New Nightlife

When I first arrived in Kathmandu the nightlife was actually pretty good. Contrary to popular belief, there were actually a lot of very nice bars in the city which catered to many different kinds of people. If you felt like lounging at a nice bar or pub, there were quite a few to lounge in. If you felt like dancing while you were drinking, there were a few dance clubs that were there to fill your needs. if you felt like drinking while you watched other people who apparently had not acclimatized to the hot weather in the summer months of Kathmandu, and had thus decided to leave their clothes at home, there were plenty of establishments to do that in as well.

Other than the avid beer lover, there seemed to be something in Kathmandu for everyone.

Enter the communists.



Apparently the communists of Nepal skipped that chapter in their manual "Communism and You: Deluding Yourself, One Food Stamp at a Time."

The Maoists have decided that the city is full of filth and it is high time that it was cleaned up, which in itself is a noble goal, and something that honestly should be done. The dance bars attract a lot of bad people, are unregulated, promote people trafficking, and generally make the city look rather sleazy. So, the issue isn't with their goals; it is with their plan to solve the problem, the side effects and there alternative agenda.

Instead of shutting down all the dance bars, sleazy establishments, and drug rings, they have decided to just shut down the city at 9 or 10pm every day. So effectively, as long as you are home for bedtime, you can drink and watch nude people dance to your heart's content. The big problem with this plan is that there are a lot of good places to get a nice drink and some good food late at night. Thamel, the tourist part of town, usually goes all night and has a lot of nice establishments. These places are causing no harm, and help the economy. When you shutdown all of the nice restaurants and stores, you are also taking away income from the taxis, and hitting all late night grocery stores hard. In general it is causing a lot of hardships to business owners, and proving a great inconvenience to people who want to party.

It really is annoying, believe me. Example in the next post.

-TR

Economic Crisis

As most of you well know, the financial crisis/meltdown/doomsday/apocalypse is dominating the news these days.  I can try to get a good idea of what is going on from the TV and Internet but I can’t help but feel like I am not getting the full story and am unable to feel the emotions that my fellow Americans are experiencing.  I honestly feel a bit left out, hung out to dry as they say.  It is kind of like when you’re playing xbox by yourself, and your big brother’s group of friends, are playing Dungeon and Dragons.  You know that you are having a good time playing the latest first person shooter, and you know playing Dungeon and Dragons will be no fun(them being no good at D&D), but just because you are not included in the group, you want to play anyway(-5 from self confidence)

To make myself feel more at home, I tried to draw some comparisons between the US and Nepal economic plans/and health of the economy.  To make some fair and well educated comparisons, I decided to read Nepal’s 2008 Budget speech.   I eventually had to rethink my endeavor when I found there to be no colorful graphs, or even pie charts.  Apparently an investment in Kinkos has been overlooked by the new Minister of Finance.

For now I will make only one comparison between American social economic planning, and Nepal’s.  Perhaps more to follow later.

 If I say it can happen, and I put a big enough number backed by nothing next to what I say, it will all be ok!

Nepal is no different.  The new Maoists that have taken charge of the government released their new budget a few weeks back.  One of the major points the plan features is increasing literacy rates to 100% in two years.  Just to put that into perspective, the current estimated literacy rate in Nepal is 50%, or number 162 out of 177 surveyed countries.  That be some serious Learnin! The budget calls for creating more schools and making them free for all children that want to enroll.  There are two foreseeable problems with this plan.

1.       If you build it, they will….honestly a lot of people won’t care.  Just because you build schools doesn’t mean that all the kids are going to want to go there, especially if they have managed to get a job.

2.       Nepal’s budget is based on assumed tax income and “revenue” from aid from other countries.  Neither of these two methods of accruing cash guarantees the amount of money they are asking for. 

But it sure does sound good!

Then again, who is to say that the Maoists haven’t completely planned this out and that communism might actually work…

Oh, that’s why they don’t invest in Kinkos.

 -TR