Can beggar No. 2 do better than beggar No. 1?
"... I do not expect anything much here or anywhere by lecturing. I can scarcely make expenses. No, not even that; whenever it comes to paying, the people are nowhere. The field of lecturing in this country has been overworked ; the people have outgrown that. ...".
From San Francisco on 7th March 1900.
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"... Anyway, I thought I could make money here in California and pay them up quietly. Now I have entirely failed in California financially. It is worse here than in Los Angeles. They come in crowds when there is a free lecture and very few when there is something to pay ..."
He wrote to Ms. Mary Hale, from Los Angeles, on June 17, 1900.
"...Well, now about me. You must persuade Harriet to give me a few dollars every month, and I will have some other friends do the same. If I succeed, I fly off to India. I am dead tired of the platform work for a living. It does not please me any more. ..."
"... Harriet Woolley has been uniformly silent. Never mind, I will bide my time, and as soon as Mr. Woolley becomes a millionaire, demand my money ..."
But "Willy" or no "Willy", I must have my money, don't forget. Harriet is discreetly silent since she got her boy; but where is my money, please? Remind her and her husband of it. If she is Woolley, I am greasy Bengali, as the English call us here — Lord, where is my money?
I have got a monastery on the Ganga now, after all, thanks to American and English friends. Tell Mother to look sharp. I am going to deluge your Yankee land with idolatrous missionaries.
Tell Mr. Woolley he got the sister but has not paid the brother yet. Moreover, it was the fat black queerly dressed apparition smoking in the parlour that frightened many a temptation away, and that was one of the causes which secured Harriet to Mr. Woolley; therefore, I want to be paid for my great share in the work etc., etc. Plead strong, will you?
ybrems
Vivekananda called himself 'greasy Bengali' and wondered 'Lord, Where is my money.' Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee - the British and Americans do not call him 'greasy Bengali' because he has donated $1.5 million for the Vivekananda Chair at the University of Chicago.
Mr. Pranab Mukherjee has a bigger begging bowl a trillion dollar foeign investment for infrastructure projects in India. In the same Chicago City, apart from the University of Chicago Vivekananda chair lecture Mr. Pranab Mukherjee addressed Corporate Barons of the Fortune 500 Companies.
WE should greatly appreciate the enthusiasm of Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. But United States has its own problems of external debt and internal demands for funds from Corporates. Mr. Obama is breaking his head with the American Corporate tycoons on the developments following the sub-prime lending crisis. Banks and Finance Houses are fighting out for their shares before the Facebook share issue.
Mr. Pranab Mukherjee's invitation prima facie looks innocuous. But the following quote from his speech shows the risks involved:
...The debt requirements for the Infrastructure sector are very large. We have recently enabled a mechanism of infrastructure debt funds, as regulated entities, to channelize funds of long horizon investing entities like pension and insurance funds into the infrastructure sector. ...
ybrems
*It is clear that the Government of India is bent on diverting the resources of PENSION AND INSURANCE FUNDs to the Corporate tycoons, be they Indian or foreign.
*The Pension Funds are intended for protection of Senior Citizens, and workers. If the funds are diverted to the Stock Markets, they will become fishing grounds for unscrupulous business houses and industrial tycoons. We cannot separate Indian entities from foreign entities, because many Indian Companies have foreign investors holding nearly controlling interests directly or indirectly. In other words, Indian Pension Funds and Insurance Funds will be swindled by the foreign Finance Houses in the guise of Indian subsidiaries.
*India's begging bowl may not be filled with really foreign funds. Instead, they will siphon off Indian funds.
*But India's begging bowl will be filled with investments from Mauritius, Switzerland, Hongkong , Singapore and other tax havens. The funds are nothing but laundered moneys of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and business houses.
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