The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat  This is a beautiful poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz in which he asks the humanity to come together, to leave our egos at the door, to go and conquer the stars, to make this world a peaceful place.  Faiz wanted us to stop wars and look at the stars and our place in the galaxy, this universe. We humans are nothing but a spec of dust among all the stars, planets, solar systems, galaxies and all which surrounds us.  Listen to this beautiful poem as Iqbal Bano has done justice to it.

By Sikander Hayat  Donald Trump is behaving like a Nazi by banning people from a particular religion from entering United States . This is what Hitler did by targeting Jews living in Europe .  A whole continent is witness to the barbarity and senselessness of collective punishment.  In 1940s, United States was on the right side of history but in 2017, America is on the wrong side.  Jews of Germany, Poland, France, Russia, Belgium, Netherlands and other European countries suffered because of one man’s obsession with one religion.   Hitlerblamed all the problems of Germany on Jews and found them responsible for the ills facing Europe.  Trump is dishing out same form of collective punishment toAmerican Muslims . Even people who have green cards and have lived most of their lives in US are being deported from airports. Although American civil society is fighting back by challenging his arbitrary executive orders in courts of law and one New Yo...

By Sikander Hayat  As per this story in BBC, Australia wants UK to open its doors to Australian immigrants in order for Mrs May to secure a free trade deal with Australia . Now as far as I can recall, the whole Brexit issue was about immigration numbers which stood at an influx of half a million people per year into UK.  If Mrs May's conservative governmen t signs such a deal with Australia or for that matter India ( with India's 1.2 billion populatio n ready to get on the next plane to UK), what was the point of Brexit and all the pain that country has gone through over the last year and will go through for many years to come. The main reason behind Brexit is an overflowing national health service , overflowing schools, overflowing roads, crowded cities without adequate housing and general lack of resources to accommodate a large number of people. Any deal which ends up getting more people in to UK will be rejected by the people who voted to leave European...

By Sikander Hayat  This is a great introduction to how the economy really works.  This explains the basics in a way which you will not find in a usual text book. It covers all the following topics and more. 1. Credit  ( Can be instantly created out of thin air) 2. Economic Cycles  ( Borrowing Creates Cycles) 3. Productivity Growth 4. Debt Cycles ( Short and long term debt cycles) 5. Asset & Liabilities 6. Short Term Debt Cycles 7. Inflation 8. Interest Rates ( This rises due to high inflation) 9. Deflation ( Can lead to Recession) 10. Long Term Debt Cycles 11. Economic bubble 12. Debt Burden 13. Asset Values & Rising Incomes During A Boom 14. Unsustainable Debt Burden 15. Deleveraging ( Worst than Recession) 16. Austerity ( which leads to deflation and less tax collection) 17. Depression 18. Budget Deficits (Leading to taxation on wealthy) 19. Most of what people thought of money is actually credit 20. Government ( Pr...