M Govinda Rao: “It is clear that persuading the [Indian] states to fiscally empower the local bodies does not succeed. Effective decentralisation requires directly empowering the local bodies. This requires having clarity in the assignment of functions and revenue sources by amending the Constitution to add a Local List in the Seventh Schedule and penalising the state (not local bodies) for not appointing SFCs. It is also important to build capacity and handhold the local bodies in this task. In the end, decentralisation becomes healthy and sustainable in a system where there is a strong demand for decentralisation from the grassroots level.”
Thomas Sowell: “In politics – whether electoral politics or ideological politics – the word “crisis” often means whatever situation someone wants to change. Far from automatically indicating some dire condition threatening the public, it often means simply a golden opportunity for surrogates to use the taxpayers’ money and the government’s power to advance the surrogates’ interests, whether these interests are political, ideological, or financial.”
Economist: “[India] has long been easier to offshore white-collar work to India than the blue-collar variety. Spreadsheets and emails do not need to travel across the country’s congested roads or otherwise rely on its shoddy infrastructure. (GCCs generally have dependable internet connections, a luxury not always enjoyed in India.) Labour laws covering matters such as redundancies and—crucially for global firms—working hours are less restrictive for the country’s white-collar workers, too. More recently, technologies such as cloud computing and video conferencing have made it less cumbersome to tap India’s vast pool of brainy workers. Having learned how to supervise employees remotely through the covid-19 pandemic, plenty of bosses will have now pondered whether some roles could be done from farther afield. All that helps explain why the number of GCCs operating in India has ballooned from 700 in 200 to 1,580 last year, according to NASSCOM, an industry body. A new centre now opens roughly every week, two-fifths of them in and around Bangalore. India’s GCCs generated a combined $46bn in revenues last year, estimates NASSCOM.”
Arnold Kling: “I remain…optimistic about LLMs. I just think that the timeline for getting widely-used applications is years, not months. Here are some ways I think that LLMs are already capable of changing our lives, but the actual implementations are going to take time. I think that we will see a revolutionary increase in the deployment of robots within five years. I would bet more on specific-purpose robots than general humanoid robots, but I think we will see both. I think that we will see LLM tutors/coaches within three years. But the Null Hypothesis warns that their impact on learning could be modest. I think that over the next ten years, the PC form factor will fade out. Instead, LLMs will be embedded in wearables and in things that surround us.”
Tyler Cowen: “Read books about specific businesses or industries that you already know a lot about. That way, you will have enough contextual knowledge for the book to be meaningful. Of course many people don’t work at a company or industry big or famous enough that there are books about it, so I have a corollary proposition: You will learn the most about management by reading books about sports and musical groups.”
