RBI Overheating India’s Economy: On Materialist Greed Fueling Ceaseless Consumerism

A phenomenon as massive as the global coronavirus pandemic, which ran from 2020 to 2022, is bound to have major economic ripple, or wave, effects in its wake. India’s record high 9.2% growth of GNP in the 2023-2024 fiscal year illustrates the robust thrust of pent-up demand met with increased supply. To the extent that consumption over savings is the norm in any economy, a couple years off can subtly recalibrate economic mentalities to a more prudent economic mindset wherein saving money is not so dwarfed by spending it. Moreover, putting the brakes on a consumerist routine and societal norm can theoretically lead to putting the underlying materialism in a relative rather than an absolute position and thus in perspective. Yet such a “resetting” must overcome the knee-jerk instinct of any habit to restart as if there had been no change. Coming back to college, for example, after a summer away, students tend to pick up their respective routines right away as if the recent summer were a distant memory. India’s astonishing rate of economic growth just after the pandemic demonstrates that the penchant for consumerism and economic growth as a maximizing rather than satisficing variable returned as if the steeds in Socrates’ Symposium—only those horses represent garden-variety eros sublimated to love of eternal moral verities, to which Augustine substituted “God.”

The full essay is at "RBI Overheating India's Economy."

Musk vs. Trump: American Business and Government at Loggerheads?

When the wealthiest person in the world and the President of the United States cross swords, people are bound to notice. Such a very public clash between billionaires, one of whom is the most politically powerful person in the U.S., should not lead the rest of us to infer that the interests of large corporations and the U.S. Government, including the respective executives and elected representatives, typically conflict. Corporate and individual mega-donations to political campaigns, the proverbial “revolving door” between working in government and at a corporation, the reliance of regulatory agencies on information from the regulated companies invite the exploit of conflicts of interest such that legislation and regulations are even written by corporate lawyers for their respective companies’ financial interest. Furthermore, that many very large American-based corporations have interlocking boards of directors gives corporate America considerable unified force in seeing to it that Congress and the federal president remain friendly to business interests. That both benefit from the status quo and have de jure or de facto vetoes of reform proposals reinforces the staying power of the club. Even as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders enjoyed considerable media attention and crowds in his speaking tour against oligopoly (i.e., consolidation within an industry such that companies can set prices at will and can thus extract extra profit beyond that which would accrue in a competitive market), it would be wildly optimistic to hope for an onslaught of anti-trust enforcement from a Republican or Democratic administration.

The complete essay is at "Musk vs. Trump."

Worse than Hell on Earth: Gaza

Each of us is so close to human nature that our perception of it may be blurry or partial. One of Freud’s contributions is the insight that we don’t even know ourselves completely, given the existence of the subconscious. This is also true of trying to comprehend human nature at a distance, as whether humanity is or is not by nature compassionate to people who are suffering greatly at a distance. The sheer duration of the extreme suffering of civilians in Ukraine and Gaza in the midst of ongoing military attacks by Russia and Israel, respectively, beginning in the early 2020s, and the sheer impunity absent any interventionist coalitions of countries from around the world combine to give a negative verdict on human nature concerning compassion from a distance. It can even be said that the ongoing passive complicity around the world impugns not only us, but human nature itself. While less explicit than in furnishing weapons to Russia or Israel, the complicity of human nature is more serious, for even as geopolitics change, human nature is static, at least in a non-evolutionary timespan. Given the extreme suffering in Gaza in particular, the lack of political will around the world to step in militarily and assume control of Gaza may mean that human nature itself is worse than hell on earth.

The full essay is at "Worse than Hell on Earth."

The U.S. Government’s Debt: Federalism Unbalanced

On May 5, 2025, the debt of the U.S. Government stood at $36.21 trillion, $28.9 trillion being held by the public and $7.31 trillion being intragovernmental. That total is $1.66 trillion more than the total federal public debt on May 5, 2024. Projected interest payments of $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 would be 8 percent higher than the interest payments made in 2024. By comparison, the U.S. budget for national defense in fiscal year 2025 totaled $892.6 billion. Whether going to investors of treasury bonds or defense contractors and other corporations, the combined $1.85 trillion for fiscal 2025 represents a transfer payment to the wealthy from American taxpayers rich, middle-class, and poor. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May, 2025 that would subject Medicaid and food assistance to significantly less money and subject the States with having to spend more on the administration of those programs. Principles of political ideology reside just below the surface. My task here is to flush them out and relate them to each other, rather than to impose my own ideology.

The full essay is at "The U.S. Government's Debt."

MIT: A University or a Government?

On the very same day in which Harvard’s president received a standing ovation during the university’s graduation ceremony in Harvard Yard and emphasized verbally that students from all around the world come to Harvard to study—U.S. President Trump having recently ordered Harvard’s international students either to transfer from Harvard or be sent home—MIT’s president barred the 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony on the next day because of her speech denouncing Israel’s decimation of Gaza in violation of international human-rights law. Whether extermination or genocide, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued arrest warrants for Israel’s sitting prime minister and a former defense minister should be enough for MIT’s senior officials to recognize that speaking on behalf of human rights and against mass carnage and intentional starvation is laudatory rather than horrendous. Even with the political pressure that must have been coming the federal president, it was possible to resist such pressure, which is why Harvard’s graduates gave the president of Harvard a standing ovation of support. Sometimes international affairs really are simple. Opposing Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza is not only morally good; doing so is a duty. After all (but sadly not after all), Israel’s military actions over 1.5 years had already resulted in whole cities being leveled and 1.2 million residents facing starvation. The policy of U.S. Government and the money of the American military-industrial companies, both of which were still aiding Israel’s military, was also ripe for moral criticism. In effect, MIT’s “academic” officials felt justified in taking the draconian step of barring the graduating-class student-president from the campus on the day of graduation because she had spoken out for human rights. There surely are tough decisions in life given how subjective and even multivariate human judgment is, but condemning and even bypassing MIT in the wake of that institution’s highest officials barring the student from even receiving her diploma in the graduation ceremony even though her family had come to see it is not a difficult decision to reach. While dwarfed by the coldness of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, “heartless” is not an adjective that a university’s top officials want applied to them or a university itself, especially in regard to students on the cusp of being alumni with great earning, and thus donating, potential.

The full essay is at "MIT: A University or a Government?"

Insulting Police in Georgia: Totalitarianism Criminalizing Politics

Whereas the Georgia in North America has been a member-state of the U.S. from that union’s beginning, the Georgia in Europe was still not annexed by the E.U. slightly more than 30 years after that Union’s beginning. Whether to join an empire-scale union of states is a political decision, as a union of states is a political animal. When a prospective state government criminalizes political protest and public discourse on that decision, such a government violates the federal requirement that the state governments adhere to democratic principles, which exclude criminalizing the political opposition. The government of Georgia in Europe crossed this line when a politician of the opposition was arrested for insulting the state police.

The full essay is at "Insulting Police in Georgia."