Date:09/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/iw/2008/03/09/stories/2008030950781301.htm

Back Fathom and fight fallacies

When an idea looks both plausible and logical, try digging deeper. It may turn out to be a fallacy, cautions Thomas Sowell in Economic Facts and Fallacies (www.landmarkonthenet.com).

"Sometimes what is missing in a fallacy is simply a definition," he explains. "Undefined words have a special power in politics, particularly when they invoke some principle that engages people's emotions."

While an undefined word, like `fair', can be an intellectual handicap, it can also be a huge political advantage. "People with very different views on substantive issues can be unified and mobilised behind a word that papers over their differing, and sometimes even mutually contradictory, ideas."

But what keeps fallacies alive and kicking? Reasons are many, says Sowell.

"Elected officials, for example, cannot readily admit that some policy or program that they advocated, perhaps with great fanfare, has turned out badly, without risking their whole careers." Ditto with academics and intellectuals who have valuable other interests to guard.

Yet, the costs of not admitting to being wrong are too high to disregard, the author cautions.

"The difference between sound and fallacious economic policies by a government can affect the standard of living of millions. That is what makes the study of economics important - and the exposure of fallacies more than an intellectual exercise."

Vital read.

Lords of the land

Gurgaon, GE and Rajiv Gandhi are the three Gs that played a decisive role in the life and career of Kushal Pal Singh of DLF, traces Manoj Namburu in Moguls of Real Estate (www.rolibooks.com). "It was GE's entry into Gurgaon, a sleepy town just south of Delhi, in the 1980s that triggered off a massive, unparalleled construction activity - residential, commercial and retail - there," he recounts.

DLF's founder Chaudhury Raghvendra Singh had the foresight to anticipate how Delhi's real-estate market would boom when the Partition took place. "Incredible as it may sound now, he approached the farmers owning agricultural land in Delhi and persuaded them to part with their property without paying a single penny!

His mantra - `payable when able' - meant he took land on credit from the farmers, making them partners in business."

Once he acquired the land, he would develop it and sell it to prospective buyers, narrates Namburu. "The price would cover the cost of the land and also a reasonable margin.

Instead of appropriating all the profits, he shared them with the farmer who had sold the land to him on credit."

As people started to trust, they began to invest more money with him as deposits. Which explains the original name, Delhi

Land and Financing Company.

Enchanting collection, with chapters on Niranjan Hiranandani, Sushil Ansal, Shapoor Pallonji Mistry and Irfan Razack, too.

Oily and sticky

Stains of Iraqi oil vouchers that the Volcker Committee discussed in detail come up for scrutiny in Reliance: The Real Natwar, by Arun K. Agrawal (www.manaspublications.in).

"Paying bribes is a serious offence under the Indian penal laws with a severe punishment. As it is cognisable and non-bailable, the State is under a statutory duty to investigate it and prosecute the offender," writes Shanti Bhushan, former Law Minister, in his foreword to the explosive book.

"Where the crimes are committed in India, they need to be prosecuted in the Indian courts, whether the offender is a foreign company or person or an Indian citizen or Indian company," Bhushan explains. "If the offences are committed outside India, the offenders can be prosecuted in India only if they are committed by an Indian citizen or an Indian company." Voices that may be too risky to ignore.

Get started today

The first challenge of the entrepreneur is `getting over the difficulty of people writing you off, turning you down, and telling you your dream will never come true,' says Ryan P. Allis in Zero to One Million (www.tatamcgrawhill.com). To overcome this challenge, associate yourself with people who build you up and encourage your dreams, and take at least one positive action forward each day, he advises.

"Get started today, regardless of your age, location, or position in life."

The author, who heads iContact Corp, `a venture-backed marketing and online communications firm,' and Virante, Inc., a Web marketing company, outlines a ten-step process to build a company.

First, understand how the system of entrepreneurship works, he counsels. Asks Allis: "Would you work 70-hour-plus weeks for months on end; sleep at the office when you get backed up; put your own money on the line when payroll is due and the bank has yet to approve a loan; be the janitor, the receptionist, the customer support representative, the bookkeeper, as well as the president; and get up and present in front of a room of investors after already being turned down by 50 other banks, angel investors, and venture capital firms?" If you think so, then you just might have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, he assures.

A mega motivator.

D. MURALI