Nitin Pai: “It is firms that compete. The policy question then is how India can create companies that become global leaders in emerging sectors. Can we, for example, get there if domestic firms are protected from international competition? Meagre private investment in R&D, especially by India’s largest companies, tells us a story…India is one of the world’s big powers today, but many geopolitical strategists have yet to adopt a more confident approach to foreign policy. Many traps are those of the mind.”
WSJ: “Mr. Corbin says that the nature of rest has changed over time, “A History of Rest” is more a testament to how much things have remained the same. From ancient times to modern, rest has mainly assumed four different forms: two of them, nightly sleep and the weekly sabbath, of shorter length, and the other two—retirement toward the end of life and the permanent rest of death—of rather longer duration.”
Reason: “It’s not too hard to understand why people hate prices. Prices, left to do their work, are signals—about value, about rarity, about cost in time and resources, about sentimentality, about desirability, about the labyrinthine machinations of global supply and demand. Prices, in other words, deliver information. And in many cases, the information they deliver is that you can’t have everything you want…There’s no single right price for a hamburger. Nor is there a single correct price for housing, or health care, or eggs, or gasoline, or checked bags, or neighboring airline seats. Prices are just an information delivery system, the messenger that politicians keep wanting to shoot.”
FT: “AI does not mean the robots are coming. The technology will transform existing machines, such as cars, long before it allows the creation of androids…It also makes sense to think about how the robots that already exist — from industrial robotic arms to robot vacuum cleaners — will evolve. AI-powered machine vision will subtly increase the range of tasks a robotic arm can perform and make it safer for them to work alongside humans. Lightweight, single-purpose devices such as robot vacuum cleaners will gradually become more useful. In Chinese hotels, for example, it is already quite common to have a robot bring deliveries to your room. That kind of limited and controlled autonomy is the most easily delivered.”
Mint: “State governments often walk a tightrope between social demands and fiscal sustainability—a predicament Alberto Alesina captured by warning of “too large and too small” governments. Over-expansion can result in inefficient expenditure without necessarily catalysing growth, while under-investment risks leaving public infrastructure and welfare services inadequate. At the heart of this tension lies the distinction between revenue and capital expenditure, a divide central to the ongoing freebies debate. Revenue outlays—spending on salaries, subsidies and day-to-day administration—can meet immediate needs and provide short-term political dividends. However, excessive reliance on such outlays risks inflating deficits without creating lasting value. Freebies may offer momentary relief but often come at the expense of growth-enhancing capital investments.”
