Economics & Finance

Democrats, Republicans and the Stock Market

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WRT this:

The stock market didn’t take off until 1997, after the Republicans won a House majority and passed a capital-gains tax-rate cut that Clinton, to his credit, signed. But like welfare reform, another popular initiative that Clinton had no choice but to go along with, it was an essentially Republican idea that Congressional Democrats blocked as long as they could. And now that we are again enjoying a strong economy and stock market, in part because of Bush’s 2003 capital-gains tax-rate reduction, Democrats who want to raise taxes by canceling that tax reduction want us to believe that Clinton was solely responsible for the late-’90s boom. Is the Democrats’ current behavior an example of irony or merely chutzpah?

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Das — India Unbound: From Independence to the Global Information Age

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Das, Gurcharan, India Unbound: The Social and Economic Revolution from Independence to the Global Information Age, Penguin, New Delhi, 2002. ppbk edition.

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Recently, a friend with Gujarati origins returned from visiting his relatives in northwest India and brought me several books on the Indian economic renaissance. This particular book is part biography, part business tutorial, while effectively illustrating the dramatic challenges faced by India over the last century. Gurcharan Das is a former CEO of Proctor & Gamble India, sometime columnist for the Times of India and frequent commentator on Indian economic affairs. Educated in India and the US, and spending his formative business years in many countries, he’s the perfect intermediary for the general reader. After taking early retirement, he switched his focus to business consulting. That varied background has made a big difference to the quality of India Unbound. His experience bridges the generations, bridges East and West, and reflects experience with many facets of the Indian economy. It is a well-written book, a bit dated by the very rapid change in both India and the global economy (his Foreign Affairs article is a wonderful update), but all-in-all this book is an excellent introduction to India’s past, present, and potential future.

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