Father of Test Tube Babies Wins Nobel

That's the news from Scandinavia today: British doctor Robert Edwards wins Nobel Prize in medicine for work he started in the 1950s which culminated in the birth of Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, in 1978. As many as 4 million babies have been born via his method since then. Read the press release and check out the high resolution graphic.

Physics Nobel is tomorrow, Chemistry on Wednesday, Literature on Thursday and Peace on Friday. Economics is on Monday.

Queen in A Classroom

That would be Queen Rania of Jordan visiting schools throughout the world including surprise checks in her home country.

Jean To Step Down As Governor General of Canada

The former Haiti-born journalist is to complete her term as Governor General of Canada this 1st October. She will be replaced by David Johnston. Toronto may well have seen the last of the popular Viceregal last May. You may wish to browse her private album on the official site.

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6. Les Politiques Toxiques De Sithanen Perdurent Avec Mansoor

6. Download The Audit Report in A Handy Format

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Mansoor Circular Misleading Nation

In it the Financial Secretary (FS) is saying that he was expecting our economy to ride on the coattails of a rebounding world economy. That of course made sense to him and to his university buddy as they had been attributing some of the worst growth rates in decades our country has clipped to unfavourable international factors only. Now that the world economy is growing faster than Mauritius Mr. Mansoor has had to come up with a new set of external culprits to justify a fresh round of unnecessary budgetary cuts. So as not to look too silly.

But the above equation reminds us that the FS is not telling the whole story. Indeed the amount of money our government collects depends not only on the size of the economy (GDP) -- and therefore indirectly on its growth dynamics -- but also on the average tax rate. Flattening our progressive taxation system to 15% besides creating a lot of social injustice crucially depended on the arrival of higher growth rates if we didn't want to end up with the worst of both worlds: more debt and getting nothing much accomplished.

We never got the required robust growth rates. We know we couldn't. We only contracted more debt and our problems in 2010 are worse than what they were 5 years earlier.

Les Politiques Toxiques De Sithanen Perdurent Avec Mansoor

Competition Watchdog Not Happy About How Insurance is Bundled With Loans

After sending out mystery shoppers to investigate. John Davies, the Executive Director, said banks may be offering too little choice in terms of insurance to people who take housing loans. You can read the statement released to the press a few days ago here.

At Least 80,000 Eat 3 Rotis For Free Everyday

At the Golden Temple in Amritsar. They actually eat a healthy vegetarian meal. Read the NYT article to meet the people who run this massive volunteer operation which gobbles up about one ton of red chilies every 3 days.

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Competition Commission Signs MOU With BOM

That happened 5 days ago at the BOM Tower.

Wonderful, more reasonable spreads in the forex market should be in on their way. The Banker, are you there?

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1. Paradi An Dey
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6. Download The Audit Report in A Handy Format

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Mansoor's No. 5 Circular of 2010

What Killed Many IRS Projects

Depreciating currency and dullness of Mauritian evenings are two reasons we identified last year. Overpricing is a third one. Here are a few more:

1. Getting someone from the World Bank(WB) as Financial Secretary who promises to adapt WB policies to Mauritius. Investors know very well what happens when government allow Bretton-Woods-formatted cowboys to run the show: they screw up public finances and the economy, people eventually take to the streets and governments lose power along the way. That usually doesn't help real estate values to firm up. 
2. An eyebrow-raising event: WB opens an office here in 2008 based on totally fallacious arguments. We didn't need a WB office in the 1970s when we went through very turbulent economic waters so how come we needed one 4 decades later when conditions are infinitely more manageable? Investors definitely interpret this as a signal that a few idiots have decided to send our country to the dogs.
3. Investors were attracted by sexy ingredients that are the foundations for our country's reputation as the poster child of economic development: success in defusing the demographic bomb, rapid industrialisation, progressive taxation, free education and other carefully thought-out components of our welfare state. With the introduction of the Sithanen-Mansoor-Scott-Ramgoolam flat-tax they fear Mauritius may have lost her magic touch and know government will have no money to maintain standards or solve any national problem. Which is essentially what happened over the past 5 years. And that doesn't sell properties.

Guess you've noticed that the policy spaghetti that killed these IRS also killed our savings and made our economy more vulnerable. Things could get out of hand pretty quickly.

What It's Like Working at FB

Miss Universe: Mauritius and Mexico

Les Onze Critiques De Jack Bizlall

Jack published this 80-page booklet a couple of weeks before the last general elections. It is an interesting read. Download and enjoy it!

Mathematics 'Nobels' Announced in City of Pearls Tomorrow

It's actually called the Fields Medal named after Canadian Mathematician John Charles Fields. In 2006, Russian Grigori Perelman declined the award while the Mozart of Math picked up his.

Download Pravind's ERCP

Democratisation of the Economy Could Now Take At Least 1,000 Years

That's 2 centuries more than my October 2008 estimate which was based on what Cader Sayed-Hossen was saying and the speed at which he was going about it then.

I added 200 years because I think I may have somewhat overestimated his ability to change anything with his commission and to account for the brutal reverse democratisation of the economy that took place over the past five years.

US Plans to Let Tax Cuts For The Rich Expire

Bush had cut tax rates for the wealthiest 2% Americans and this did not boost economic activity while it only increased the budget deficit. America will however extend those granted to middle-income families.

Recall that when Reagan lowered top tax rates by about 10% in the 1980s the US didn't experience higher growth rates but only a quadrupling of its debt. Similarly when the bean-counter flattened our tax structure we not only got some of the worst growth rates in decades but very little happened in our country save Voodoo economics and the doubling of foreign debt.