Here it says (emphasis mine):

Overpopulation, energy shortages, global warming, environmental pollution, water scarcity, economic catastrophe, the spread of uncontrollable disease, and the technological displacement of people by machines threaten each of us.

While here it states:

With the advent of future developments in science and technology, we will assign more and more decision making to machines.

Ofcourse, there will be lots of benefit to come from the renewable energy research and others that they propose to do, but as a social system I have my reservations. And thats just after a cursory look at their website. I think there will be a lot more to dig out, or am I way out of line here? Just one question remains.

Who controls the code running on these machines?

The copyright debate

2009-05-08T13:15:00.000+05:00

There is an ongoing online debate about copyrights on The Economist. The basic premise is that the existing copyright laws do more harm than good. Supporting the premise is Professor William Fisher of Harvard. Opposing the premise is Professor Justin Huges of Cardozo Law School, NY.

Although the debate is US-centric, the arguments and counter-arguments are very much relevant to our tiny country as we formulate modern intellectual property laws. Not that being modern is necessarily good.

Some Maldivians do think that copyright is an everlasting, overreaching right to do whatever you want with your works. They sometimes confuse copyright, patents and trademarks which are completely different things. We have to consider the costs to the society as a whole that results in overly broad copyrights, patents and trademarks.

For example, on 9 Feb 2009, Dhivehi Observer published an article titled Intellectual property and copyright law urgently needed in Maldives, states that:

For example, in recent years several special recipes for fish have been available in the market, like Faiy Mirus, Mas Mirus and so on. These are recipes that many of us tried for the very first time. Most people don’t even know who came up with the recipe but today several companies and individuals are selling the same product. One wonders what would happen to the first people had they been allowed to register the trademark and patent the recipe. Of course, others could sell similar products but not in the same name.

Are we to really allow trademarks on generic names and phrases such as "Mas Mirus", "Faiy Mirus" which Maldivians have used for long long time. Are we to allow patents on recipes which are modifications of recipes used by our previous generations? Are we forgetting that these recipes are also derivatives, and patenting them will restrict the recipes to selected few for the coming generations. And these few will be lobbyists benefiting at the cost of the society.

Overly broad copyrights and patents come at a huge cost to the society. It is no wonder that modern 'intellectual property' laws are allowing companies like Google to get sole access to millions of books and as one blogger put it, privatisation of the English language.

Some questions for parliamentary candidates

2009-05-03T08:30:00.000+05:00

Having watched some of the TVM 'debates', I wonder how will the candidates fair if they are asked some real political questions. Questions about issues that this country is facing, instead of giving them an easy ride by asking stupid questions. This way, the public can know what kind of policy stand their candidates favour.

Here are some questions, that I think are more relevant to the real world. Feel free to suggest more.

1. Do you agree that the current government's plans of privatisation of key sectors such as energy, health, education, utilities etc, will result in better and cheaper services for the public? How do you think standard of living, income disparity and poverty will change if such economic policies are adopted?

2. Maldives is currently facing proliferation of various religious sects, other religions and atheism. Should the state impose (by law) a certain sect of Islam? If so which sect, and how do we decide which sect? Or should the state allow anyone to practice their own selected sect of Islam, or allow complete freedom to choose one's own religion/sect?

3. Should the state have the right to monitor (internet, phones and other activities) of individuals in the hope of controlling 'social ills' such as religious extremism, other religions, homosexuality, pedophilia, drugs etc?

4. Do you consider the current drug laws sufficient? If not would you advocate more towards decriminalisation/rehabilitation or stricter criminal punishment?

5. If and when a tax system is introduced, should there be higher taxes with more government role in the society, or low taxes with less role for the government in the society?

I think such questions will reveal what the candidates really stand for and what their thoughts are (if they have thought of these problems at all) on these matters. It will help you in deciding who to vote for based on whether the candidates agree with you on what you think how these issues should be addressed.

Any suggestions/improvements are welcome.

(Architects vs Engineers) vs The Public

2009-04-26T20:10:00.001+05:00

Suppose one day that a legislation was put forward in Maldives that states the following:

1. Only physicians who have work experience of 10 years or more are allowed treat patients of certain selected medical conditions such as hypertension(high bp) and hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol). It is illegal for all other physicians to treat such a patient.

2. It is illegal for a doctor to compete with another doctor by offering lower price for his services. (Assume for a moment that doctor's fees are not controlled in Maldives).

What would such a legislation do to the general public? Most of the patients will then have to go to those 10yr experience doctors (lets call them super-doctors, which are few in number), if they want treatment for common conditions. The price they charge is not controlled, and the patient will have to pay whatever fee that the super-doctors demand. Meanwhile, perfectly capable physicians will not be able to offer their service.

As for the other doctors (opthal, paeds, gyn etc), they are not allowed to compete on price. If one gynaecologist is offering service at 100/- per patient, another gynaecologist cannot offer the same service for a lower price, because that would be illegal!

One might think that such a legislation will never be attempted. Well such a regulation is being proposed not in the health sector, but the building design sector. The "National Building Designers Registration (NBDR) Regulation 2009" hopes to do just that. Though currently in draft stage and opened for public comment by Ministry of Housing Transport and Environment, the regulation proposes such things.

It categorises architects and engineers so that only certain super-architects and super-engineers can design projects of certain size, types and heights. With few architects and engineers practicing, such regulations will give an enormous competitive advantage to the super-architects and super-engineers. Not because they are more capable, but because the others are regulated out of the market. And this doesn't stop here, the plan is to extend this to other professions in the sector such as Building Services, Quantity Surveying etc.

Secondly, under "Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics" clause 11.2 states:

11.2 A member shall not compete with another member by means of a reduction of fees or by any other inducement to any person

Member means a registered practitioner in the building design sector. The public is denied to shop around for a cheaper and better services!!! Such a regulation will definitely be favorable to someone in the design sector, but it is definitely not in the interest of the public.

Unfortunately, this might be the case for other regulations being hectically proposed. The interest of the general public is left out, while the interest of the interest groups are pushed.

Disclaimer:
I happen to be someone who will benefit from such a regulation. But my "Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics" says that this is just plain wrong :)

A conversation with a blogger

2009-04-22T11:28:00.004+05:00

I am posting a copy of a post by another blogger and my comments and follow ups for archiving here, in case the original blogger decides to delete the posts.

On Tuesday April 21 2009, person non grata posted an article titled Democratic Deism:

Keeping Maldives a Muslim state is being decried by some as a prejudice against the minority of the country. The fact that the vast majority (some would say 100%) of the country's populace are Muslims obviously weighs in on developing the laws and regulations of the country. Questioning this practice is questioning the prudence of democracy itself.

Consider Switzerland, which is one of the world's most revered direct democracies. It is a nation renowned for its tolerance and neutrality. Yet, every now and then the majority exercise their right to rescind that of the minority. A very real example of this is the referendum to ban minarets in Switzerland.

In the same vein, the Maldivian people have a right to refuse the building of churches in the country. They also have the right to ban the public practice of any deistic/theistic beliefs of their choosing. To deny them these rights is to deny them democracy.

My comment for that post:

Is this a troll? Anyway I will bite.

Democracy is a fancy name for tyranny-by-majority, especially if it goes unchecked. But whether it is a democracy or a republic (which by the way is what I personally would prefer), there has to be protection of life, liberty and property of individuals. The problem with the Maldives constitution is that it doesnt protect the civil liberties of people. It gives draconian powers to the Majlis, where the rights of citizens can be revoked at the stroke of a vote by the majority.

Just imagine if you are on the receiving end of the stick. Right now religious sects are proliferating in Maldives, and there is hard crackdown. But such acts will only exacerbate the problems. As a Muslim I do not want the state to dictate and coerce me into following a particular sect of Islam. It used to be that all Maldivians should follow the Shafiee mazhab (not you btw :), but now that the people at MoIA is mostly Wahhabi, do you want Wahhabism to be mandated? Or Shafiee mazhab to be mandated? It should be left to the individual and the state should have no say on that. Similarly, if the Dots want to pray in separate mosque, so be it. State should not coerce them to pray at selected mosques. It is the same as asking the moderate muslims to pray at a church. Same applies to other religions. If someone wants to follow different religion state should allow it. Do you want to see the day if for example there is Christian majority in Majlis, and they amend the constitution to force Christianity upon us? I certainly don't. But sadly, Maldivians will gladly agree to enforce a sect or religion as long as it is his/her sect/religion.

We should be more respectful and tolerant of our fellow humans. I have written on these topics.

Sorry for the long comment.

On April 22 2009, a follow up titled Democratic Deism (a follow-up) was posted:

This is in reply to a few observations made by meekaaku in reply to the last post.

Come the day Christianity ousts Islam in Maldives, the public will have to accept it (this author certainly will). The mosques can be taken down and the Qurans in the libraries replaced with Bibles, but the people will have the right to practice their religions in seclusion (it is a belief system after all, so who can stop people from believing?).

This is the right Christians and people from other religions have. There are plenty of non-Muslims practicing their respective religions in private gatherings. This is not to say that they cannot work towards converting the majority of the country (oppressing these efforts would be tyrannous).

As liberties go, there are few greater than agreeing upon a common belief system which enables optimal communal performance. This liberty was served when the Special Majlis declared Maldives an Islamic state in the new constitution. Consider the consequences of having declared it a Christian state.

Keeping democracy in check is what MoIA and the rest of the government's gestapo-factions are already doing. The Majlis is ineffectual in holding the government accountable because it is constitutionally compromised. The current state of affairs in Maldives can already be summed up as tyrannous. Through this tyranny the government has started seeding the notions of theistic plurality.

My comment for this follow up:

"There are plenty of non-Muslims practicing their respective religions in private gatherings."

Maybe for expats, but for Maldivians it is illegal. Well by definition, you have to be a mulsim to be a citizen. Hence a maldivian practicing a different religion is by definition not a Maldivian! And yet the state lets them keep their passports and other benefits that a mulsim Maldivian gets. So why don't we just get rid of that requirement of being muslim to be a maldivian. Lets put a stop to this recursive definition.
-----

"This is not to say that they cannot work towards converting the majority of the country (oppressing these efforts would be tyrannous)."

And oppressed it is. No one can preach (let alone openly) another religion legally here.
---

"This liberty was served when the Special Majlis declared Maldives an Islamic state in the new constitution. Consider the consequences of having declared it a Christian state."

Liberty was served by denying the liberty to choose one's own religion?
----

"Keeping democracy in check is what MoIA and the rest of the government's gestapo-factions are already doing."

Keeping democracy in check by suppressing free speech, invading privacy and surveillance? Yeah, Big Brother is watching us.

The rights and liberty at Elvisdam - Part 2

2009-04-18T13:12:00.003+05:00

(This is slightly related to my earlier post about Elvisdam.)

The people of Elvisdam lived a peaceful life. Elvians were generally peace loving and law abiding citizens. Over the years, people came to the king for favours and general routine things. Most of the services were available in the capital city of Elam where the king resides. Soon, as the kingdom prospered, the city of Elam became the central hub of the entire kingdom. Many Elvians from other cities came and settled in the city of Elam. As a result there was huge demand for residential and commercial properties in Elam.

Citizens of Elam saw the opportunity and started building their houses as multi-storey buildings. Some were for residential, while others were for commercial purposes. Ten to twenty years ago, there were no financing for such developments from the banks. Thus the citizens of Elam saved money over the years and built their homes. Nowadays, the banks do provide loans with interest for such developments.

As the demand for the properties increased, so did the rents. This is Economics 101. There were periods when rents fell slightly. However recently, the rents have kept increasing just like price of other items such as food, clothing etc.

As a result, very recently, a petition has been put forward to the king, asking for control of the rent in Elam. The premise being that, monthly rent, deposits and advance payments have gotten out of control and the king needs to do something about it.

However, such push button solutions will not work, especially when it tries to defy economics. History has shown that such price controls results in shortages. Now it is upto the king to decide what to do, and what button to push. There are several arguments against rent control or any other price control.

1. Liberty and freedom:
How is it ethical for me to dictate a price for your fruits of labour and investment? Suppose you were doing some other economic activity such as building contruction, fishing or ordinary corner shop. What right do the state have in dictating the price charged by the contractor, or the price that fisherman sell fish or the price that cornershop sells products. After all, the contractor, fisherman and shopowner have to pay their costs of living too. This is what I mentioned in my previous post about Elvisdam.)

. 2. Price control will result in shortages:
If for example the king decides to control the residential rent, and if this rent is below market price, the landowners will only build and rent out for commercial activities (such as shops, office, warehouse etc). This will result in a shortage of residential buildings. This is the same kind of shortage that occurs for some foreign currencies in Elvisdam.
If the king decides to control both residential and commercial rent, then landowners will have to select tenants based on some criteria other than price. It might result in landowners preferring to rent out to businesses instead of ordinary people, thinking that businesses are more likely to pay rent and big deposits.

3. The king is relieved of his duties:
If rent control is imposed, the king can say he has solved the housing problem with popular support from the public. But the real problem of inadequate educational, health and other facilities remain unsolved in the other cities. This is the main reason for the influx of people into the city of Elam.

4: Does nothing to reduce the cost of living:
Almost all elvians face the problem of increased cost of living, be it in Elam or other cities. The prices of food, fuel and clothing has risen, so has rent. Part of the problem is increased demand. The average income remained the same while the prices has gone up. Some have called for controlling the prices as well. But the real problem is inflation, which is not being addressed by the king, and unfortunately there is not much call for correcting inflation by addressing its root cause-Monetising the king's debt.

The king runs a debt country. Previous kings ran a deficit budget, meaning its expenditures were more than its income. Hence the king printed the money to make room for his extravagant spending. Like any other commodity, the money loses value as more is pumped into the economy. As long as such printing is going on, there will be no stop to inflation.

The current petition will gain popular support. It will also have significant opposition. This petition cuts to the heart a majority of people. But the sad part is, popular support was there for suppressing the freedom of the shell collectors in Elvisdam. Their fruits of labour were cartelised and extensive price controls were imposed. Only the few zone holders reap the benefit of the work of shell collectors. But they (the shell collectors) were a minority and lacked political backing, hence they have been deprived of their fundamental rights. Now it is happening to the powerful people, look how much it will be debated.

Majlis statistics

2009-04-16T20:03:00.004+05:00

As the parliamentary elections nears, it is worth noting how our elected representatives have performed in their job. We all hear too often that the session has been canceled due to lack of quorum. Lets see how their attendance fares.

The table below gives some statistics about their attendance record for the period of March 2008 to 10 Nov 2008. Note that this does not include committee meetings.

All data taken from the annual report of 2008 available at Majlis website.

Mar indicates March/April
Jun indicates June/July
Oct indicates Oct/Nov (upto 10th)

		No.of sessions held/attended.
		Mar	Jun	Aug	Sep	Oct	Tot.	%
Const.	Member	18	26	18	14	10	86	%
Pres	Zahiya Zareer / Ahmed Zahir	15	18	15	14	8	70	81.4
	Ibrahim Saleem / Hussain Hilmy	14	21	12	2	0	49	57.0
	Ahmed Shareef / Mohamed Saleem	17	23	14	14	10	78	90.7
	Azima Shukoor / Lubna Mohamed	14	12	15	11	4	56	65.1
	Hussain Hilmy / Moosa Nizar	8	21	15	14	8	66	76.7
	Dhiyana Saeed / Ahmed Mahloof	14	15	15	12	8	64	74.4
	Fathin Hameed / Abdul Rasheed	16	17	14	14	6	67	77.9
	Mohamed Saleem / Rozaina Adam	18	26	15	12	8	79	91.9
Male'	Ibrahim Ismail	18	22	9	5	9	63	73.3
	Mohamed Shihab	18	25	18	14	8	83	96.5
HA	Ibrahim Manik	9	18	14	13	6	60	69.8
	Jaufar Easa Adam	12	24	13	10	7	66	76.7
HDh	Ahmed Abdullah	14	14	17	14	7	66	76.7
	Abdul Shukoor	18	13	0	4	9	44	51.2
Sh	Mohamed Hussain	13	23	3	10	2	51	59.3
	Ibrahim Waheed	12	19	18	7	5	61	70.9
N	Abdulla Yameen	11	23	16	11	4	65	75.6
	Ali Mohamed	18	26	18	12	8	82	95.3
R	Ali Waheed	17	25	15	0	1	58	67.4
	Ibrahim Shaheed Zaki	14	25	15	11	10	75	87.2
B	Ahmed Thasmeen Ali	11	20	12	8	7	58	67.4
	Abdul Rasheed Abdul Rahman	15	23	9	10	6	63	73.3
Lh	Ahmed Mohamed	16	20	15	13	3	67	77.9
	Mohamed Solih	12	22	18	12	3	67	77.9
K	Ismail Abdul Hameed	16	24	10	10	4	64	74.4
	Mariya Ahmed Didi	15	24	18	13	6	76	88.4
AA	Ahmed Zubair	11	20	18	13	8	70	81.4
	Hussain Mohamed	15	19	4	5	7	50	58.1
ADh	Abdul Muhsin Abdullah	17	24	14	14	7	76	88.4
	Abdul Rasheed Ali	15	14	15	3	2	49	57.0
V	Ismail Shihab	9	20	16	8	6	59	68.6
	Abdullah Shahid	7	17	11	11	8	54	62.8
M	Ahmed Nazim	9	23	12	14	3	61	70.9
	Aneesa Ahmed	17	25	17	13	10	82	95.3
F	Ahmed Hamza	12	22	18	13	9	74	86.0
	Abdul Gafoor Ibrahim	15	25	18	13	5	76	88.4
Dh	Ahmed Shiyam Mohamed	5	5	6	8	4	28	32.6
	Ahmed Nasheed	13	25	17	10	7	72	83.7
Th	Hassan Afeef	18	23	18	13	9	81	94.2
	Mohamed Shareef	16	26	18	14	8	82	95.3
L	Ilyas Ibrahim	18	25	17	11	6	77	89.5
	Moosa Manik	16	18	17	12	8	71	82.6
GA	Abdullah Jabir	10	10	15	8	7	50	58.1
	Mohamed Saleem	17	21	18	11	8	75	87.2
GDh	Zahir Adam	9	17	10	8	3	47	54.7
	Abbas Ibrahim	18	25	18	13	10	84	97.7
Gn	Mohamed Ibrahim Didi	18	23	17	13	9	80	93.0
	Abdullah Maseeh Mohamed	18	26	18	14	8	84	97.7
S	Mohamed Aslam	12	25	14	10	4	65	75.6
	Ibrahim Shareef	16	21	15	8	5	65	75.6
Legend
	Above 90% attendance
	Above the average 76% attendance
	Below the average 76% attendance
	Lowest attendance

The crackdown begins

2009-04-05T16:00:00.001+05:00

The arrest of 9 Maldivians near Pakistan has raised lot of criticism towards the government, the so called extremists, wahhabis and fellow Muslims. Various bloggers have called for numerous action, including some people calling upon the government to just do something, while others advocate the abolishment of Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Eventually, the government has vowed to monitor the activities of the Jihadis.

But one thing we as citizens have to keep in mind is whether we want to go down that slippery slope. When the police say they are going to monitor them, do we even know how they are going to go about it? Do they start by monitoring the activities of people with long beard? Do they randomly check the suspects on the road for possession of Jihadi material? Are they suspects just because they have a long beard? This kind of monitoring is an invasion of the privacy and freedom of the public, be it beardies or not. This kind of power is something that governments love, since they get the ability to control and police the citizens. Unfortunately, lot of Maldivians will gladly agree to have the habees checked, searched and monitored. Afterall, it won't affect the majority of these moderate Muslims right? And we have nothing to hide, so why be afraid?

Yes, there are many sects such as Sufis, Salafis etc. But cracking down on them just because they believe in different school is very wrong. We need to be tolerant and respectful of other views and beliefs. A hard crackdown is exactly the kind of thing that will make things worse. If some people want to pray separately, why can't we as a society let them? How is it justified to coerce them to pray at a place that they fundamentally believe is inappropriate? Is it not the same as forcing us the so called moderate Muslims to pray at a church? Similarly, we have to accept that there will be different schools within the same religion, and people with different religions and non-believers as well. Do we really have to crack down on them in the name of protecting national unity? Everyone should be free as long as they don't violate the rights of others.

But they are extremists and terrorists, some will say. Who defines extremism and terrorism? Are the journalists who stands for free speech and press extremists because they encourage views critical of the state? Are atheists extremist because they don't believe in God? Are Muslims terrorists because some Muslims engage in suicide bombings?

It used to be Jews and Gypsies in Germany when Hitler came to power. Communists in USA during the Cold War. Terrorists and Enemy Combatants in modern day USA. All these fancy names have one common purpose. It creates a common enemy that ordinary citizens will unite against and give up essential freedoms in the hopes of getting protection. History and even current events around the world can reveal how the state manipulate the fear. It starts with gradual erosion of the rights of the minority and sadly the majority never stands up for it. To paraphrase Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Communists, I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Politics of Fear

2009-04-01T15:49:00.002+05:00

It is well known tactic of the politicians to jump on big disastrous events to establish more power over the general populace. Whether it be natural disasters or man-made ones, the power elite always have something ready at hand. This tactic of using politics of fear was well used by Hitler after the burning of the Reichstag. George Bush used the 9/11 attack to push through the US PATRIOT Act.

Right now the world is currently facing economic recession, and the powers that be are jumping at the opportunity to create something that gives the financial institutions more power. This time it is a common world currency and a Global Reserve System. All in the name of reforming the world financial system.

This will be the one of the things that will be discussed at the upcoming G20 summit to be held in London. With trillions in foreign currency reserves, China is also trying it's stake to gain more control over the US and EU influenced financial institutions such as IMF and World Bank. A UN panel of experts (headed by none other than 2001 Nobel laureate) advocates the creation of a new global currency and a new global reserve system to counter the boom-bust cycles that the world economies face.

Currently the dollar is considered the world reserve currency due to the US getting the upper hand after the WWII and the subsequent Bretton Woods agreement, which failed in 1971 resulting in the Nixon Shock. However, the dollar (including most other currencies), are created fiat without any backing by a real commodity such as gold. As such, the US Federal Reserve can print the money just out of thin air (the actual steps involve using a nice piece of paper called T-bills). This printing of money is what causes the real inflation, and the excessive amount of printed paper money and bank credit created this financial mess in the first place.

The creation of one global currency, another fiat one, will most likely not prevent the boom-bust cycle. It will only exacerbate the problem, and will give even more control to these institutions over our daily lives. Already, these financial institutions have so much control over our economies via the network of central banks, and a one world currency will empower them even more.

EEZ licenses

2009-03-28T19:57:00.002+05:00

Some of the Majlis members have called for the revocation of the fishing licenses given to the foreign companies for fishing in the Maldivian EEZ. Their demand is basically for immediate cancellation of those licenses.

One wonders whether these parliamentarians are actually honest in their call for solving the fisherman's problems. Considering the timing of these calls, could this be another stunt to garner the votes? Everyone agrees there are problems that need to be addressed, but apparently no one agrees on how to address them.

Talking of revoking the foreign companies' licenses, it is time for the public to call for revocation of the zone licenses that some of these vocal parliamentarians have. It is very likely that the foreign companies' licenses will be revoked only to be replaced with licenses for these selected Maldivian companies who already control the entire export of tuna stock. But you will never see them calling for revoking of their very own licenses.

As long as our fishermen are made to sell their catch to selected few zone holders, we will see no cease to the problems. The fishermen are denied their right to a just price, just like the shell collectors in Elvisdam.

The State vs. The People

2009-03-20T17:31:00.005+05:00

The constant struggle between the rulers and the ruled have never stopped since the beginning of recorded human history. The rulers, whether it be kings or democratic states, try to impose rules that sometimes invades the personal liberty and freedom of individuals. Here in Maldives, it is by no means any different even after the overthrow of the 30 year old regime. The recent censorship of selected websites by the government illustrates how the state imposes rules and regulations at the expense of personal liberty. Like the author Eric Blair said,

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"

Although I disagree with some of the things in the websites, I do defend their right to say it. In a country where we are just learning democracy, it is important to understand that if democracy goes unchecked, it will result in a dictatorship. After all, Adolf Hitler came to power via democratic means. Thus, we must not let ourselves be the frogs that gets slowly cooked in the ever heating pan. The real problem, in my opinion, is that the constitution itself does not impose limits on the power of the state. For example, the often quoted Article 16(a) states that (emphasis mine);

"This Constitution guarantees to all persons, in a manner that is not contrary to any tenet of Islam, the rights and freedoms contained within this Chapter, subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by a law enacted by the People’s Majlis in a manner that is not contrary to this Constitution. Any such law enacted by the People’s Majlis can limit the rights and freedoms to any extent only if demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

In short, you have all these fundamental rights until the People's Majlis decides to revoke (to any extent) them by enacting a law passed by the majority. What kind of guarantee is that? What is meant by demonstrably justified, in a free democratic society? We all know that it is in these democratic societies that special interest groups and people with power come up with all sorts of demonstrably justified reasons to invade the personal liberty and freedom of individuals. Why should we give the People's Majlis so much power over our personal lives? You never know when a law will be passed that allows the state to monitor phone calls and internet traffic for terrorist threats, do you? It is not only in the totalitarian states that erosion of personal liberty takes place. The so called Land of the Free passed the PATRIOT ACT which gave the state overly broad surveillance powers and threw away the due process of law (Just 45 days after the 9/11 attacks). Just yesterday in Australia, the secret blacklist of banned websites was leaked. When such laws are passed, the state will create a common enemy. In USA during the Cold War, it was the Communists, today it is the Terrorists. For Hitler it was the Jews and Gypsies. Do you want this country to be such a nanny state, in the name of protecting us from the evils of such sites? Do we give up our liberty so that the state can protect us? I certainly won't.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin -

Copyleft - All wrongs reversed.

2009-03-14T23:05:00.005+05:00

As our country sails through the democratic high seas, new legislation and regulations will inevitably be put forward at the parliament. One of the things that is mostly called for are patents and copyrights. As citizens we need to be aware of what these actually mean, and how it affects our daily lives. One thing is certain, it will definitely have backing from special interest groups.

Copyright was originally intended to give the author of the said work exclusive right to make copies for a limited period. The purpose was to encourage authors (by giving economic incentive) to create works of art, without having the fear of someone else copying them. It is important to remember that copyright is not a natural right in the same category as right to life and liberty. It is a right granted by the society (via the state), to that particular individual or group. It has its scope and limits such as Fair Use.

For example in the US, copyrights were usually given for 20 to 30 years. However, like any legislation, extensive lobbying by special interest groups has extended the copyright period to more than 100 years at the expense of public interest.

When copyright legislation are proposed, one has to consider how far are we willing to go in the name of protecting the rights of authors. Do we really want draconian laws such as DMCA where you are not even allowed to make a copy of your legally bought DVD for backup purposes? Do we want laws that allow the ISP to become the copyright police by montoring our internet traffic, making the ISP answerable to the movie/music industry? Do you want to see the day where you won't be able to read your ebook twice?

Such days are not too far away. It is happening right now. For example, once a friend of mine gave me a dhivehi music video CD (could have been a dvd, don't remember now). The CD played only on cd players. When I tried to play it on the computer, the system crashed. It was made delibrately to crash the computer, and that was why my friend asked me to fix the problem. If such DMCA like laws are passed, you won't be allowed to circumvent that mechanism by using an alternative operating system or program. That would be illegal! It is my right that I can use whatever damn equipment to play the cd which I bought and paid for. The copyright holder does not have the right to dictate to me how I use it (since I am not copying).

These legislations are already in place for world enforcement such as WIPO TRIPS. We will have to wait and see how our MPs handle these. Wonder whether they will have any clue.

All contents of this article are Copyleft. All wrongs reversed.

The rights and liberty at Elvisdam

2009-03-08T11:15:00.004+05:00

Once upon a time there was this remote little island called Elvisdam. The people of this island, aptly named Elvians, live a simple life. Shell collectors go to the beaches of the island and collect shells that come to the shore, and sell them to the locals or sell them to other islands such as Li Ansark, Pure-Oe and others. This is the main income source for the people of Elvisdam. Life was good.

One day the king Elvis decided that it is in the best interest of everyone that the king sells these shells to the lucrative markets of Pure-Oe, Li Ansark and others, making sure that the quality is good and the brand name of the people of Elvisdam is maintained. For this task, the king assigned his leutinent Lt. Icom F., making him an instant icon in the kingdom of Elvisdam. However, that meant it was against the law for Elvians to sell these shells to Pure-Oe directly. They will have to sell it to Lt. Icom, and at a price dictated by Lt. Icom. Some species of shells such as J. sackpik were definitely not allowed to be sold directly by the Elvians (to Pure-Oe ofcourse), while others such as Y. funtian were allowed.

Many Elvians thought this arrangement was good, until one day Lt. Icom was unable to meet the demands of the shell collectors. Being one man himself, there is only so much that Lt. Icom could buy in one day, even at his own dictated price. There were just too many shell collectors hoping to make a sale. Some shell collectors go as far as the edge of the reef to collect shells spending lot of time and energy, and they complain to the king that the price dictated by Lt. Icom is too low. At certain times Lt. Icom raises the buying prices of shells upon order from the king. At other times they buy shells from each shell collector based on a fixed quota per collector, hoping that all shell collectors get a chance.

As a solution to this problem, the king decided to allow others to sell the shells to Pure-Oe and others. However, this would come at a price for the Elvians; a steep one in fact. The king decided to divide the beaches of the island to zones. The North Beach, East Beach, South Beach and the West Beach, giving each zone to a different Elvian. The king gave monopoly control to the entire shell collection to selected individual Elvians who are the only ones who can sell the shells to the lucrative markets of Pure-Oe. All the shell collectors will have to sell their shells to one of these zone holders if they want to sell to Pure-Oe (they can sell to locals without restriction). It is not necessary that a North shell collector sell to the North zone holder; he can sell to the South zone holder if he can travel that far. One of these zones is given to Lt. Icom too. These zone holders do get massive land (for a very low rent) from the beach to build their packaging factories.

But the zone system did not solve the problem. The shell collectors were not satisfied. The average Elvian was not satisfied. There were always this struggle between the shell collectors and the zone holders about quota and buying price. Shell collectors demand to raise the buying prices and increase quota. But the zone holders have only a certain capacity. Yet the king won't allow anyone else to come and sell these shells to Pure-Oe. These struggles continue to this day.

It is a very sad state for the people of Elvisdam. They have been denied the right and liberty to sell their hard earned shells to the lucrative markets. They are forced to sell these shells to the king granted monopolies and at a price fixed price. Even then, people like Lt. Icom say he never make a profit and he gets money from the king (which by the way is hard earned money of the Elvians). No amount of price raises, quota increase or capacity increase will solve the inherent problem of the system. The only real solution is abolishing these monopolies.

(Update: It might not be a coincidence that one could spell Maldives from the same letters as Elvisdam. Or Icom F and Mifco etc.)

Stellar software Stellarium

2009-03-03T22:29:00.002+05:00

For those who are interested in sky observing, Stellarium is software worth having a look. Released under GPL and available for many platforms, it gives nice views of the sky (including star positions, planets, moon etc) as it will be when viewed from anywhere in the world. You can select the location by specifying latitude and longitude, or select a city from its built-in database.

This is not your average shareware software. This is completely free for personal, commercial and any other way you want to use it. It has no trial periods or limited functionality. No registration required. Just download/install/use. You can copy to as many machines as you want unlike most copyrighted software. Even the source code is available for free, hence its called Open Source Software.

For comparison of whats simulated and whats actual, the following picture shows how Stellarium shows the moon smiling on us on 1st Dec 2008 at 1900hrs when viewed from Male'.

Compare that to an actual photograph taken the same night about the same time. The exposure of the moon and planets are different because Stellarium cannot simulate the atmospheric light scattering (and the photographer's shaky hands!).

You can view other astronomical events of the past and the future. Just for the record, 20 Dec 2009 is the start of the Mars' retrograde motion (meaning Mars appear to reverse its direction of motion, until 10 March 2010), which you can view exactly how it is going to look from Earth as shown below. Good explanations available for anyone who care to read. No fear mongering please this time.

The planet Mars is centered on the screen. You can see the planet moving left relative to the stars (it is actually moving eastwards relative to the stars). The date is shown on the lower right of the video. Starting on 1st Nov 2009, the video shows Mars slowing down around 10 Dec 2009, and reversing the motion on 20 Dec 2009. Though the video shows until end of January 2010, this retrograde motion continues until 10 March 2010. You can also see the wobbly motion of the moon as well.

Economic stimulus package for Maldives?

2009-02-23T12:35:00.003+05:00

There are talks of an economic stimulus package for Maldives. The discussions are being held at the Majlis level. It is no wonder that the parliamentarians and the businessmen are jumping at the opportunity to line their pockets. The key question that need to be asked is whether we need a stimulus package, and what exactly are we trying to stimulate.

One can look at what is happening in the US to see why they wanted a stimulus package and what is being done. When you really look into it, the bigger part of the stimulus package is going to prop up the big failed banks. Its not stimulus. Its Social Welfare for the Rich!

The thing that worries me is that the Majlis is mostly comprised of businessmen. If there ever is a stimulus package, I fear that the main benefactors will be the resort owners and other big businesses. Again social welfare for the rich.

Yes resorts will be hit hard, and many other sectors such as construction will see the hit. But artificially stimulating is just the wrong medicine. If the resorts or the construction companies (or any other business for that matter) are making a loss, then be it! Isnt that what risk taking in business is all about? Just like any business, investors invest hoping that their will be a profit. Why should the public money be spent propping up a failing business? What is the ethical justficiation for it? When the economy is good, they take all the profits, but when it is loss, the public has to bear it? Thats not capitalism. Privatise the profit and socialise the risk, thats what it is called.

I am not saying there are no problems with the Maldives economy, we have our own problem too. But the stimulus package is not going to solve the problems we face, and whatever the package they come up with they will come again asking for more just like the US.

Previously patented post

2009-02-14T23:50:00.007+05:00

Lately there have been many calls for legislations regarding "intellectual property" (IP). IP laws grant exclusive monopoly to one's creative work usually for a given period of time. The term "intellectual property" is a confusing term in that it could mean copyright, patent or trademarks. Therefore when discussing IP it is important to specify which one (copyright, patent or trademark) that we are talking about, as each of these have a specific meaning.

As Maldives will eventually have such laws, it is important for the general public to understand what these actually mean. Some people do mistakenly believe that whole ideas and concepts can be patented. What can and should be patentable is a particular implementation of an idea. There are various other conditions that have to be met for a claim to be patented. If an idea or concept can be patented, that would mean someone could patent the idea of say blogs. That would mean whoever got that patent will have an exclusive monopoly over the whole concept of blogging. How would that promote innovation? How would that allow competition? Luckily, ideas and concepts are not patentable, and we do have lots of competition for blog software and hosts.

Even if only a specific implementation of an idea is patentable, the crucial question is who will be examining the patent application for its merit. How qualified will that person or institution be? Will they be able to identify obvious and non-obvious claims? What about the existence of prior art? How long shall the patent be valid for? 5 years? 20 years? What types of patents will be allowed?

These have to be addressed to have a healthy patent system that promotes and rewards the real inventors rather than the patent trolls. We should not let our patent office become like some others where stupid and obvious patents were granted.

And there still remains the problem with rewarding the independent inventor. What happens if I make the same invention independently? Will the first applicant (and hence the patent holder) be able to stop me from developing my invention, which I made with my own effort and my very own ideas? Is he not interfering with my freedom of expression?

Maybe I should patent the idea of establishing a good patent system?

Anni's Playbook

2009-02-09T09:39:00.003+05:00

The current president has pledged to float the Rufiyaa (and keep it at 10rf per dollar) and to secure a 800m reserve. I think this is doable and here is how i think he plans to do it.

His strategy is directly from 'freemarket' playbook and known by various names.

What is happening now is the Maldivian version of economic shock therapy. This is what the developed and developing countries want from the third world countries. The multinationals and the financial institutions will then welcome us with arms wide open.

Anni has already implemented items 4 and 8 of structural adjustments. Item 9 is in the works. Just wait and see the rest being implemented. The changes will be quick and big (literally 'alifun yaa ah').

Yes Anni will float the Rufiya and maybe it is possible to bring to 10rf per dollar. With Maldives "Open for Business" then the Rufiyaa will certainly gain. He announced to the public with great fanfare the commitment from our neighbours for 300m. What he did not say at that time were their conditionalities. The 15 MoU's might have the answer though.

I think Anni knows what he is doing, not that I agree though. His tactics are smiliar to that of Thatcherism. Maybe he will add his own flavour and then we can call it Annism.

PS: Thatcher is from the British Conservative Party and backs the current president and his MDP. Coincidence?

Economic shock therapy

2009-02-03T17:43:00.003+05:00

The recent trade agreements signed by the Maldives and CII of India clearly demonstrate the economic policy of MDP. 15 MoU's were signed between Maldivian government and various private companies of India. Not much detail have been released to the public, but if history is any indication, this will result in many Indian companies making investments that will bring economic progress.

However, one is left thinking, what are the long term consequences of privatising the infrastructure of this country. What will happen to the local companies and also the local labour force. Anni is very much right leaning and his policy of frantic trade liberalisation is arguably the Maldivian version of Economic Shock Therapy, that was carried out in Chile, Poland, former USSR etc albeit without the immediate human cost.

One question still remains is how successful will this experiment be. Will it be `successful' as in Poland or will result in the rise of the oligarchs.

/dev/null

2009-01-31T11:09:00.002+05:00

Stuff that does not belong anywhere else. ie /dev/null