Reporting from Workstation 9

Inspired by Taylors Model of Pricing, I was generally looking up papers on "price dynamics" for India..
I was surprised to find this one:

"Towards a Global History of Prices and Wages
Prices and Wages in India (1200-1800)"!!!

-By Najaf Haider
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi, 2004

Pretty cool no. Historians..the trouble they take!!!

In my one life I would like to:

1) Get an MBA, PhD and eventual omniscience-in matters related to economics ofcourse
2) Go skiing in the Alps
3) Go backpacking through Australia
4) Go to the Vaisnu Devi Temple in Kashmir and pay homage to my roots in some sense.
5) Listen to Clapton Unplugged-Live
6) Meet Gregory Mankiw, Paul Samuelson
7) Open a Health Club
8) Become an excellent cook
9) Keep fit
10)See my family happy-always.

Iraq versus Economics
I often watch the daily show or the Colbert Report, from the point of pure entertainment.
Indeed republicans have showed their unseemly side many too often these days. Pages and what not. Bush himself has created a disaster. The country he set out to free, is now burning. Literally. Hundreds of people dying to suicide bomb attacks, a civil war let loose, that will soon take the nation to its grave..politically it's a mess.
Is that reason enough to elect them out?
I don't know. I am a student of economics. To me good economics is what is most crucial for any country. I see the republicans and the democrats and I see Free market vs inefficiency. Now that the democrats have control, bills promoting offshoring are getting attacked. I feel it must be a duty of any person with the power to affect economic policy to understand first what does market efficiency mean.
Can it achieve the same objective you are trying to achieve more efficiently given a liitle time, than what you foolishly pursue in the short run and get no results.
Why did Clinton's era bear well, because Clinton believed in the power of the market in his heart and did all in his power to promote free trade agreements.
But Sometimes I cave when I watch religious issues taken up so strongly by so many americans..things like abortion. How dare somebody tell me what I can do or not do with my life or Tenessee has passed a law that the value of pi is 3 instead of 3.14159....becoz it's too difficult( this has nothing to do with my argument directly, but indirectly,it stands in the spirit of obstructing the progress of science)..or stem cell research..or people refusing to cell birth control pills. Indeed these issues weigh on my mind. It's sad how there's always a trade off.
Why must it be that liberal personal views and free market views cannot go hand in hand...In other words why can't there be more people like me. this world be a much better place!:)

Today I mourn the loss of a great man, who showed us all what it means to cherish individual liberty and freedom. Milton Friedman, We owe you much, Sir.

A sneak peak at what Tom Cat's wedding might be like:
http://movies.msn.com/movies/hotgossip/11-14-06?GT1=7701
I don't know if they are serious..tis hilarious!

Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart!! I don't know how to react..I spent quite some time thinking who could play her, when I heard long long back they were going to make a movie. Actually I don't know. Maybe she'll pull it off. Daniel Craig apparently has... But last I saw her was in "Alexander". you can't blame me for thinking her worthless after that.
Faye Dunaway, Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford were chosen originally to play Dagny, Hank and John Galt. That was a good choice.
For John Galt, who um..somebody blond..um..wow, i can't think of anyone.Maybe Jude Law!yeah, I can imagine him..
Francisco definitely is Andy Garcia. But I don't know if he'll too old.Maybe Mathew Perry.I don't know..Maybe Julian Casablancas can be convinced. He'll fit the role so well. Royal blood and all!
Hank could have been played by Harrison ford, but now he's also too old now.Maybe somebody out of the sitcoms. Maybe there's someone worthy there, cause I can't imagine any of the big stars..
Lets see.
I could never make peace the lady they chose to play Dominique in ' the fountainhead'. I even forgot her name. Gary Cooper was so so.

South Korea rocks! So does Jim Croce.
One at a time.
South Korea is the most convenient country to study for budding impatient macroeconometrians. It is open. Small(enough, not to significantly affect World prices, Unlike Japan). Rich in Data. Two of my friends are working on South Korea. One on a DSGE estimation for Monetary Policy purposes. South Korea started targetting inflation in the late nineties, and major macroeconomic trends observed a major structural break. It's should be interesting to study such breaks. The inflation jumped down significantly in one year. One of my advisors is South Korean. He was doing his undergrad eco. during that time and was telling me the great excitement that existed among them then.As regards data, there's a wealth of it. My friend wanted to work on real estate bubbles and the only country she could enough data was South Korea. Currently there's a South Korean wave in East Asia. They have the most popular Rock Bands, Movies and TV Serials, hairstyles..etc.
India sucks.No Data. No fixed monetary policy. Not their fault really for the second one. Too many problems to handle at once..in addition to poverty and unemployment.
Monertary policy: We changed from purely broad money supply control in 1998, to a mixed objective of exchange rate, inflation and money supply control. Although these days increasing use of change of short term interest rates is said to create some effect. Making it difficult for me to do a moderately accurate analysis of a DSGE model for India. Sad.
Jim Croce, what a voice. Perfect songs for the weather here...

When you are considered to be someone who would not what the infamous "Orkut" or "Hi-fi" or any other of their pointless siblings are, what do you make out of it.
It happened once when I went for this "golf partners/friends"[of my pop and mom] dinner, cause one of the chaps had scored a "hole in one". I would say there were about 6 families, about four had daughters who were 16 years old(what a frightnening coincidence-for me). I was 20..
I did an "eeny meeny miny mo" to choose which bunch i should sit with so as to feel less awkward. I chose the daughters, cause they were asked to ask me for study-advice(what fun).
anyway, after I was done, they started between themselves, about some girl seen with some boy etc. etc. and what someone's "hi-fi" profile said. I looked my usual disinterested self, when one girl mistook it for "lost" and started to tell me what the supercool "hifi" was..I nodded and said " I know, and there is a possibility that i'm on it..".Surprise.They said "Oh..".
Yesterday I was having lunch with my advanced macro text at the opposite kopitiam, when these two undergrads, one who is convinced I am having a tough time in Singapore, came and sat next to me. General conversation, I asked them what was up with Jassi..they said, she rose from the dead some time back etc. etc. Soon enough we were back to some guy and his "Orkut" profile..I again thought I looked fairly disinterested, when one of thought she came to my rescue, by carefully explaining what "Orkut" was. Once she was done,I said, "I know..I'm on it". Surprise again.
Maybe I make people take me as serious..Not Orkut Worthy..whatever that is ..must be good.

Mid term elections coinciding with Saddam's Death Sentence..How do you react to such news.
How much further will power be exploited..

"The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most causal matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics…is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges…total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience…A conflict with experience on the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Reevaluation of some statements entails reevaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections…But the total field is so underdetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate in the light of any single contrary experience."
-W. V. O. Quine