How far can amazon go?

After world's largest online retailer, Amazon jumped into the smartphone fray Wednesday, unveiling the Fire Phone at a press event in Seattle.

Amazon’s phone will be available exclusively through AT&T, mirroring an arrangement that Apple had with the carrier with the iPhone’s 2007 debut. The 32GB Fire Phone will cost $199 with a two-year contract. You can preorder it now, with the phone arriving on July 25. For a limited time, the phone comes with a full year of Amazon Prime service (which normally costs $99 a year), for both new and current Prime subscribers.

Amazon  device, you can expect lots of access to content, such as the Kindle Store for buying books as well as the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, in which Amazon Prime members can share books. The phone will also have access to hundreds of magazines and newspapers as well as Amazon’s recently purchased Comixology digital comics reader and storefront. Apps such as Netflix, HBO Go, and ESPN’s sports content will also be available on the phone.The App Grid can be customized however you like, and you can add media to your grid as well as apps—think of it like bookmarking the book you’re reading or your favorite magazine right to your home screen. The Carousel view has a preview pane below each app’s icon; for example you can see previews of new email messages in the Carousel, and even delete them from there without having to open the email app.

Is health of Democracy stabilized in world?

The coming year will be full of elections. The world's most populous democracy, India, heads to the polls, and many other big emerging markets—including Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey—will elect presidents. Add to that mid-term elections in America, voting across all 28 countries of the EU for the European Parliament and many other polls, from Afghanistan to South Africa, and 2014 will see a great global exercise in democracy. Yet many people fret that, despite all this voting, democracy is in poor shape. Turnout in elections in the rich world has been dropping since the 1970s, from more than 80% to less than 70% (in the case of European Parliament elections, turnout has fallen every time since voting began in 1979, to just 43% in 2009). Voters in many countries are rejecting mainstream parties and turning to fringe groups. In America, politics too often look dysfunctional and gridlocked. Elsewhere, from Brazil to Thailand to Ukraine, people have taken to the streets in protest. Is all this evidence that representative democracy is failing to adjust to the age of the internet and social media? Or is democracy working more or less as it should, giving opportunities to citizens to express dissatisfaction with their leaders?

Is Congress speedometer at the end point?

Election phase 2004 ended, Sonia Gandhi came to power. Far from viewing liberalization as a major success, she portrayed India as tarnished, not shining, under Vajpayee. Her focus shifted from liberalization to welfarism. Bureaucrats got the signal, “Don’t liberalize more”. Thanks to earlier reforms and global buoyancy, GDP growth soared to a record 8.5%/year, but Sonia de-emphasized this.

Next came the financial crash of 2008-09 widely blamed on excessive deregulation and corporate greed. The world over, an outcry began for stiffer regulation and more controls. This had strong echoes in India too. Liberalization was seen as having gone too far, even though it was half-baked in India compared with the Asian tigers.

Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh endeavoured mightily to revitalize decision-making since late 2012. They devised the Cabinet Committee on Investment to spread the responsibility for decisions among relevant ministries, reducing risks for any one minister or bureaucrat. But though they cleared a mammoth Rs 6 lakh crore worth of projects, there is still no boom in capital goods or construction. Implementation paralysis continues because bureaucrats still find political signals mixed, and political protection inadequate.

By itself, the May election will not be a game changer. A fragile coalition won’t have enough unity of purpose to provide clear signals to the bureaucracy. Ministers in a fragile coalition may seek quick money in the short time available.

A new government with a substantial majority and clear policies is required to send bureaucrats the signal: “Fast implementation is safe, will be rewarded.” The new government must be seen focusing on economic revival, not black money: that itself will curb court activism. It must protect bureaucrats not guilty of personal gain in scams. It must promote decisive bureaucrats and sideline ditherers. That will end implementation paralysis, and revive fast growth.

Inequality: Why aren’t the poor storming the barricades?

That’s because the surging income gap often masks a narrowing difference in the actual consumption experiences of the rich and the rest of us. 'At the turn of the 20th century, only the mega-rich had mobile phones or cars,'. 'But mobile phones are now in all universe, even as mobile phone inequality continues to grow.'... where rich follows i-phone and poor follows only mobile phone. 

Massive inequality makes life difficult for poor people to rise up, especially because of issues like personal appearance and social intelligence. 

Rich people can afford braces, face lifts, and nice clothes. Poor people, by and large, cannot. This makes it visually obvious who is poor and wealthy. 

And rich people socially interact at different level than poor people, reflecting their past experiences. Conversation will not only be difficult, but almost like two foreign languages given the differences in daily living. 

This is important, because in addition to the education, hard work, resilience, risk taking etc. always wisely suggested for poor people to improve their lot, poor people will ultimately have to interact person-to-person with wealthy people for interviews, financing, advice, and more on a path of personal economic growth.

If the rich have expectations of physical appearance and social manners that the poor find hard to meet, that's one more obstacle on the way to becoming rich, or as jouris smartly pointed out, believe that it is possible. 

One more incentive for the poor to storm the barricades, but I don't think that will happen as long as people can keep their smartphones on and their auto payments/rent met.

Especially if pot becomes legal. Then the poor will be too stoned to realize that the barricades are there at all. :)