Path to God's particle

What are we ? ; the ultimate question; we are god’s particles!

What are the essential building blocks that make us and this universe? What determines the size of objects that we see around us or indeed even the size of ourselves? The answer is we are made of and our size is decided by molecules and in turn the atoms that compose these molecules.

But what are these atoms made of and what determines the size of the atoms themselves? Quantum theory and atomic physics provide an answer. The atom is almost fully an empty space with a nucleus in the middle .The size of the atom is determined by the orbits of the electrons orbiting the nucleus. If a whole football stadium is an atom, then the nucleus’s size can be compared to a fly sitting in middle of the football field. The nucleus in turn is made of protons and neutrons and both of them are in turn made of quarks. Bigger the size of the orbits around the nucleus, bigger will be the size of the atoms. The size of these orbits is determined by the mass &number of the electrons. So, if the electrons were smaller, the orbits (and hence all atoms) would be smaller, and consequently everything we see would be smaller. In short quarks and electrons are the essential building blocks of everything in this universe.

So, the question is where do quarks and electrons get their mass from? Understanding the mass of the electron for instance is essential to understanding the size and dimensions of everything around us. So the essential question is how did electrons & quarks get their mass? It’s proposed that they get their mass when they move through a field called Higgs field which has force particles called Higgs bosons.

So everything that we see around us and everything that we hope to see in future in this universe essentially starts off from an interaction with Higgs bosons. No wonder its called the god particle!

Enter bosons and fermions!

Well, to cut a long story short, physics essentially is a study of various forces that are at work in this universe. The most common force that I and you know is the mechanical force. That’s one we see in action when I push you, when you throw a ball, when an engine runs a car. And naturally most of the early laws of physics were laws of mechanical forces (refer to earlier note about relativity). There are four other forces in action in the universe we inhabit. First is gravity, second is electromagnetism (the force that lights up the computer screen you are reading this from or lights up or the light behind you). Third and fourth types of forces are the strong and weak nuclear forces (the ones that are behind the atom bomb and the energy of the sun)

Now let’s go back to mechanical force once more. Imagine me pushing you with my hand. Now I am the source of the force here and my hand is the medium through which that force acts on you. Simple, right? Now let’s take electromagnetic force, the light behind you. We know that the source of electricity is electrons. It’s true about electromagnetic force also as electricity and magnetism is the same force. So if electrons are source of the force then what’s the medium through which electromagnetic force acts? Electromagnetic waves are the medium. All of us know one type of electromagnetic waves, its our light! Yes, the light we see and make us see.

Maxwell in mid 19 th century unified electricity, magnetism and light by making electromagnetism a single force which acts through light waves (electromagnetic waves). Quantum mechanics evolved in 20th century and with its evolution it became inevitable that there has to be a quantum explanation to all forces in the universe like gravity, electromagnetism, and two new forces described in 20th century, the strong and weak nuclear forces. The quantum explanation for all these forces are that they are transmitted by various elementary force carrying particles called bosons. These force carrying particles fly back and forth between matter particles transmitting these forces. These matter particles (we know and feel them as mass) are called fermions (The distinction between particle and wave has disappeared in quantum theory.)

In the 1960s, Richard Feynman described quantum electrodynamics, or QED, a quantum mechanics explanation of electromagnetism. In it, electrons were the fermions and photons were the bosons..

After Maxwell, now weak nuclear and electromagnetic forces unites; with a new dilemma!

The "weak nuclear" forces, involved in radioactivity and in the Sun's power generation, are in many ways very similar to electromagnetic forces, save for being much weaker and restricted in range. This is the force that keeps protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. Murray Gell-Man in 70’s found that quarks are the building blocks of protons and neutrons. A unified theory of weak and electromagnetic forces (electro-weak theory) was proposed in 1967 by Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam . The weak forces are due to the exchange of W and Z particles (bosons) and quarks present in protons and neutrons are the matter particle (fermions). Their short range, and apparent weakness at ordinary ranges, is because, unlike the photon, the W and Z are, by our standards, very massive particles, 100 times heavier than a hydrogen atom. The "electro-weak" theory has been convincingly verified, in particular by the discovery of the W and Z at CERN in 1983, and by many tests of the properties. However, the origin of their masses remains mysterious. Our best guess is the "Higgs mechanism" - but that aspect of the theory remains untested.

The god particle!

Higgs proposed that the whole of space (including vacuum) is permeated by a field, similar in some ways to the electromagnetic field. As particles move through space they travel through this field, and if they interact with it they acquire what appears to be mass. Fields have particles associated with them, the particle for the electromagnetic field being the photon. So there must be a particle associated with the Higg's field, and this is the Higgs boson (god particle). Finding the Higgs boson is thus the key to discovering whether the Higgs field does exist and whether our best hypothesis for the origin of mass is indeed correct.

Well let’s try to simplify this with an example. Imagine a page 3 cocktail party in a hall where all those invited are uniformly distributed across the floor, all talking to their nearest neighbors. Now this hall is our Higgs field and the invited people filling it are our Higgs bosons. Suddenly a famous film actress enters and crosses the room (she is our particle!). All are strongly attracted to her and cluster round her. As she moves she attracts the people she comes close to, while the ones she has left return to their even spacing. Because of the knot of people always clustered around her she acquires a greater mass than normal that is she has more momentum for the same speed of movement across the room. Once moving she is hard to stop, and once stopped she is harder to get moving again because the clustering process has to be restarted.

So in Higgs mechanism, In order to give particles mass, a background field is invented which becomes locally distorted whenever a particle moves through it. The distortion - the clustering of the field around the particle - generates the particle's mass. We need it because otherwise we cannot explain why the Z and W particles which carry the weak interactions are so heavy while the photon which carries electromagnetic forces is massless.

Theory of everything; the great unifying theory of all forces!

If bosons or force carrying particles of various forces do get their masses from interacting with the empty space, Higgs field (which in turn acts through Higgs bosons), then it plays a vital role in "unifying" these different forces

Whats all this fuss about speed of light....Part 1, Relativity

These are exiting times in physics. One of the main objectives of the experiments that are being held at the largest particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) based at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) outside Geneva was to find out the existence of the hypothesized sub atomic particles called Higgs bosons. For this purpose, physicists fired a beam of neutrinos from Switzerland to Italy, over a distance of 454 miles. Much to their amazement, after analyzing 15,000 neutrinos, they found that they traveled faster than the speed of light—one 60-billionth of a second faster, to be precise. In a billionth of a second, a beam of light travels about one foot. So a difference of 60 feet was quite astonishing.

Now this result if validated (it’s a big if as we await further confirmations) can challenge one of the basic concepts of physics as we know it and learned it. Well let’s see why this is such a big deal. Of course theories in physics and their rebuttals won’t affect our daily lives. Even if tomorrow these results are confirmed, it’s not going to bring down the price of oil or make lady gaga dress normally! But any one curious about questions about working of our universe should be interested in it. So, let’s start from the beginning and see how ideas of physics has evolved ……. Let’s start from 300 BC…….

Aristotle (its an absolute resting world); (300BC)

His view of physical objects was simple. The natural sate of all objects is that of “absolute rest”. Let’s assume an example. I am sitting in the airport waiting room after seeing you off and you in a flight which is yet to take off. Now to spice things up a bit, let’s assume this flight has a length of 250 mts and ur sitting at the back and throwing ball at a speed of 250 m/ s (100 kph) to the wall in the front. In Aristotle’s world, you and I are at rest till either ur plane takes off or I decide to get up and walk off. The ball of course is moving at 250 m/s and we both measure it as so. We both will also agree on the distance travelled by it also. Quite a happy world indeed!

Galileo (its all relative! &"Eppur si muove" ) ; (1550-1640 AD)

Galileo found that he had serious issues with the concept of absolute. When he studied things around him he came to the conclusion that physical concepts like motion, rest are relative. In our example with relation to me, you are in rest till the flight takes off. But in relation to an observer from mars we both are in uniform motion (earth‘s motion). Once the plane took off, from your perspective you are in rest, but from mine you are moving. When you throw the ball while plane is flying at a constant speed of 400 kph (1km/s) , for me the speed of the ball is (1+0.25=) 1.25 Km/s, for you its only 250 m/s. We both even disagree on whether or not two separate events occurred "at the same position in space" which in this case is the distance travelled by the ball. For you its 250 mts, for me its 1.25kms! So motion, rest and space (distance) is relative (to something else).

He also had problems with concept of absolute rest. He didn’t fully reject the possibility of absolute rest though he couldn’t accept how anything in earth can be in absolute rest. That’s because he famously disagreed with the existing concept of his time that earth is at rest and all planets and sun are moving around it. Of course the society and church in particular of that time didn’t take it to it very kindly as we know. ("Eppur si muove" - it still moves - Galileo is rumored to have said after his session with the Holy Inquisition.) The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (which put Galileo in house arrest) is presented as a series of discussions, over a span of four days,among two philosophers, one supporting the earth centric model other the sun centric model and a layman.

So now Galileo had a new problem;if all is relative, then how can we make any reliable measurements. His solution was this; the only reliable observers are persons or objects “moving uniformly with constant speed in a straight line or in absolute rest ". These are called inertial observers. In other words, "the mechanical laws of physics will be same for two inertial observers”. In our example, I and you might disagree on whether you are in rest / motion and on the distance travelled by the ball, but we both can apply same laws of mechanics on the ball (to calculate the force acting on the ball, acceleration of the ball, distance travelled etc) as long as with both are in uniform motion. It’s using these laws that even though we both have different measurements about the distance travelled, we can still calculate them accurately.

So, what are these mechanical laws of physics? Enter newton (1640-1727)

Newton based his three laws on how force acts on bodies that are in either absolute rest or moving uniformly in a straight line (inertial bodies). Basically his laws stated that 1) anything that change the inertia of inertial bodies is called force. 2) That change of inertia (acceleration) is directly proportional to the force that acts on it and 3) Forces always come in pairs, and the sum of the pair is zero. In other words, post Galileo, it was assumed that it’s impossible to differentiate between a state of rest and uniform motion of an object based on observation of its physical laws of mechanics (Newtonian laws)

Newton also postulated equations for measuring the other force (other than mechanical force) that he observed, gravity. Though his equations on gravity was based on the idea that it’s an attractive force that increases with mass of the corresponding bodies and decreases with distance between them, he never understood how the force of gravity acted.

James C. Maxwell (1831-1879) unifies two forces and creates a dilemma!

So things were kind of settled as far as mechanical forces were concerned by mid 18^th century. But after Newton, in the following two centuries two other forces started to be studied more closely, magnetism and electricity. Orsted and Michael faraday showed that these two forces were interchangeable. Maxwell went one step ahead and unified these two forces as electromagnetism. He proved through his equations that these forces acted through electromagnetic waves. In other words for one object to exert electrical or magnetic force on second object, these waves have to go from the first body to the second.

Maxwell’s electromagnetic waves created many new headaches. First and foremost no one could debate their existence as Maxwell’s’ mathematic equations proved them beyond any doubt. Secondly these waves always travel at a constant speed (3,00,000 km/s). Thirdly they acquired different forms with change in frequency and wavelength to form an electromagnetic spectrum; the ones with high wavelengths were radio waves, microwaves and infra red waves and ones with low wavelengths were x-rays and gamma rays. In between these two in the electromagnetic spectrum you have the visible light! In other words light is an electromagnetic wave which exerts electrical magnetic forces.

Ok. So what’s the dilemma here? Well, according to Maxwell’s equations the speed of electromagnetic waves (speed of light) is always constant. Now this contradicts the relativity principle of Galileo as speed always has to be relative to the observer. In other words for a person travelling at constant speed near the speed of light, the electromagnetic forces would seem to slow down. So if Galileo’s relativity was applied, then two persons travelling at different speeds will disagree on laws of electromagnetism. In our example if the flight travels close to speed of light, then unlike mechanical experiments, electromagnetic experiments will have different laws for me and you even if we both are inertial observers.

Constant speed, in relative to what? Enter, luminiferous ether!

The dilemma of constant speed of electromagnetic waves like light created a major furor in later half of 19 th century. The perennial question was if its speed was constant in relative to what? In the end of 19 th century the favored answer was that there is an invisible universal medium called luminiferos ether which was in absolute rest and the speed of light was in relation to that absolute rest!

Einstein ; the resurrection of absolutism

In 1905, Einstein proposed “the special theory of relativity”. He was proposing a special exception for the existing relativity concept, the exception being the speed of light (electromagnetic waves) . In short, speed of light is absolute (it never changes) and it’s the fastest speed possible in this universe (nothing moves faster than light). Though on first reading it seems to be weakening Galileo’s principles, in reality Einstein's principle of relativity (by making speed of light absolute) is just like Galileo's, except that he says in addition to mechanical, electromagnetic laws also are same for inertial observers. Consequences of special relativity; time dialation & length contraction

Let us re visit our example to understand the consequences of special relativity. Let’s assume the flight is now travelling at speed of light (c). Now what happens if u throw the ball at speed of light to the wall that’s one light second, (L) away in the plane? (L is the distance light travels in one second; 3 lakh kms..Well it’s an example!). Well for you, it won’t be any different and will reach the wall after one second at. but for me it’s a different situation. The flight already is at speed of light, (velocity = distance / time, c= L/one sec). Galileo’s principle says I should see the ball going at c+ c= 2c km/s and the distance it have to cover will be L+L=2L kms. but Einstein has shown the ball can’t move faster than light. Hence I will experience what’s called time dilation & length contraction. Meaning looking at you I will feel like I am seeing a slow motion of the events happening and that the length of plane is shortened. Why? Because velocity = distance / time. In Galileo’s world it would have been 2c=2L/ 1 s. We know velocity of light (c ) can’t change here . So to keep velocity of light as a constant the equation becomes, c=2L/2s (time dilation) or c= L/1s (length contraction).

Why speed of light is the fastest possible speed in universe?

When we apply a force to accelerate an object of mass, m from inertial state, the work we do becomes its kinetic energy (1/2 mv2) . In Einstein's physics, momentum and kinetic energy increase rapidly as the speed approaches that of light. It’s because according to Einstein energy and mass are inter-convertible ( E= mc2 ). So as the speed of an abject of mass, m approaches near speed of light, its mass and momentum will also increase. In other words a relativistic mass addition of M (=E/ c2) will occur and the mass will become (m+M). This relativistic mass, M which is almost negligent in speeds that we encounter in real life, will become close to infinity when the speeds are close to speed of light. So to speed up an infinite mass u will need infinite energy and hence no mass can travel near speed of light. That’s why the only things that travel at or near speed of light are the ones that have almost no mass (electromagnetic waves like light, sub atomic particles like neutrinos etc)

Free counters

whats an economic depression; ways out...

first some basic fundamentals...

Let us see what happens in an economic depression.

To put it simply economics is a play of supply and demand. In depression the demand goes down. Now what is this demand? Demand is for goods and services. For example if am a skilled laborer, (mechanical engineer for eg) suddenly I will find there s no demand for my skill (no construction work is happening).

How to manage a depression?

Before going to that we have to understand the three schools of thought in economics. They are 1)Keynesian school or demand side economics also known as salt water economics as the costal schools of economics were main proponents of this 2) classical or supply side economics;renamed now as neoclassical and also known as fresh water economics cuz the main proponents of this school were from mainland schools of economics in US like chicago and 3) Monetarism

So how does Keynesian economics solve my problem (jobless mechanical engineer) in economic depression? (in other words what is this talk about increasing govt spending?)

This theory postulates that solution comes best from increasing the demand for goods and services. In my case for eg, since private sector will be reluctant to start new construction projects, the government will have to put in money and start new construction projects so that I will get job. So to stimulate growth, the government should increase government spending (investments in infrastructure such as dams and roads,). Now as all of these may not be yielding immediate returns or profit, the government debt (budget deficit) will rise. So what should government do then? What it shouldn’t do (and what US congress is going to do)is to go into austerity measures and spending cuts to bring down the deficits . Now not only will I loose my job but also my insurances and health care. What government should do on the other hand to reduce the debt is to increase taxes on high income group (congress on other hand is talking of tax cuts!!). so in short Keynesian solution is a short term high fiscal deficit intervention by government.

In short government should take hands on attitude and make major fiscal policy adjustments and get into the market aggressively. It shouldn’t bother about short term rise in fiscal deficit. If anything increasing fiscal deficit is a good indicator of a pro active government fiscal policy in times of depression.

Ok. So what’s the neoclassical / supply side economics solution for getting me job? (in other words what does the tea party movement want or are they complete idiots ? )

Supply-side economics suggests that cutting taxes on the wealthiest people allows business owners to create more jobs and thus the wealth will pass down from top to bottom by "Trickle-down economics’”. A high fiscal deficit led increased government spending will only hurt private investment as government will take over the projects which would have gone to private companies. since private investment will be more profit oriented and market savvy , I will get job in a construction company which will be well managed and profit driven in future with pay hikes instead of government owned public sector company which will be stagnant and probably nonprofit based.

In short government should just lay off and not interfere. Its primary aim should be to cut its budget deficit. Low fiscal deficit is seen by investors (by a AAA rating!!) as an indicator of good governance and can help attract large levels of private domestic and foreign investment .Since tax cuts should be the policy during depression the deficit can only be reduced by spending cuts and austerity measures

So what does Monetarism say about giving me job during depression? (in other words why we hear always about interest cuts ? )

Monetarism based strategy today is usually the first line of defense against depression. Let’s see what it is about. As we saw earlier, according to Keynesians, the recession has to be managed by increased government spending (deficit spending), increased taxation & through a fiscal policy that allows it.

Friedman and colleagues from Chicago school of economics postulated that it was the contraction of money circulating that causes recession and hence the management should be to release more money by reducing interest rates, decreasing mandatory reserve requirements of banks etc. so, in my case first the Reserve Bank will reduce the interest rates which in turn allows the other banks to borrow more money from reserve bank and they also will cut the interest rates. Now once banks cut interest rates, people who are wealthy will start putting less money in bank (and put it to construction work in my case) and I will be able to take loans from bank at s cheaper interest rate too.

In short, in contrast to Keynesian school it advocates against government intervention in market done by increased spending by high fiscal deficit which will only cause inflation or increasing taxes & increased regulations .Today the primary tool for controlling inflation is monetarism based. So its been said we live in times of the central banker. Ben Bernanke, Subha rao et al owe their importance to monetarism

Ok, fine. So what’s this AAA rating problem and tea party noise? (In other words, how did obama et al screw it up?)

As we have seen the first tine of defense today of governments is monetarism based. Meaning cut the interest rates of banks. US central bank can’t do it cuz the interest rates are already almost zero! Gosh, how did that happen? Well before the 2008 depression there was a dot com bubble which burst in US. In order to get away from that depression banks reduced the interest rates. Even after the economy stabilized they didn’t raise e the rates (as it was helping the private sector) which lead to economy overheating again in form of housing bubble. So now they can’t use monetarism now as rates can’t be lowered below zero! So that option is out

Now, the solution of supply side economics or in tea part terms, tax cuts!. The supply side economics fails in time of depression due to two reasons. One, it banks on trickledown economics meaning if my employer is given tax cuts, his income will increase. But if he doesn’t pass it down to me in form of increased number of jobs trickling won’t happen. In a time of depression only a nonprofit minded establishment like govt will be ready to invest its money. Secondly, supply side postulates strict fiscal discipline or in other words keeping the fiscal deficit low. This means at time of tax cuts, to reduce the deficit govt will have to cut its expenditure by cutting the money it gives to social security measures. Meaning it’s a double whammy for me. My employer who became rich is not giving me the job and I have lost my health insurance too!!!

So that leaves US govt with only with the Keynesian solution ( as it was in 1930’s). Now what did obama administration do? It started off by making right noises. But in the end when it announced the stimulation package it did two interesting things. One a mistake and another a sleight of hand. Mistake was that the package announced was too small as they tried for bipartisanship. The sleight of hand was that major part of this govt spending went to bail out rich investment banks and little went to actual job creation. Naturally though the US debt raised, the job creation didn’t take place. in short i didnt get any job though i read in papers govt is spending trillions of dollars for getting me job!!!

Now enter tea part movement & AAA rating. Tea party leaders started pointing out the faulty implementation of policy of govt stimulus as the fault of the policy itself. It’s like blaming the surgical procedure for the inefficiency of surgeon! The best part is the rating agencies. these are the very agencies that gave AAA rating to investement banks in 2008 till the day before they became bankrupt!!! if anything not loosing AAA rating should be a warning sign!!

US financial mess part 2; the whodunit?

Oh ya the spoilers first; the bank clerk did it !... the financial executives / economists who with chameleon like ability appear and re- appear as the academic economist in Harvard who gives authenticity to deregulation plans ,, then as the secretary of treasury (finance minster) who passes these favorable laws , then as the federal reserve bank chief (central bank chief)who rectifies these laws & then as the bank CEO who gets all the benefits from such plans!. Point to be noted is that same person can appear as all four in different points of time…to call this conflict of interest will be understating it !

one upon a time...

If one has to pin point where it all started going wrong then it was the when the investment banks started using their assets in speculative market (packaging as CDO). This was not allowed by law after great depression. From 1933 (after great depression) until 1999, the United States maintained a separation between investment banking and commercial banks. A series of laws from 80’s to 90’s started to deregulate the control that government had on investment banks. The final nail in the coffin was the act passed in 1999 which virtually opened up the banks fully to open market. The act passed by Clinton was planned by Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

Now lets just see how so called economic whiz kids ticked every box in the page of “conflict of interest” by incestuously being the law makers and at same time beneficiaries of those laws..And interestingly how they still continue to do the same!..of course they did it quite ‘bipartisanly’ as the idiotic politicians keep saying in US

Robert Rubin (treasury secretary under Clinton) ; Harvard economist who was CEO of Goldman Sacks before he became the secretary, then he successfully passed the bill for de regulating the investment banks and after leaving the government became Vice Chairman of citigroup!!

Larry summers (treasury secretary after Rubin); Harvard economist who actively assisted Rubin and later succeeded him as secretary. After leaving the post he made millions as advisor to a CDO based hedge fund. Now obama has re-appointed him as financial advisor!

Henry Paulson ; MBA from Havard and later become the richest ever CEO of Goldman sacks. resgined that post after Bush jr (poor chap!) appointed him as his treasury secretary and Paulson happily commented later that the US economy has never been more robust. 6 months later Lehman brothers collapsed and paulson was the treasury secy when the crisis peaked. Was in charge (with Ben Bernanke the Federal reserve chief) during the period when Goldman Sachs benefited from AIG bailout and made sure in doing so that AIG can’t sue GS .he along with Ben Bernanke facilitated the takeover of Meryl lynch by bank of America (hiding the real debts of ML from BOA)

enter " yes we can"...

Barrack Obama…he made all the right noises in run upto president election about controlling the greed in Wall Street. Now let’s see what he did once he took charge (lil boy obama must have felt like the proverbial deer in front of headlights in front of these finacial merlins)

1) Re-appoints Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chief (he was reelected by the narrowest margin ever in history). The very guy who conspired with Paulson to save Goldman sacks and then facilitated the takeover of Meryl lynch by BOA against their interests

2) Selects Timothy Geithner as his treasury secretary. Geithner‘s biographers has always debated whether he was a truer protégé of Rubin or that of Summers (the two founder fathers of deregulation). Active participant in planning the 1999 bill to deregulate and major contributor in GS bailout plan

3) Guess who gets appointed as White House National Economic Council director? Summers himself!

4) Guess what was the new New York fed reserve chief (largest of 12 federal banks in US), William Dudley’s job before he joined government? Chief economist, Goldman sacks!

5) Don’t even bother guessing obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices ) chief’s previous job; GS, what else!

6) as a foot note, the present chief of staff of obama (equilanet to prime minster) William Daleywhom we saw in the famous pic of whitehouse insiders watching "kill osama" operation was in executive committee of investement bank JP morgan chase & co!

Well in short u have almost all the perpetrators of the heist in the investigating team !!!!..

to cut a long story short, till the next econmic crisis (may be in 2016!) lets see what we wont be hearing..we wont hear a single finacial executive being punished or probed or any bank being asked for damages ...but for sure we will be hearing one thing..a lot of bipartism cutting across the party lines about economy..and the chameleon act will continue..... but please dont blame the politicians...these financial genuises know that politics is too smart a field to be left for politicians

US financial mess part 1; what really happened?

lets smiplify it

sub prime

Imagine I want to buy a home which is worth 30 lakhs, but I don’t have any kind of income to buy it. Other way is that I take a loan on the promise of paying back the loan at(for eg:) 3 lakhs/ yr for 10 yrs. Now common sense will tell us the lender has to wait 10 yrs to get his money back. So obviously lender will be very particular that I have enough financial back up to pay him back. So he will ask for some assurances (any other property I have, or other assets like gold). End result I wont get the loan and can’t have the house because I am subprime (meaning no chance of paying loan back).

Now let’s see what happened in US. The financial whiz kids in investment banks (like Lehman brothers, Meryl lynch, Goldman sacks) see that the value of property is always going to rise. So they calculate that if I can’t pay back the money after say 2 yrs they can sell the property which will be now worth 35 lakhs. So if I default the gain is 5 lakhs at 2 yrs! (so the more chances that I am going to default , better their prospects. ) a win- win situation. If I pay back well and fine, if I don’t then more than fine! So the investment banks start buying the mortgages from lenders. Meaning if ur a lender u can happily lend 30 lakhs to “sub-prime “me and then sell that mortgage to Lehman brothers for 30+. Even I win cuz I can use a posh house for 2 yrs then if I default again apply for another loan in spite of being “sub-prime” …wow!

securitization

Now the bankers get greedier. They see these mortgages which they have bought as permanently increasing pool of money (real estate prices will always rise!). So they repackage all these together in a fancy name “collateralized debt obligation” (CDO) and sell them back to investors. There are rating agencies (Moody’s, Stanford &Pooch’s) which rate these funds so as to guide common investor about where to put his funds. Hand in glove with bankers, they will give these CDO based funds highest possible rating (AAA). The investor will see this as a mutual fund like scenario where u put ur money and see it grow. Now the same penny less me will put my whatever lil savings into this fund seeing that its being growing regularly for last 3 yrs or so (this was true of lots of pension funds and provisional funds in US as such funds can only be put in AAA rated schemes!).

Seeing all these, insurance agencies (like AIG) also jumped into the orgy. They started issuing insurances against CDO based funds to investors. They called it credit default swaps (CDS). You have to pay a quarterly premium to AIG and if the fund fails AIG will pay u back! They went even one step further by issuing speculative insurances , meaning u can take an insurance against a fund that somebody else owns (almost like betting!). Meaning for a single fund there were multiple insurers! Again win- win!

the boom

Now the real fun started. Stock market indexes went through the roof, house prices became three times, investment bank & insurance company CEOs were taking home close to 400 million pounds a year , rating agencies issued AAA ratings without much care , lending agencies became very liberal to lend loans and yes the subprime guy in road can buy any house and use it for an year or two then move on to next house.

the fall

Story changed once the subprime lending became massive and completely senseless. People who couldn’t pay even a single premium started defaulting in huge amounts. Number of defaulted houses increased with few takers for them due to defaulting. House prices started to go down. Suddenly the cash drain started to dry off. Once the cash drain started to tickle off, the CDO based funds started to have less buyers and more sellers. Now the investment banks were full of toxic assets. Imagine my 30 lakh loan which Lehman brothers have brought from my lender. Now as the CDO market has few takers Lehman brothers are stuck with that 30 lakhs loan. If they sell the house they will get only 25 lakhs now. So it has become a toxic asset. AIG on other hand had investors asking for insurance money against failed CDO based funds. Now the house of cards started to come down

stop n think for a minute.....what are we..

the link below shows the largest true-color 360-panoramic view of the night sky ever created, shot by 28-year-old amateur astrophotographer Nick Risinger using six astronomical cameras. he did this by trekking 60,000 miles across the western United States and South Africa starting in March 2010. The final image is composed of 37,000 separate photographs.

http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html

if u look close with great pain u might be able to see that small blue dot....yes our planet... cant help say "From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam"... so very true, Sagan

osama legacy....whats the ground reality?

There are many dogmas in our life that are never supposed to be questioned. When I say this I mean the ones other than the superstars of dogma land; religion, nationalism and political ideology. I write this note to dwell into my interactions with one of those dogmas that’s been walking around in my mental landscape with an audacity that tells me that no one of sound mind shall mess with it. The topic is Osama bin Laden. And the dogma being “thou shall hate Osama as he is embodiment of evil on two legs” (and a stick I guess as he s always shown to be carrying one with him!)

Let me ponder over the questions that trouble me ……

..

Shouldn’t the killing of bin laden be considered as a win for the democratic, liberal & secular world. If so then whats worrying part in it ?

There can’t be any doubt that the world is a slightly better place without bin laden than with bin laden. But what’s worrying is something else. It’s the continuing reasoning that we hear about why a bin laden or al qaida came into being in the first place. The often repeated reason being that it’s the product of anti Americanism that came out of wahabi Islamism which wants to wipe out the western world by using terrorism. The fundamental flaw in this thinking is the core idea that Muslims hate and attack the democratic secular and liberal world (leading self appointed exponent being US) for what they stand for, rather than for what is being done to the Muslim world by the same group. In other words though a fundamentalist Muslim may be bothered by the modernity, democracy, and sexuality of the democratic, liberal & secular world, what turns him to a terrorist & blow himself and others up is when these forces (American, Russian, Israeli &Indian in Kashmir) encroach on their lands. Terrorism is just a tactic or a symptom of the disease. In case of Osama and Al-Qaeda, one has to highlight the fact that it’s the American foreign policy which supports the Saudi police state, the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and Yemen & support for the Israelis that enrages them, not the American culture and society.

Was Bin Laden a Frankenstein monster created by US/ CIA during afghan war that later turned against its creator?

The myth that has almost become a fact is that bin laden was in CIA payroll during Afghan war.

This is factually wrong and one has to understand the reasons why this legend came into being. The two sources that I found authentic are the accounts of Michael Scheuer, a former an intelligence officer at CIA who was the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station and was later ousted from the agency for being the anonymous author of the 2004 book Imperial Hubris, in which he criticized many of the United States' assumptions about Islamist insurgencies and that of Steve Coll , the Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist who authored, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

Scheuer tells that though at various times CIA did try to contact Bin Laden for obvious reasons of common interest and common enemy to fight against, they were never successful in establishing any direct contact with Bin Laden himself. Coll in his fairly exhaustive account of bin laden family chronicles (which I must confess reads like a Rockefeller or ambani saga) notes the fact that in his search for any such Osama – CIA direct alliance he couldn’t find a single instance where Osama ever came into contact with any normal American citizen leave alone government / CIA official

Then why is it so easy today to sell that argument today?

We can safely assume that this is an American account of what happened as one can’t imagine Osama being keen to spread the news that he had a CIA connection. This is a direct by product of the interventionist foreign policy ideas of US. This US “interventionism in other states” for political /economic benefits has always been camouflaged by lot of talk on upholding great democratic values that the founder fathers has envisaged and the need to stand by their allies. But the reality is that its impossible to bring about a change from ‘outside- in’ even in states ruled by the most autocratic of dictatorships. US foreign policy history is full of such blunders like Shah in Iran, Pinochet in Chile, Castillo in Guatemala, Karzai in Afghanistan & not to mention Vietnam and now Iraq & pakistan. So one would imagine that its natural for the US foreign policy hawks to categorize the afghan war as one of their victorious interventionist endeavors

What was different in Afghan war of 80’s was that US was on the other side of the court. USSR was trying to do to Afghanistan what US is doing to Iraq and Afghanistan now. Naturally there was a strong anti- USSR feeling among the Afghans which was tapped into by both Islamic fundamentalists and CIA for their own religious and political interests. Islamic help came from Saudi via people like Osama & mujahedeens and CIA help came via Pakistan. Neither did Osama and the mujahedeen warriors who fought in the afghan war reach there because Americans asked them to nor were they keen to get help from a secular western superpower as it would have defeated their very purpose.

How can Pakistan be considered as failure of US policy? Isn’t the CIA director’s quote “they are either involved or incompetent” true about Pakistan after Osama was found hiding right under their nose?

The present dilemma we see in Pakistan is very much the product of interventionist policy that makes countries fight proxy war for the US. This strategy works fine when the ground reality and popular opinion in that country is also pulling in same direction. The classical example is Pakistan of Zia- ul-haq’s time when it was channelizing CIA support to fight USSR in Afghanistan and at same time training “freedom fighters” for Kashmir. There were no suicide attacks of jihadist groups then in Pakistan though CIA was very much around. If the popular opinion and ground reality is pulling in diametrically opposite direction to the external pressure we will have present day Pakistan.

Pakistan was perfectly fine with Taliban in Afghanistan, and to great extent al Qaeda and Osama till 9/11 happened. It’s not that ISI or Pakistan in general was not aware at that time what the real intentions of these groups were. On the contrary they were much better informed than any as Pakistan was the only nation which recognized Taliban government. But still the worse crime one can accuse on average Pakistani at that time was that he was sympathetic to the jihad movement but not an active supporter or participator. Post 9/11 Pakistan did a complete turnabout in 24 hrs or so thanks to the not so subtle talks from US. It’s not tough to understand that this change was not reflective of popular perception as 9/11 didn’t cause any direct damage to average Pakistani than it did to say an average Chinese or Japanese. In spite of that what he saw in later years before his own eyes was the very scenario that Islamic fundamentalist propaganda was trying to warn him about. Whether it’s the drone attacks or CIA agents killing civilians and getting away with it or the present taking down of Osama, all of this are many times better recruiting advertisements for jihad than any video or speech As a result Islamic fundamentalism started to grow exponentially and we have the present day “involved or incompetent” Pakistan

The three critical happening in Islamic sphere; what happened in Egypt, what’s happening in Libya and what happened to bin laden…does this all show a trend towards democratic liberal ideals & away from terror ?

The general opinion that one hears is that acts of terrorism will come down in view of the fact that there’s been revolutions against dictators in Middle East and once liberal democracies take over in Islamic heartland things are going to get better. As much as one would hope so, when we look at ground realities this doesn’t seem to be the fact. Reasons for this error is mainly due to two reasons

1) This kind of feedback that we see in media is coming from the English speaking ,CNN debating analysts & social networking accessing westernized population of the Islamic world

2) We have an overbearing belief that the binding factor and driving force behind the movements we see in middle east was an urge to move towards pro-democratic, secular and liberal values

The pew research centre polls done recently among Muslims spread all around the world including Egypt can definitely be considered to be reflecting the real ground situation better than the above mentioned sources. What does it say? In Egypt for instance, About six-in-ten (62%) think laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran & about 31% of Egyptian Muslims say they sympathize with Islamic fundamentalists. In all of the countries were the poll was conducted (Indonesia, turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan) majority of common people believed religion should play a major part in how their country is been run

But we got to keep few points in mind while interpreting these results. Firstly as we discussed in beginning Islamic fundamentalism didn’t fly planes into twin towers on 9/11. It was anti- Americanism that did it. It’s not that difficult to understand as these Islamic schools of teaching has been around for ages while strong anti Americanism took wings post 91 Iraq war . Secondly what we are seeing in Middle East now is not in any way against Islamic ideals. Mubarak was the most US friendly of Islamic national heads and made lot of secular posturing. In Libya, the anti- Gadaffi forces are made of al Qaida elements that have fought outside Libya for al Qaida till now. Actually other than Saudi, Libya remains the biggest contributor of volunteers for al Qaida.

So what are the concluding points?

1) Osama’s killing is good riddance. But from perspective of anti- terrorism its relevance is slightly better than “a body count” in bold letters. From perspective of pro- terrorism it can be a good recruiting tool as it’s the end they always wanted for Osama

2) It’s alarming that we still don’t hear enough voices differentiating between anti-Americanism and Islamic fundamentalism in relation to growth of terrorism. Though both has been causative factors, the former definitely outweighs the latter and latter without former doesn’t make the mix that makes people blow up by themselves along with others

3) One shouldn’t be surprised if future Egypt government gets more Islamic flavor. it’s a matter of when and not whether. It shouldn’t alarm outside world as long as US stays away for good

4) The trend in Libya is slowly slipping towards a situation where Obama will have to make a call between American troops in ground or quit Libya for good. One hopes he will choose the latter while Zawahiri will be praying he chooses the former option