Do You Text and Drive?

How Does 9-year Schooling Stack Up Against This?

You're As Young As You Want To Be

Usain Breezes Through The 200m Semis

The final is tomorrow 05h30. He said he wants to break his 19.19s record. This means running half a second faster than his time in the semis. De Grasse could provide some motivation. Bolt will of course be in action at 18h48 today in round 1 of the 100m relay (the final is at 05h35 on Saturday).

You also don't want to miss the Badminton singles semis which starts at 18h00 when Sindhu will try to earn the second medal of a billion-people nation. While the US will be facing Serbia at 20h00 in one of the two women volleyballs semis. If you like women wrestling today is the day you want to be glued to your TV. Tomorrow if you also like men wrestling. 

Of course as these Olympics are ending in the weekend there will be a lot of medals awarded in the next 2-3 days. Hopefully Brazil will win as many as possible so that the home crowd is in the best of moods. Like at 00h30 on Sunday when the Selecao play in the Maracana. And get a chance to get even.

Rio Olympics Are Excuse To Watch Gisele Walk

Now that's done, see you in Tokyo in four years.

Wait. There's plenty else to see. Like Kohei Uchimura -- regarded by many as the greatest gymnast of all time -- tonight at 23h00 in the men's individual all-around. Nadia told FT how perfect Kohei was: you can't see any flaws even in slow-motion. Then there's that giant from Jamaica -- and the world's favourite -- who has trouble decelerating in the sprints. He didn't go watch Ms. Bundchen at the Maracana preferring to save his energy to let his races do the talking. Mr. Bolt will turn 30 the day these 31st Olympics end.

The Selecao will also try to do better than grabbing silver for the fourth time. That's not looking too good after two scoreless draws against South Africa and Irak. But a lot of the most memorable experiences will come from athletes we've never heard before. They will dazzle us with their craft. It will not matter which country they are from. We will instantly become one of their fans. Especially if the contests are tight. As many have been already.

The US is ahead in the medal count. Right in front of China. And Hungary. But we've barely started. And there's so much stuff to watch. Including Vinicius and Tom.

Basu Says Mauritius Doesn't Save Enough

He is the Chief Economist of the World Bank. Too bad he didn't visit us before two Voodoo economists – one hailing from the Bretton Wood sisters – started messing it up with their trickle-down economics in 2006. But he could have looked at a chart or done his homework. Then again one of his predecessors didn't exactly dazzle us when he visited Mauritius. 

A Trillion Rupees of GDP Missing, Almost

With respect to the robust growth trajectory that Sithanen's flat tax was supposed to place our economy on. The shortfall was about Rs5 billion in 2006 but has been growing exponentially because we managed only a 4% average growth over the last decade. Add all the shortfalls -- shown in red in the above chart -- together and you get Rs927 billion. That's greater than our GDP for 2006, 2007 and 2008 lumped together by almost Rs200 billion. Or a little more than three times our 2010 domestic production. The cumulative shortfall at the end of 2016 will likely be a tiny bit larger because the growth forecast has been revised downwards.

Of course a smaller but still gigantic toohrooh has helped eject Ramgoolam from power and Parliament in 2014. By the end of this year it would have grown by 72%. A meaner beast that Pravind Jugnauth must absolutely tame tomorrow to avoid political mayhem in a couple of years. At most.

How Long It Takes To Eradicate Poverty

Back in October 2007 Sithanen, as Minister of Finance, declared that it was possible to eradicate poverty within seven years that is by 2015. This hasn't happened. Last week he made another prediction: that poverty could now be eradicated by 2026 or 2031. Why didn't we make poverty history last year? Is it because Sithanen was not Finance Minister after 2010? Not really. Because the main plank of his reforms -- the flat tax -- was still in place after he had left. And because his other toxic half who was not sacked before October 2013 kept himself quite busy with their agenda of screwing up Mauritius. Besides, some of the damage done by the bean-counting duet will take a lot of time to fix. Just look at our domestic savings. In any case as the above chart shows Statmu reported that an additional 22,000 people became poor over five years of his reforms. That's forty-four times more people than after Navin Ramgoolam's first term.

So how long does it take to eradicate poverty? You can start your stopwatch once you bring back policies that make sense. Income distribution will improve overnight with progressive taxation. We can also look back at our history for clues. Krugman told us that the American middle-class was built in seven years. We should aim to make the economic system dynamic enough so that poor people can move up the social ladder fast. Like it was before 2006.

Robust Growth Targets Never Reached

The basis for flattening our tax structure to 15% was average growth rates of 8%. We know it had to be higher than the 5% our economy had been clipping for ages and with higher top tax rates. This makes sense. It's like a business which was previously growing at 5% and had a gross margin of 20% decides to cut that margin to 15% thinking it can grow at 8%. It would go for something like this if it wanted to increase its market share. A predator would of course raise prices after and if it had managed to drive its competitors out of business. For example Amazon.com now has physical stores. 

But as the above chart shows we never got the 8% growth rate in any of the ten years since Sithanen starting promising them. We got only half that rate on average. Which is less than what we were clocking before tax rates were slashed. And it's not because of the Great Recession which lasted only 18 months. As he had argued. In fact the rates we've been clocking for the past six years reflect the low growth path his massive policy blunders -- implemented to finance his tax-cuts -- has put us on.

Ambassador Who Made Sure Many Kites Flew in the Air Passes Away

Chitmansing Jesseramsing died peacefully on Thursday, at 82. Educated in Delhi, Canberra, Oxford and Georgetown he was the Principal of Islamic Cultural College before joining the PMO as diplomatic officer just before independence. He opened the Mauritius Mission to the UN in 1968 and then got posted at our Washington Embassy. Jesseramsing progressed all the way to Ambassador in 1982 till his retirement in 1993.

He served a last term between 1996 and 2000 during which his extensive connections on Capitol Hill and at the White House -- he met one William Jefferson Clinton at Georgetown -- along with his knowledge, effectiveness and grit were instrumental for the passage and the implementation of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. One of the longest-serving diplomats in the US, his 25-year career spanned seven US Presidential Administrations.

I was a kid when I first heard about him: my dad told us he was expecting a call from Jesseramsing who happened to be in Mauritius. I found the name quite interesting. Essentially because I had recently completed reading the Lucky Luke Adventure entitled Jesse James. I wondered if they were connected. I also wanted to ask him a very important question: whether he knew John Wayne personally. I almost did.

Decades later our paths crossed and we got closer. Close enough to tell him about that question I never asked. And to appreciate how he had used his mastery of one trade to serve Mauritius so well. He will be missed by many. So will his sense of humor. 

Galileo Arrives at Jupiter With Telescope in Hand

And he's not alone. Nope, he took two friends along on this super long journey. Essentially to fight boredom. The trio will go around the big planet a number of times to try to figure out how it works. They are not expected to return to Earth any time soon.

Galileo is the Italian fellow who made pithy observations such as "Holy Writ was intended to teach men how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go."

What's New on The Jag!

We shouldn't worry too much about Brexit. We better focus on the mess we're in. Including raising top tax rates and drastically improving our land use.

Lutchmeenaraidoo will not deliver a second miracle now that he's in another ministry. SAJ didn't either. And don't count on Pravind. Bringing some basic common sense back to policy-making is a good place to start.

Ramgoolam was way too vague about Labour's DNA during a rally organised to mark the LP's 80 birthday. We made it a lot more precise but not before checking how he did on the criteria he listed. It's not the first time Ramgoolam tries to go cerebral.

A good look at income distribution over a 20-year period. Helps answer the following question: who's the better cake-cutter?

Some politicians say that our youth got a skills mismatch. I disagree.

A quick look at the performance of Sithanen from a political perspective.

Enn ti lokasyon pu tiek mo kreol.

And here's a flash review of a few other pieces on The Jag!

Brazil Crashes Out of Tiny Copa America Group

The Selecao drew against Ecuador, thrashed Haiti and lost against Peru. Things don't seem to have improved that much since Mineirazo two years ago. In spite of bringing Dunga back as manager. Brazil has been thoroughly unimpressive for a good many number of matches. You don't need to wonder how likely it will be for them to win the only prize that's missing in their quiver when they host the Olympics starting August 5 -- the football tournament begins two days earlier.

It is also surprising that Holland is not taking part in Euro 2016. Although they've played some really good football in South Africa six years ago.

But there could be more trouble ahead for the country of Pele, Garrincha, Jairzinho and Ronaldinho: they could be the last country to miss at least one World Cup in 2018. After six matches they currently rank 6th in their qualifying group which automatically sends the top four to Russia.

Trying To Remember Ali

It's kind of hard because he was one of those really larger-than-life personalities. And the fact that he was probably one of the most recognizable faces on earth in the pre-internet era gives an indication of how big a superstar he was. The world stopped to take in the news. Plenty's been written about the Champ. Paul Simon broke out the news to his audience just before completing "The Boxer". And here he is making a surprise appearance.

Mauritius About To Experience Aha Moment

And we should all thank Ivan Collendavelloo for it. See, since he announced that he wants to sell CWA for some bogus reasons people have spoken out. Starting with Sangeet Fowdar -- an MP from his own party -- who threatened to resign kare kare and provoke a by-election. Folks also wrote against the proposed strategic partnership business and now several union bosses have jumped on the bandwagon.

They are not only finding this idea totally stupid but are also bringing back the partial privatisation of Mauritius Telecom on the front burner. They really want to know how this has benefited Mauritius. That's a valid point because there was no good reason to go with this 2000 deal in the first place. Mauritius Telecom could have instead established a multi-billion rupee bond program back then. Which incidentally would have made our financial markets more sophisticated. And given interesting work to the growing number of our finance professionals.

We got Rs7 billion from France Telecom for 40% of MT but we need to see how much FT has been obtaining since the deal went through. In terms of dividends and other cash-flows sent abroad. And assess the effect on our balance of payments for the past decade and a half. It would also be interesting to find out about all the parties involved in this transaction and how much they got out of the deal. For good governance sake.

Union Very Disappointed With Former Adviser

How could they not be? Collendavelloo wants to privatise CWA. And that too after having been its legal adviser for at least two decades. If Government wants to sell CWA it should ask us voters about it in a referendum first. Or dissolve Parliament and ask us to put three little crosses again. ASAP.

One of the Union bosses reminded us that in 2000 SAJ cancelled the plans to privatise the utility. That costs us Rs30 million. Hmm, who was there before 2000?

Slumdog is Ramanujan

Finally, they made a movie from Kanigel's excellent book. The trailer is looking good. They got help from a Fields medallist to make it even more real. Registered 63% on the Tomatometer.

State To Squander Billions, Again

The first time was when several billions of rupees of the fruits of our economic diplomacy were gifted to a sunset industry which at the start of the bean-counting reforms in 2005 represented a little over 4% of our economy. 10 years later its weight was four times smaller. Talk about a strategic blunder of epic proportions or is it a monumental skills mismatch? Naturally this was to be followed by sending our savings rate to a 30-year low and severing the link between international oil prices and what Mauritian voters paid to fill up their cars. To name just a few. So yeah, dumb policy-making had made Mauritius a lot more vulnerable and treaty risk a lot larger. Than it ought to have been.

Now another Minister wants to sink billions of a grant received from India -- who has millions to lift out of poverty -- into buildings we don't need partly because he's not happy with the amount of legroom he enjoys in our historic Parliament.

Mauritius at 50: Getting Ready

Here are some of the things we should do:

1. Bring basic -- very basic -- management back. Like building another reservoir so we can catch more of all the water that falls on our head every year. And of course put more money into fixing leaking pipes. Instead of squandering billions into building new offices because one Minister wants more legroom.

2. Have an A380 fly over Champ de Mars at noon sharp. The peculiar thing about this plane is that it would not have any name. Only a few digits. 12.3.68.

3. New national logo and tagline. Which recognise that we can have the world's best air quality. This will help improve our management. Ask Southwest Airlines.

4. Significantly reduce the 450 amputations that are done every year. We could start by immediately taxing soft drinks more and increasing the number of weekly PE classes in our schools to three. Redesigning the curriculum with the 9-amputations-a-week statistic in mind and by going for noncumulative semesters will also produce a better learning experience. And say goodbye to obese parrots.

5. Reinstate progressive taxation so we grow faster again. And allow us to be more mindful.

6. Tweak our electoral system in a thoughtful way. Without introducing a dose of PR and the dangerous party lists that come with it. A few hysterical Marxists who want to do "autogestion" with our iPhone of constitution won't like it. But that won't prevent us from sleeping tight.

7. Allow kreol as an option in which debates in Parliament can happen. That's the language more than 8 out 10 Mauritians speak at home. Lalit can provide an initial list of unparliamentary words or add an entry on Wikipedia.

8. Schedule Zurnal Televize (ZT) on the first channel at 19h30. Have one reporter posted in each of these three cities: San Francisco, London and Tokyo to help cure navel-gazing.

9. Merge the CWA and CEB into a superutility. To protect us from severe Ministerial delusions. And to go back to our interesting 1996 carbon footprint.

Saving the rest for Mauritius at 500.

Leicester's Owner Wanted 40 Points

For the season and Claudio delivered 39. Halfway through it. He has added another 38 points with two more matches to play. Nobody can catch them save Tottenham which has to win all three of their matches provided Ranieri's lads don't take more than 1 point out of a possible 6. Of course if the Spurs drop points tonight Leicester will be the Champ and they won't have to wait for Vardy's return against Everton on Saturday to start celebrating.

But hey, this is football. You simply never know.