Making Choices

(1). Things that happened are always going to happen, and the proof that they were always going to happen is that they did happen.

(2). An old saying of historians is that until Lions learn to talk,history will always be written by hunters.

(3). There were riots in New York against the incomers. But in the end the exigencies of economic growth won out. There was no point fighting over shares of the pie when it became evident just how rapidly it was growing . America was not a zero-sum game.

(4). Economies rarely get rich on agriculture alone.

(5). It was history and choice, not fate, which determined which became which. It is history and choice which will determine which is which in a century’s time.

Trade & Natural Resources

(1). Food Security v/s Food Self sufficiency. The first means ensuring there will always be enough to eat; the second means growing it yourself.

(2). Economies by and large become rich because they can make and provide goods and services, not because they own a source of basic commodities (like minerals).

(3). Business creates benefit s when there is fair competition over products and pricing within the law such that the most efficient business wins. Consumers do not benefit when companies are free to do whatever they want to get a competitive edge, including cheating, stealing, bribing, intimidating and assaulting.

(4). You can easily say what policies need to be followed. But unless you have the institutions to impose those policies and defend them, knowing what the right policies are is of limited use.

Religion

(1). Faith seems to exercise its influence on growth in a subtler, less deterministic way: rather than the theology itself, it has more to do with actions of priests, politicians, monarchs and bureaucrats exploiting religious doctrine to pursue thoroughly temporal goals of wealth and power.

(2). Gain all you can, save all you can,give all you can.

Politics of development

(1). Small Lobies can outmanoeuvre big ones owes a great deal to the theorist Mancur Olson: When many individuals have a similar interest, it makes sense for them to band together to get what thy want. But because there are so many of them, it is hard to get them organized. The temptation is for each mmber to rely on the next to do the work for her. And if eveyone does this, nothing gets done. However, when benefits of organizing are captured by a relatively small number of members of a group, it becomes easier and cheaper to motivate them nto forming an effective lobby. Such groups have also become adept at joining with others to form coalitions. This explains why lobbies of producers are generally much more powerful than groups of consumers. For the latter, the benefit of lower prices is spread across everyone who cares to make a purchase: for the former , the gains from higher prices are captured only by a few.

Trade Routes and Supply Chain

(1). Simpe cost advantage is often wiped out by much greater efficiency in making goods and getting them to market- and in particular in creating a surging torrent of commerce that sweeps new products along efficiently, reliably and inexpensively towards their destination.

(2).But technological change was not, and is not, manna from heaven that equally benefits all societies and industries. It needs to land in the right environment, populated by clever business people who can seize and exploit its potential with governments to encoourage them.

(3).Time and again across the developing world, the real constraints to competing with foreign producers are not trade policy but lack of something to sell and inability to get it to market cheaply.

(4).Trade needs suppliers to trust that they will get paid, and legal and judicial systems that help rather than hinder business.

Corruption

(1). Corruption can broadly be defined as any abuse of position, whether public or private, for personal gain.

(2). If the principal (Public) cannot perfectly observe the actions of the agent(elected representative), the agent has an incentive to act in his or her own interest instead. The more monopoly and discretionary power that agents have over providing whatever service they are supposed to, and the less accountable they are, the more likely they are to succumb to corruption.

(3). Corruption is a form of self interest that thrives on lack of competition and information.

(4).If you are going to have corruption, best have it in as efficient and streamlined a way as possible.