Cinema Rasik

'Big Guy' vs. 'Short Guy' & the 'Little Master' - Are "educated" Indians Really That Different & Why?

2012-04-15T13:05:00Z

Rick Santelli and Steve Liesman of CNBC are usually on opposite sides of monetary issues. Their disagreement is most intense when it comes to discussing whether the US Federal Reserve is doing the right thing for America. These conversations are a viewer favorite. So anchors like Joe Kernen sometimes set up a fight. This Wednesday, the fight got heated.

Rick Santelli ended one of his points with an emphatic 'Big Guy' directed at Steve Liesman. Santelli's use of 'Big Guy' may have packed a punch but Big Guy is never a derogatory term when used for a man. But Steve Liesman was so riled up that he said:

"so what I am supposed to say when you say Big Guy, am I supposed to say Short Guy, Is that what I am supposed to say?"

The reaction from CNBC co-anchors tells the tale. Becky Quick went "ohhhhh" and Joe Kernen exclaimed " Oh my God" and added "now I feel responsible". Get a sense yourself by watching the CNBC 'Big Guy' vs. 'Short Guy' videoclip for 30 seconds from minute 02:00 to minute 02:30. You will see what a shocker the term 'Short Guy' was to the CNBC anchors.

Now can you imagine the reaction had Liesman called Santelli 'Little Guy'? There is no culture on earth in which calling a man "little" is anything but a put-down, a severe put-down. Sorry, no culture on earth with one solitary exception.

That solitary exception, of course, is that of 'educated' Indians. Why? Consider their favorite compliment to a great Indian - 'Little Master'.

The Little Master

The greatest Cricket player of this generation is India's Sachin Tendulkar. He holds just about every record in the book, including the previously unimaginable 100 centuries in International Test Cricket. In fact, Sachin Tendulkar is now regarded as the greatest batsman ever, even greater than the previous great Don Bradman of Australia who played in the 1930s-1940s.

The respect for Sachin Tendulkar is probably best summed up by the following comment of Australian player Mathew Hayden during Australia's tour in India in 1998:

I have seen God. He bats at no. 4 in India in Tests.

So what term do 'educated' Indians use for India's great son? They call him the Little Master. Reportedly, this term was first used for Sachin Tendulkar by a British player. This was a left-handed compliment at best. In this early days, Sachin was derided for his short stature (5'5" height). Look at the comment made by Australian player Merv Hughes to the Australian great Allan Border in the 1991-1992 series:

This little prick's going to get more runs than you, AB.

Tendulkar is lucky that 'educated' Indians didn't begin calling him by the above nick name. Even they realized it was not a compliment. Or perhaps, a left-handed comment from an Australian doesn't count.

But a compliment, even a left-handed one, from an Englishman is totally different to 'educated' Indians. The fact that an Englishman paid a "masterly" compliment to an Indian player was so thrilling to this tribe that they began calling Sachin Tendulkar the 'Little Master' themselves.

Don Bradman, the previous all time great, was also a short, compact player and he considered Tendulkar's batting style as similar to his own. But no Britisher ever called Bradman the Little Master and had they done so, no Australian would have tolerated that left-handed compliment.

But to 'educated' Indians, a compliment from an Englishman is the ultimate glory. So Sachin Tendulkar, the greatest batsman of all time, is stuck with a half-derogatory nick-name.

The 'educated' Indian species

Since childhood, we have been hearing admonitions to Indian men from teachers and elders:

you are 'educated' people, you shouldn't behave this way!

So what does this 'educated' title mean?

It means you have learned English, you have obtained a 'modern' English education and you are no longer a core Indian, one who mainly speaks an Indian language, one who works in Indian type businesses or occupations.

So 'educated' Indians are supposed to 'talk English, walk English, laugh English*''. They have to keep flaunting their 'educated' status. They try desperately to speak English the way the British speak, they use British pronunciations for Indian names and above all, they try to disassociate themselves from activities of 'non-educated' Indians.

The 'educated' Indians will not use old Indian names that were changed by the British. And they will absolutely not use the names now being restored to their Indian origins. The 'educated' Indians will not use the old and now reestablished name Mumbai, for example. They insist on using the anglicized 'Bombay'. The name "Mumbai' to them is a name associated with the local Indian language, the language of the 'non-educated', of a class lower than themselves.

How stark is the difference? Just look at two daily print publications of the Times of India. One, Mumbai Mirror, has a shoddy, dark look and prints stories of local people. The other, Bombay Times, is bright, colorful, fashionable and mainly prints stories about the elite, the stars, fashionistas and the who's who of the city. Just one look at the front pages of Mumbai Mirror and Bombay Times tells you what 'educated' Indians think of the difference between Mumbai and Bombay.

The 'educated' Indians don't just look down on core Indians. They are also contemptuous of America and American way of speaking. We know people who still use the old line from My Fair Lady, "And in America, they haven't used it [English] for years'. These 'educated' Indians still speak the way the British spoke 50-60 years ago. Call an Indian call center and you will hear old British phrases like "we will do the needful", or "we will revert back to you". The 'educated' Indians look down on American directness, and call American style as "crude" meaning too blunt, too direct and without class.

But the most visible symbol of their slavish devotion to the British way of speaking is their pronunciation of Sanskrut words. When they speak in Indian languages, they pronounce revered names the right way, "Ram", "Shankar", "MahaBharat". But when 'educated' Indians say the same names in English, they use the feminized English versions, "Rama", "Shankara" or "MahaBharata".

But this is restricted to Hindu names only. Just try calling CNN's Zakaria as Fareeda on his show instead of Fareed and see his reaction. Call a Christian in India as Carla instead of Carl, or Roberta instead of Robert and see their nasty reactions. But Hindus happily call themselves in the feminized versions of their names, happily because they are speaking the way the British did.

There is enough historical evidence to demonstrate that the British deliberately and persistently tried to emasculate Hindus to minimize the only threat to British rule. Converting masculine Hindu names to feminized versions was one easy way to emasculate Hindus. The other was the constant exhortation to 'educated' Indians to not behave like ordinary Indians, but to emulate the British ways.

So Sachin Tendulkar is lucky. Being called the Little Master by the British is so much better than being called "Sachina".

Today's "educated" Indians - just like their ancestor class?

Many of our relatives and friends are 'educated' Indians. They are nice people. They have done well economically and socially by hiding their pride within their homes while acting 'educated' in their business and external lives. Frankly, acting 'educated' is the ticket to social respect in Indian society today. We don't blame them because frankly, they are doing what their ancestors did during the past 1,000 years or so.

The reality is that Indian states, barring a couple of exceptions, have no history or even any conscious memory of being victorious, or of conquest of another culture. So they cannot inspire themselves in any fight, in any struggle by remembering an Indian victory. Northwestern India was first subjugated by Afghan Muslim invaders in the 10th century. Delhi and much of North India was conquered in the 12th century. The rest of north India was conquered and invaded in the late 13th century. The Mogul rule began in the 15th century, the British rule in the late 18th century.

All these invaders conquered India in the same way, one local kingdom at a time. The invaders were always single-minded in their purpose. But they could never rule India themselves. They were too small in number and the Indian population was too large. So they co-opted a class of Indians, bright Indians who could learn the invader's language and customs. These 'educated' Indians were then made into an elite class who would help the invaders rule the rest of Indian society.

Those classes of 'educated' Indians learned Persian and helped the invading dynasties to rule India. In the Mogul rule, they learned Urdu & Persian and helped Mogul rulers in administering India. The "Persian-educated' or "Urdu-educated' Indians behaved much like 'English-educated' Indians behaved during the British rule.

Strangely, this remains true even after 60 plus years of Indian independence. Not so strange, when you realize that 'educated' Indians still administer India. They simply have no understanding of a fight, no inner memory of victory. This is why most Indian prime ministers have always tried to surrender territory for hopes of peace. This is why every single Indian prime minister has given up territory won by the Indian military. This is why no Indian prime minister has ever tried to add territory to India, even territory that was previously seized from India. This is why no Indian prime minister has ever tried to build a dominant Indian military.

This is why India still does not have a concrete counter-terrorism plan. This is why, despite so many terrorist attacks, India has not built a national anti-terrorism group. This is because such thinking is utterly foreign to 'educated' Indians, just as it has been to foreign to their ancestors for the past 1,000 years. This is why the entire world considers India a sissy country.

This is why they are so happy to hear Englishmen praise their greatest cricket hero as the "Little Master". So Rick Santelli should be glad he is not in India. There, an 'educated' Steve Liesman would have called him 'Little Guy' or even Ricka Santelli.

Note:*

Watch the short clip below (with English subtitles), a parody of a job interview of a core Indian pretending to be 'educated'. This is the origin of the cult phrase "I can talk English, I can walk English, I can laugh English".

Like all other cultures, Core Indians know that Little or Chote is not a compliment. This was amply demonstrated in a risque (just conversation, folks) videoclip of Katrina Kaif & Gulshan Grover from the film Boom. This was way before Ms. Kaif became a super star. The clip is a bit too risque for this Blog. Those who want to see it can search for it on YouTube.

Send your feedback to editor@macroviewpoints.com OR @MacroViewpoints on Twitter

Interesting Videoclips of the Week (April 9 - April 14, 2012)

2012-04-15T11:12:00Z

Editor's Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting videoclips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerances.

The Other Shoe Falls

Last week, the reality of the US Economy crashed into the perception of strong self-sustaining growth for the rest of the year. The Jobless Claims also came in weaker this Thursday. But no one cared on Thursday because of optimism about China's GDP rising by 9%. Thursday was a big risk-on day with the Dow rallying by 181 points. Metals, Financials and Technology all roared.

China's GDP growth did surprise but on the downside. It came in at 8.1%, down from 8.9% in Q4 2011. The Dow fell by 137 points. And Metals, Technology and Financials all cratered. That was not just because of China. So-so earnings from Google & JP Morgan didn't help.

What's happening in China is extremely important to global markets. And we just don't mean the Bo Xi Lai saga, though that is really interesting and potentially critical to China's leadership transition. What's happening to the economy is much more relevant in the near term. This week, we heard from three investors with extensive China expertise or experience:

Mark Mobius (clip 2 below) - China is looking at 7.5%. That's their target. They may not reach that target. It may be more than that. They are having difficulty slowing down the economy.
Jim Chanos (clip 4 below) - If they say growth is going to be 8%, I can assure you it's going to be 8% or 8.1 or 8.2...But the reality is in all things we are looking at, the property sales, cement prices, steel crisis, power consumption - it appears it's slowing faster
Donald Straszheim (clip 3 below) - I think it's [China's growth] going to be more flat. in fact, lower second quarter than first quarter. And the reason is that China's problems are not primarily cyclical, they are much more secular, structural and you don't fix those problems in a month or a week or a quarter....I think the export problem is a bigger problem for China than is the housing. It's going to get fixed. but China is not as competitive as it used to be in terms of exports. Japan, America, Europe, three big developed markets for China's exports -- they're not terrible, but they're not great and China's trade surplus is already coming down and it's going to go down more.

Gary Shilling reiterated his "hard landing" scenario for China (see clip 1 below). Andy Busch of BMO Capital was explicitly negative:

They can't control the downward motion in their economy...

2. The real Other Shoe!

Though we feature China-related clips this week, the real other shoe is Europe. And it began falling faster this week. This time it is Spain. Just 3-4 months ago, the Euro-Troika poured in the equivalent of French GDP to stabilize Europe financially. Now it seems to be coming apart again. We will see what happens next Thursday, when they auction off the Spanish 10-year. That auction may go well if only because the ECB goes in and buys as indicated by Benoit Coeure, an ECB executive board member.

But that band-aid may not last because the underlying economy in Spain seems to be falling faster than was expected, or "another Greece" as Rebecca Patterson of JP Morgan put it on CNBC Money in Motion on Friday. Her colleague Andy Busch said of the Spanish budget, "basically, it is pretty much a disaster". Sean Egan of ratings firm Egan-Jones was pretty clear in his comments on the same Money in Motion show:

Egan - ... we think Italy, Spain and Portugal are going to be under a lot of pressure and we don't think it is going to look very pretty in the upcoming auction.....
Busch - do you something like Greece development in Spain? They have like 22-23% unemployment. It looks like it is ready to go this summer.
Egan - Absolutely. Bear in mind, most revolts happen in July. Think of Bastille day, think of July 4th. Think of the Arab spring. It is much warmer in the Arab countries in the spring. So this summer is going to be very interesting...when people can't pay for food, they are going to go to the streets, when unemployment in the area of 23% in Spain, you are going to see a lot of people protesting.
Egan - ... the banks and governments in southern EU are linked, are joined at the hip and both of them are weak, so we expect a number of downgrades in the next couple of months..

So the US Economy is the only major economy looking somewhat OK. That is why last week's Non-Farm Payroll number was such a shocker to the markets.

3. U.S. Stock Market and U.S. Treasuries

The most succinct expression of the past couple of weeks came was tweeted by Keith McCullough of HedgeEye on Friday:

People who told you to short Treasuries and buy Equities in mid-late March need a ......

The 10-Year Treasury note closed at 1.99%, a hair below 2%. Jeff Kilburg of Treasurycurve.com, the stalwart and committed bull, reiterated his 1.67% target for the 10-Year Yield. Gary Shilling of course has a lower target of 1.5% for the 10-year yield and 2.5% for the 30-year yield. The 30-Year Treasury yield close on Friday at 3.13%. So 2.5% would mean a juicy capital gain indeed.

Lawrence McMillan of Option Strategist wrote on Friday morning:

The violation of the 1390 support level this week turned the $SPX chart negative. something quite serious, but it if holds, that would be bullish..... The heavy selling early this week pushed breadth indicators to an extreme oversold condition. They are now on buy signals....The recent two-day rally is just a pullback to the resistance area at 1390. Any further rally will need to be based on more than an oversold condition. An $SPX close above 1400 would be bullish.

Next week should be an interesting week, with earnings from major bell-weathers like Goldman Sachs, IBM, Intel, Coca Cola, GE, Schlumberger, to name a few. Sometimes, a stock market that is weak going into major earnings can rally steeply upon positive earnings surprises from such bell-weathers, especially during an options expiration week. Add to that a better than expected Spanish auction on Thursday and we could see some fireworks next week.

4. Emerging Markets & Fund Flows

Mark Mobius of Templeton Emerging Markets group is as bullish on emerging markets as ever. His best candidate is Russia, followed by China (see clip 2 below). Could he be right? Will investors fly from Europe, US and possibly China into smaller emerging markets?

Michael Hartnett of BAC-Merrill Lynch doesn't see that. In his report titled A Week of Risk Capitulation, Mr. Hartnett wrote:

Biggest outflows of 2012 for equities and commodities; first outflows of 2012 for High Yield and EM debt funds....In contrast, inflows to Treasuries (largest since August 2011) and Investment Grade bonds...
EM equities see biggest outflows ($0.9bn) since Dec'11 (dragged down by big $0.3bn outflows from China)...$6.5bn outflows from US equities (mostly via SPY and DJIA ETF), Chunky outflows from Europe ($1.2bn) for third straight week.

But, in case you wondered, these "Redemptions not large enough or sustained enough to provoke buy-signals from our [Hartnett's] flow trading rule".

Featured Videoclips:

Gary Shilling on BTV Street Smart on Wednesday, April 11
Mark Mobius on CNBC Squawk Box on Wednesday, April 11
Donald Straszheim on CNBC Street Signs on Friday, April 13
Jim Chanos on CNBC Squawk Box on Thursday, April 12
Robert Prechter with FBN's Neil Cavuto on Monday, April 10

1. S&P 500 Will Drop 43% this year - Gary Shilling on BTV Street Smart (04:03 minute clip) - Wednesday, April 11

A. Gary Shilling has been one of the best forecasters for the past few years. Just search for Gary Shilling in the Title & Comments section in this Blog's advanced Search function and read his previous forecasts.

Dr. Shilling is bullish on 30-Year Treasuries and on the U.S. Dollar while he is short stocks and commodities. This fits with his call for deleveraging for the next few years. We thank Bloomberg TV PR for the excellent summary below.

Shilling on his report that the S&P will drop 43% from its recent level:

"The analysts have been cranking their numbers down. They started off north of 110 then 105. They are now 102. They are moving in my direction. I think that is true because you have foreign earnings that don't look good because of recession unfolding in Europe, stronger dollar, so they are translation losses. A hard landing in China. In the U.S., we could see a moderate recession led by consumer retrenchment. I think that that kind of earnings estimate is not unreasonable…it's a quartet, [I am] long treasuries, short stocks, short commodities and long the dollar."

Shilling on the U.S. economy:

"The story is that there is nothing else except consumers that can really hype the U.S. economy. Consumers have been on a mini spending spree in terms of not keeping up. Incomes have simply not kept up. Of course, the real key behind that is employment. It looked earlier like jobs were picking up and that was going to provide the income and people would spend it, so on, so forth. But the employment report that we got last week throws cold water on that. Consumers have a lot of reasons to save as opposed to spend. They need to rebuild their assets, save for retirement. A lot of reasons suggest that they should be saving to work down debt as opposed to going the other way, which they have done in recent months. So if consumers retrench, there is not really anything else in the U.S. economy that can hold things up."

On whether investors will come back to the U.S. market if the situation in Europe gets worse:

"Sure, we are the best of the bad lot. We're the best horse in the glue factory. The U.S., it certainly looks better than China or Europe or certainly Japan. But, I'm not sure that that means that people go into stocks. Cash, although it does not pay anything, is an alternative. My 30-year favorite long Treasury bonds, I we're headed for 2.5% there. They have come down from 3.2 to 3.0 recently. Of course the 10-year now has broke 2% again. I think there is still life there in terms of appreciation…I think that one and a half is possible on the 10-year."

"I think 1.5 is possible on the 10-year. I have to tell you, all the way down, when I got interested in 30-year bonds it was in 1981, the yield was 15.21. All the way down in yields, all the way up in price, everyone has said, rates cannot go lower, they will go up, they will go up. They have been saying that for 30 years."

How does Dr. Shilling get to a 43% drop in the S&P? He explains in his Bloomberg Views column:

In conjunction with a major recession in Europe, a hard landing in China and foreign-earnings translation losses caused by a rising dollar, the operating earnings of S&P 500 companies could drop to $80 per share this year, compared with Wall Street analysts’ expectations of $104. That would almost guarantee a major bear market with a likely price-earnings ratio low of about 10. This implies that the S&P 500 index (SPX) would be around 800, a 43 percent drop from its recent level.

2. Best Opportunity - Russia and then China - Mark Mobius on CNBC Squawk Box (05:18 minute clip) - Wednesday, April 11

Mark Mobius of Templeton Emerging Markets Group is probably the most well known EM investor. Here he speaks with CNBC's Becky Quick. As you see, Mr. Mobius makes the perma-bulls on the U.S. stock market seem like worry warts.

Quick - there have been all kinds of questions as to whether this spring will follow last spring's pattern, whether this is a tipping point.
Mobius - I think we're in good shape. Emerging markets have outperformed other markets since the beginning of this year, so I think we're in pretty good shape. China is looking at 7.5%. That's their target. They may not reach that target. It may be more than that. They are having difficulty slowing down the economy. Emerging markets are generally growing to go on the average of 5%. We are getting pretty fast growth and the earnings being of course, are going to come through as result of that.
Quick - do you think the emerging markets are going to perform well despite what happens in the developing (?) markets or will they get a boost from what happens there as well?
Mobius - I think they are going to perform well in spite of, mainly because of the key factors. one, of course, is growth, secondly is foreign reserves, much greater than developed countries and, third, debt to gdp levels, much lower. So all of these factors add up to a very positive picture generally.
Quick - ... the central banks that we've watched around the globe, they have obviously changed the scenario for the last four years. At this point we're starting to see that it's the end of quantitative easing. If that's the case, what's the impact on the emerging markets?
Mobius - well, the end of quantitative easing would not be a problem. It's if they decide to contract. in other words, decide to take money off the table, in other words, reduce the amount of money in circulation. then that would be a problem for everybody because, of course, there won't be enough money to move into the equities and bonds and other investments around the world. I doubt if that will happen, though.
Quick - you don't think that will happen? you think this will be a wait and see year?
Mobius - I think more than that. I think Bernanke ...still has got his foot on the pedal and wants to make sure that the unemployment comes down and that's true of other countries around the world. The Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, they still want to see good growth although they are cautious about inflation.
Quick - if you had to pick one market of the emerging markets, where do you think the best performer is going to be?
Mobius - probably in Russia, because Russia has been beaten down, has not really performed that well. The valuations are very good. The political picture is getting better. So I might pick Russia and then China after that. Because the Chinese are now talking about boosting the A-share market to get money into the hands of the small investors in China. That will feed back into the Hong Kong H-share and the Red Chips.
Quick - What about South East Asia? I thought you were looking at those markets as potentially strong ones. Is it hard to argue about some of the growth there?
Mobius - I just came back from Indonesia and Thailand. They are both doing very very well. Thailand of course has outperformed already and so I can't expect a lot more. But still they are going to do very well. Indonesia has also done very very well. You can expect more but not the kind of spectacular growth you can expect in countries where the market has been beaten down.
Quick - You are concerned may be potentially going to happen in Singapore. May be they are tied a little more to Europe?
Mobius - The interesting thing about Singapore is that they are getting a big flow of money coming in. Because a lot of wealthy people in the world don't want to put their money in Switzerland because of US tax problems, and they are moving to Singapore. So they are getting the benefit of these problems in Europe and elsewhere. Also don't forget now that Singapore has got those two huge casinos and they have been attracting a lot of tourism. So things are really humming in Singapore.

For the past couple of years, there has been an exodus of sorts going on from Switzerland to Singapore. Investors who worry about holding their physical gold in Swiss Banks are moving it to new facilities established in Singapore. Actually, not IN Singapore. These vaults are in a special zone and you can be taken fast from the airport transit lounge directly to the vaults WITHOUT entering Singapore. So no immigration records, no passport stamps for investors. Just complete and total discretion. Smart, very smart.

Also the Swiss Private Banks are opening up offices in Singapore to serve their clients as their assets migrate there. We keep hearing of graduates from US Schools finding jobs at these Swiss Banks in Singapore, especially students of Asian origin.

3. Secular drop from 10% growth to 7% growth - Donald Straszheim on CNBC Street Signs - Friday, April 13

Donald Straszheim is the senior managing director of China research at the ISI group. Mr. Straszheim is respected as an "old China-hand", old signifying the Asian sense of deep experience. His is a sane voice and we always listen when he speaks. Here he speaks with Brian Sullivan (@Sully) and Kelly Evans of CNBC.

Sully - Should we be spooked Don with an 8% GDP number for China?
Straszheim - Brian, I don't think so. 8% is a sustainable number. People just need to understand that the 10% that China has recorded in real GDP for the last 20 years is history. We're not going back to 10%. but 7% or 8% is still strong. It will continue to give very nice real per capita income gains to all the Chinese workers and people ought to relax.
Evans - Don, do you think china's bottoming in the first quarter with regards to its growth rate? I think you guys still you have a below census outlook for the rest of the year.
Straszheim - right. we've had that below census outlook for the last six months or so and we still do. The difference between our forecast & the consensus is - the consensus thinks it's first quarter down and second, third, fourth quarter up. I think it's going to be more flat. in fact, lower second quarter than first quarter. And the reason is that China's problems are not primarily cyclical, they are much more secular, structural and you don't fix those problems in a month or a week or a quarter. They take years instead.
Evans - That doesn't sound so reassuring.
Straszheim - Well, I think we'll continue to have growth something like the 7% range for the next five years. I'll tell you that there's 500 million people in China who have made 8% a year per capita real income gains for 25 years in a row - 1.08 to the 25th power is a pretty good career for 25 years. And 1.08 plus another 1.07 is a good 26-year career.
Straszheim - the biggest problem in China is the basic structural imbalance, the overhang of houses for the upper half of the income distribution. that so-called commodity housing. that's going to be very weak. those starts will go from 15 million in 2011 to about 5 million, count them, 5 million, down 67% in 2012.
Evans - wow. that's a big decline. it is. and it explains why you're cautious about exports and that being a problem with a lot happening in the Eurozone.
Straszheim - I think the export problem is a bigger problem for china than is the housing. it's going to get fixed. but china is not as competitive as it used to be in terms of exports. Japan, America, Europe, three big developed markets for China's exports -- they're not terrible, but they're not great. and China's trade surplus is already coming down and it's going to go down more.
Sully - bottom line, very quickly for us, Don, are either the A- shares in shanghai or H-shares in Hong Kong undervalued or overvalued?
Straszheim - I think they are undervalued. You've got decent growth, no hard landing. inflation down, more to come. interest rate cuts, reserve ratio cuts. monetary policy easing. some fiscal stimulus coming. PEs that are maybe at 12 versus an average of 27. that says by and large more positives than negatives for China equities.

Now we go from the above it's not that bad outlook to a really bearish it's slowing faster outlook.

4. China - It's Slowing Faster - Jim Chanos on CNBC Squawk Box - Thursday, April 12

Jim Chanos, founder of Kynikos Associates, has been the leading skeptic on China, at least in America. This week he was received warmly by CNBC's Joe Kernen because Chanos is now recognized for being early and probably right on China. Unlike many others, Mr. Chanos gets to his opinions from the micro rather than from top-down macro. The most important point he makes is that it's slowing faster.

Chanos - They sent a young trader to death the other day for misappropriating money saying she was going to buy property and she traded Gold with it and they sentenced her to death....and they are looking for her husband. She has to serve 2 years in prison before they shoot her.
Kernen - it's going to be the slowest growth in a while but they wanted it to slow down... but what's it mean? are they orchestrating a soft landing?
Chanos - they are trying desperately to still cool the property sector. But that has its own problems as we know. If they say growth is going to be 8%, I can assure you it's going to be 8% or 8.1 or 8.2...But the reality is in all things we are looking at, the property sales, cement prices, steel crisis, power consumption - it appears it's slowing faster.
Chanos - In China, the banks are arms of state policy...they loan because the regional party official tells them we need a new stadium, we have an empty stadium over here, it doesn't matter. you make the loan. they're instruments of state policy. I really doubt that the party is going to give up a lever power by breaking up the banks....
Sorkin - ..they're ultimately going to be protected by the government.
Chanos - that doesn't mean the western shareholders are going to do well. in fact, you are the actual arm with which they're raising capital to recapitalize. See Petrobras, see Pemex. we are going to welcome in outside minority investors and by the way, we're going to keep tapping you over and over and over again.
Chanos - they are really on a knife's edge because...they can't quite keep the technology genie in the bottle...the great firewall is increasingly porous. we saw that last year with some of the regional disturbances, people were reporting real time on the ground before they could shut them down. This is new for China. So they don't have complete control over the media as they used to. In this day and age tipping points can be reached very quickly in society in the wrong set of circumstances.
Chanos - no. I would be long the Chinese communist party. no, this is all financial and economic, not political.....they welcome open criticism on financial matters, but not political.

5. Rolling Over Into Deflationary Environment - Rob Prechter with FBN's Neil Cavuto (03:16 minute clip) - Tuesday, April 10

Robert Prechter, the guru of Elliot Wave, appeared with Neil Cavuto of Fox Business this week. He repeated what he has been saying for awhile.

Prechter - You have the sentiment, momentum measures, the Elliot Wave structure all in gear and I don't like to bet against it...One thing people tend to forget, the market has only been down 5 trading days but the Dow wiped out 2&1/2 months of gains. It goes down faster than it goes up.
Cavuto - There was a weird spot of a bright spot in all of this, depending on your point of view...the 10-year note went under 2%, that could be a reflection of the environment here where things look like they are slowing down..what do you make of that and what does it portend when interest rates slide, the stocks slide, what does that usually bring?
Prechter - well, I have been saying for quite awhile that we are rolling over into a deflationary environment and the two big areas that are reflecting that are real-estate, still down 45%, and interest rates on pristine debt are very very low as you just pointed out.....we had a big rally in commodities which topped last year, they are down almost 19% from there..we have markets in gear for that trend...
Cavuto - when you have a deflationary environment, what is a good investment in that environment? You just have cash under your mattress, what?
Prechter - that's the word, Cash.
Cavuto - How long do you play that cash game?
Prechter - well, as long as all the indicators switch to the other side...we are looking for a major low a couple of years out, and in the meantime, you just have to keep your powder dry...

We don't understand the Cash argument. History shows that in a deflationary environment, the best asset is long duration pristine sovereign debt - in America's case the 30-Year Treasury Bond or the 30-Year Zero Coupon Treasury Strip. Look at what has worked best in the deflationary environment in Japan that has lasted more than 20 years - long duration JGBs. So we don't get the cash argument made by Mr. Prechter.

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Now Nicolas Kristof - Another Example of Ingrained Anti-Hindu Bias at the New York Times?

2012-04-07T13:30:00Z

When the rights of common Europeans were suppressed under centuries of royal rule, when the people of every European country remained impoverished while the royalty and aristocracy lived in opulence, it was France that lit the torch of Liberty Equality & Fraternity. France deserves a place of pride among nations for the non-conformism and the wisdom of its philosophers, its thinkers and its mathematicians. Descartes, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Cauchy, Fermat, Galois, LeGrange, Pascal are names any country would be proud of.

But despite this wisdom, this non-conformist spirit, this deep allegiance to the good in humankind, one corner of the French soul has remained dark, even to this day. We read about it in French writings, we hear of it from the experiences of affected Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. French society still retains its discomfort, some would say prejudice about Jews. Before the recent self-destruction of his public stature, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was reasonably open about his hurt about his treatment because of his religion.

We thought of this when we read the Test Your Savvy on Religion article by Nicolas Kristof in the New York Times. This old article was brought to our notice this week by a tweet from a national Television Anchor who called it "fantastic". So we read it. Unfortunately our reaction was markedly different.

The New York Times is an excellent paper. We read it because it has several superb journalists who deliver insight, analysis as well as news. We tend to quote from NYT far more than from any other newspaper. But like in France, we detect a dark corner in the proverbial soul of the New York Times, a deep, ingrained bias that exhibits itself from time to time. We are not sure this exhibition is deliberate. We think the bias is so ingrained, so deeply embedded in NYT's psyche that it's exhibition has become subconscious. This is the bias against Hindu Ethos, against Hinduism at the New York Times.

The Test Your Religion Quiz of Nicholas Kristof

We see that in the Religion quiz of Nicolas Kristof. This is a quiz intended to convince you that Islam is neither more fundamentalist nor more extreme than other "major religions" of the world. By that he seems to mean Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism (in our alphabetically chronological order).

First, we abhor the concept of "major religions". Use of terms like "major religions" is tantamount to using terms like "major" or "master" races that was common in certain parts of Europe in the 1930s or among European colonialists in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Secondly, we fail to understand why Mr. Kristof did not include Buddhism (4th largest) and Sikhism (5th largest) among "major" religions. These are both larger than Judaism in terms of followers. So either Mr. Kristof demonstrated his own lack of savvy about religion or exhibited his inner religious prejudices.

We understand Mr. Kristof's objective. It is intended to teach his readers to not get swept in the "current uproar about Islam". That is laudable. Unfortunately, in his attempt to be positive about Islam, Mr. Kristof manufactured a false label, a wanton tie-in to defame Hinduism. Read the 3rd question from Mr. Kristof's quiz:

"3. The terrorists who pioneered the suicide vest in modern times, and the use of women in terror attacks, were affiliated with which major religion?

a. Islam
b. Christianity
c. Hinduism"

Mr. Kristof's answer is:

"3. c. Most early suicide bombings were by Tamil Hindus (some secular) in Sri Lanka and India."

We looked up the above link provided by Mr. Kristof to support his tie-in of Lankan Tamils to Hinduism. It is the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) article titled Taming the Tamil Tigers. We read it carefully and we urge all readers to read it thoroughly. You will NOT find the words "Hindu" or "Hinduism" mentioned in the FBI article. The FBI article carefully and correctly describes the conflict as an ethnic (& secular) conflict:

"Its ultimate goal: to seize control of the country from the Sinhalese ethnic majority and create an independent Tamil state."

Mr. Kristof deliberately and wantonly ignored the reality and manufactured a Tamil Tiger "affiliation" to Hinduism to fit the goal of his article. His parenthetical "some secular" disclaimer actually adds insult to the deliberate injury he inflicts.

In contrast, Mr. Kristof does not mention Hinduism when he should. The central message of Hinduism is tolerance and the equality of all religious paths in achieving salvation. You don't have to go far and deep to discover this. Bhagwan Shree Krishna states it categorically in the Bhagwat-Geeta, literally the Words of God, the most widely read text in Hinduism.

But the mention of Shree Krishna is conspicuously absent in Kristof's question number 8:

"8. Which religious figure preaches tolerance by suggesting that God looks after all peoples and leads them all to their promised lands?

a. Muhammad
b. Amos
c. Jesus"

But Hinduism is included in a negative question, the very 1st one:

"1. Which holy book stipulates that a girl who does not bleed on her wedding night should be stoned to death?

a. Koran
b. Old Testament
c. (Hindu) Upanishads"

We can perhaps charitably attribute Mr. Kristof's choices in questions 1 and 8 to ignorance about Hinduism. But there is no question in our mind that Mr. Kristof deliberately and wantonly manufactured an "affiliation" to Hinduism in question 3.

In our opinion, Mr. Kristof's action is utterly reprehensible and we throw a flag at him for flagrantly foul journalistic misconduct.

Sideswiping Hinduism - A New York Times Practice?

Frankly, there was no need for Mr. Kristof to include Hinduism in his quiz at all. His article is addressed mainly to an American audience that, according to him, has been subjected to the "current uproar about Islam". So questions about Christianity and Judaism should have sufficed. Both Mr. Kristof and his readers are far more conversant about tenets of Christianity and Judaism than they are about Hinduism.

It is a journalistic practice to highlight what you want to praise by contrasting it with something negative. Sometimes when you can't find anything negative, you manufacture it. That is how Hinduism tends to be be used in the New York Times.

Several months ago, in a nice positive article about the Holy Golden Temple in Amritsar, Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times gratuitously sideswiped Hinduism. It was an article about Sikhs and there was no need, no need whatsoever to even mention Hinduism. Yet, Ms. Polgreen couldn't resist the temptation to insert a defamatory line in her article about Hinduism. (for more detailed analysis, read our article Why Does a Nice Positive Article in the New York Times Carry a Deep Bias Against Indian Dharma?)

We use the verb "sideswiped" to illustrate our meaning. Imagine driving a car in the dead of night on a solitary road without any traffic. You see someone walking down the road ahead of you. There is no one else around. You simply drive closer to the pedestrian and sideswipe him for no reason except that you can do so without any fear of getting caught. You would only do this if you have no respect whatsoever for the life or well-being of that pedestrian and if you have a dark corner in your heart.

This is exactly what Nicolas Kristof did to Hinduism in his Religion quiz above and what Lydia Polgreen did in her article in September 2010. Hinduism is an easy victim. There is no organized religious structure and Hindus are complacent people used to religious persecution for the past 1,200 years. And the New York Times editors seem to have no respect for Hinduism judging from the frequency of anti-Hindu bias in NYT articles.

Directed comments against Hindu Ethos in the NYT

NYT articles don't stop at sideswiping Hinduism. Sometimes, they get very blatant. Let us give you a couple of examples from India Ink, the India-portal of the New York Times.

Remember the worldwide Muslim riots because of Danish cartoons about Prophet Mohammed? Compare that coverage to the case of the famous Indian Muslim painter. He never painted anything that would hurt Muslim beliefs or feelings. His particular fetish was to paint nude paintings of revered Hindu Goddesses, the images that are deeply revered in virtually every Hindu household. The NYT writers saw nothing wrong or weird about this setup. Instead, the NYT writers blamed the Hindus who protested the painter's actions.
This February, a couple of NYT-India-Ink writers condemned the painter's Hindu critics as hardline Hindu zealots. The writers took this opportunity in the midst of their anguished coverage about the inability of Salman Rushdie (because of Muslim protests) to speak at an Indian conference.
So in an article about protests by religious Muslims against a Muslim Salman Rushdie, NYT's India Ink writers found a way to insert one line heaping scorn on "hardline" Hindus simply because they were against nude paintings of Hindu revered figures. Yes, we kid you not. This actually happened at the New York Times India Ink group. Some rational NYT editor presumably saw this and removed this offensive statement from the web-edition the next day.
Earlier this year, Muslim clerics in New Delhi issued a fatwa forbidding young Muslim girls from wearing lipstick and other beauty-enhancing cosmetics. NYT's India Ink remained conspicuously silent. In contrast, on this past Valentine's day, a NYT India Ink writer used the label "Hindu Extremists" when describing the lack of protests against Valentine Day celebrations. In other words, some Hindus were labeled as "extremists" in the New York Times when they didn't even protest while Muslim Clerics avoided such labels or any coverage even when they issued fatwas against lipstick!

These are just examples from February of this year. We sometimes get tired of noticing such behavior and writing about it. But the NYT writers don't stop. They must be avatars of an anti-Hindu energizer bunny.

Reaching out to the New York Times

Earlier this year, we contacted Heather Timmons of NYT's India Ink and India Bureau, to ask if she would meet with us on an informal, off-the-record basis. We also made the same request of one of her colleagues. Ms. Timmons did not even bother to respond to our email. Her colleague pleaded difficulty due to a heavy travel schedule.

So we reach out today to Ms. Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times. We are virtually neighbors, Ms. Abramson and fellow residents of the greatest city in the world that is a bastion of humane liberal thinking. Would you be willing to meet with us to exchange views? We simply don't understand how a great paper like yours can exhibit the bias that we see in it. Or should we simply be resigned to our "Hindu" treatment from your writers?

Mr. Kristof, we appeal to you as well. What we have written about your article is what we perceive in your article. If you think we are wrong, please tell us candidly. We take criticism well. You can tell us privately or publicly. We commit to publish any on the record response from you.

Editor's Note: Below are our previous articles about the anti-Hindu bias at the New York Times:

Cultural & Religious Defamation Tacitly Accepted By New York Times Editors?- Our Perspectives - January 23, 2010
Why Does a Nice Positive Article in the New York Times Carry a Deep Bias Against Indian Dharma? - September 4, 2010
Gandhi & Lelyveld - Are Editors of Washington Post and New York Times Biased Against Hindu Ethos? - April 16, 2011
New York Times Editors - Another Example of Their Bias Against Hindu Ethos? - August 20, 2011

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