sssssh

I was listening to a podcast. The podcast was about being quiet. This was in an interesting program that I stumbled upon – it’s called the TED radio hour. If you have been reading this blog then you must be familiar with the TED videos which are a constant course of fantastic information. The speakers there get 20 minutes at best and the successful ones become overnight worldwide internet celebrities.  This podcast takes these interesting talks and makes a show by creating theme and getting two three talks, stiches them and then supplements them by interviews with the speakers. It’s quite a nice radio show. It makes commuting so much more bearable.

A few days back there was a talk on quiet. It just talks about being quiet and a few talks around it. A few interesting points did come up. One of things I resonated with is the point of being an introvert versus being an extravert. Today in offices or anywhere in social life, being an extravert is being seen as a sign of strength. It’s good to be an extrovert. Leaders are extroverts. We are taught in school to be an extrovert – go out and seize the moment – talk to a 100 hundred people and taught confidently. Reach out and blah blah blah. The speaker argues that in the modern world we have placed a large amount of emphasis on being an extrovert and this is a modern phenomena. Just about a 100 odd years ago there was an emphasis on character that is measured and thoughtful and – introverted.

You know, I was always an outgoing extroverted guy. I couldn’t keep quiet, was happy in the company of people and openly gave opinion on all matters. Happy to take the lead in meetings, talk my mind and do all sorts of stuff. The Quintessential extrovert.  This is what I was taught to do. There are marks given for class participation and I would maximize them. In the last ten years after I started reading I realized that I did not know so much, I taught myself the value of keeping your opinions to yourself. Listen, actively listen! When listening, try and convince yourself that the other person’s point of view is correct and important. This is a difficult thing to do and it is extremely difficult for an extroverted person who jumps to ideas and thinks fast. So my mind works fast and gets the point and I have exhibit extreme impatience while talking…. Dam shit… this creates more enemies and it creates mistakes and it leaves a lot of meat on the table that must be heard completely to have impact in your head.

So its been a 360 degree change for me. While growing up the role models for me were all extrovert but now the role models are in many ways introvert. I am sure the right answer is between the two. I like to brood over, quietly think, and relax in one place with a book. Speak to a few people only on things that are interesting and people who are knowledgeable or thirsty for knowledge. Its interesting how things change.

Two other things I heard on the same program – I knew this story about George  Mallory wherein he was asked in 1924 –why he wanted to conquer mount Everest – He famously retorted “because it’s there”. This is a legend amongst mountain climbers. There is no other real reason to climb a mountain besides the fact that its there, waiting to be climed. This question was asked to a tight rope walker who has walked across various places without a safety net. He retorted with his variation – “because it’s in there”. Which is also true. He does it because inside of him there is something that is in there. Which I thought was cool.

The second thing I was inspired was by the speaker talking about the importance of quiet time. It’s difficult for me to get quiet time. But that is an excuse according to the speaker. If we get time for exercise or going to the gym, then we can definitely get quiet time for ourselves to get our mental balance right. Driving in an around Mumbai is a pain and a blessing in disguise, depending on the way you look at it. I hate the commute but now it has become an amazing opportunity to be in silence and listen to podcasts. I guess podcasts aren’t necessarily silent hour. But it still beats talking to people. I used to use this rule – listen while going to office and catch up on the phone while coming back. Now when I am tempted to reach for the phone and speak on the Bluetooth, I resist and decide to hold on to the podcasts. My silence is golden, you can keep on talking.

My mother would die laughing if she ever read this piece. Her youngest could never be silent and now he is preaching it like he has mastered it. Bull shit.

making money - out of nothing at all

Seigniorage – Simply explained, this is the profit that the government makes from printing money. Your ten rupee note doesn’t cost the government ten bucks. It costs much less. Hence for a fraction of the cost the government can pump money in the economy. Of course things are not so simple. Here is one nice podcast by planet money on the topic. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/19/150976150/should-we-kill-the-dollar-bill . Transcript at the bottom of this post. You should be able to broadly understand seigniorage while listening to the benefits of the coins versus notes in circulation. One of the most interesting stuff is the argument that the government makes a lot of money by having coins as opposed to notes is because people don’t put coins back into circulation because they don’t like them in their wallet. And to add the fact that coins tend to get lost between the cushion on the sofa! That’s all profit for the government. But obviously there is a cost to such seigniorage, which they correctly identified. Moneys made through inefficiencies are what you count as profits. It is stupid. It is not your primary job. The primary job for money is to pass around, not sit in the vault like McScrooge. Do you guys remember this cartoon of Donald Duck’s uncle jumping and swimming in his vault with tons of cash stashed around?

Cash in your wallet and in your jars and under your sofas are profit from the government but are absolutely useless for the economy. The money has to be in circulation and put to productive use. If you save it, put it in the bank, so that a portion of it can be lent out. Accounting for accruing money from lost coins is the same as black money you can store in your vaults. It’s the same problem. It’s not simply the tax that is saved. Legitimizing the flow of money has a much larger positive effect of the economy than simply the tax being collected.

Similarly, even corporations try and earn money through inefficiencies. The finance industry’s famous one is called ‘float’. Simply – if I owe you money and I write a cheque to you and give it to you one day late, I will earn interest income for one day. Not that you mind it too much. You don’t care about the one day interest on your small amount, but added up in a large amount of payments and you have a very large float for the organization. So if you ever wondered why they love you to pay online, instantly but they always like to pay you by cheque, you have an answer.

Even in mutual funds and other such organizations, you will have tons of money that is lying with the organization which is pretty much forgotten. Some body once told me that UTI would have hundreds of crores of money that would always be invested with them because of people who simply forgot or have dies and their heirs are unaware of the investment. I am not sure, but it’s likely that even insurance firms would accrue such seigniorage. The fun of policies sold and lapsed due to non-payment created a happy boom for them till the new rules set by IRDA disallowing the firms to benefit thus.

I think we get too clever for our own good. We forget our core job, which may be to provide a service in the best possible way for the customer. It should be a firm’s fiduciary responsibility to ensure efficiency in the system. One normally blames the regulators but the Indian regulators brought in some semblance of order to the insurance industry causing abnormal inefficient profits to be wiped off, also the regulators forced the banks to pay daily interest. Otherwise they were paying only on the lowest balance of the month with some other complex calculation. Ditto for getting rid of prepayment of home loan charges.

Even in the other firms I have worked for, not just financial firms, I see this problem. The finance guys get over smart and start controlling the system. They make an excel sheet to prove how paying payment a little late and getting payments a little earlier can cause great amount of ‘savings’ and profits to the firm. Money is an interesting topic. The structuring of money and the economic, monetary, banking systems are lopsided towards making tons of money through inefficiencies. The ones in the know can hugely benefit from those not in the know. In India this is popularly known as the Gujju mindset and this particular breed seems to understand this better than others. Gujjus and Marwaris are typecast thus. Or if you prefer the Brahaminical order, you would call it the ‘banya’ mindset. Use your trader mindset to make money. You definitely need a trader mindset while doing business and understanding cash flow is critical but using it to overrule simple customer centric thinking is pure stupidity.

But forget all that. When we went to Matheran a few weeks ago I did something that made the government a teeny bit richer. I remember as a kid once we had a trek organized to Matheran. We went up the hill station from the back road and came down the main road which at a few points crosses the Famous Matheran Light railway. At the time, my friend had pulled out a few coins and put it on the rails to see how they become when the trains run over it. This time around I had the chance to do it and show Jispa. We saw a train coming and I quickly put in a one rupee coin and a five rupee coin on the tracks. Jispa was wondering what I was doing. Sure enough the engine passed over it and flattened the coins. Jispa was pretty excited and we could send it with her the next week to school for a show and tell. That was a pretty unique show and tell and it benefited the government by around five bucks (I am assuming it cost one buck to make the two coins). Here are the two profitable pieces of metal for the government.

The Transcript of the podcast as follows.

April 19, 2012 -:

Subway riders here in Washington were recently the target audience for an unusual ad campaign. The ads show giant one dollar bills and asked, do you heart the dollar? They're part of a small lobbying war over the fate of the dollar bill. There's legislation in the House and Senate that would eliminate all $1 bills and replace them with dollar coins.

NPR's investigative unit and our Planet Money team checked into the debate over coins versus bills. And David Kestenbaum and Robert Benincasa think they have a winner.

DAVID KESTENBAUM, BYLINE: Here's the question. Given that we need to have some form of money out there worth a dollar, which is more cost effective, a bill or a coin?

ROBERT BENINCASA, BYLINE: Before we tell you who the winner is, let's hear each side's case.

KESTENBAUM: In one corner, arguing on behalf of the dollar coin, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa. He told us coins are a clear win. They last much longer than bills.

SENATOR TOM HARKIN: The most important thing is it's just more efficient. It's way more efficient than a paper dollar.

BENINCASA: Dollar coins last something like 30 years and he says switching to coins would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

KESTENBAUM: Coins are also, he says, easier to stick into vending machines. Harkin's office put out a video of him struggling to buy a snack with a worn out $1 bill.

(SOUNDBITE OF AD)

HARKIN: Has this ever happened to you? You try o put a dollar bill in the tray, but it won't take it. Well, that's why I've introduced bipartisan legislation to replace the dollar bill with a dollar coin.

KESTENBAUM: Harkin can rattle off a long list of countries that have replaced bills with coins.

HARKIN: Canada has a coin that's worth $2. England has a coin worth about $3 U.S. Switzerland has one worth about $5 U.S. And yet, what have we got? We got a 25-cent piece.

KESTENBAUM: Republican Senator John McCain has also signed onto the bill. And it's worth noting that businesses in both senators' states would benefit if this bill passes.

BENINCASA: Harkins' state, Iowa, is home to a company called PMX, which makes the metal sheets that get turned into coins.

KESTENBAUM: Senator John McCain's state of Arizona is home to some big companies that mine copper, the main ingredient in dollar coins.

BENINCASA: So, that's the coin side of the fight. In the other corner, fighting for paper, you'll find an organization called Americans for George.

KESTENBAUM: Because George Washington is on the $1 bill. Americans for George put those ads in the D.C. subway and again, here you find a lot of money behind the arguments over money. Americans for George was started by the company that makes the paper the $1 bill is printed on. Crane & Company.

BENINCASA: Doug Crane is a vice president there. As you might imagine, he says paper dollars are better than coins.

DOUGLAS CRANE: A dollar bill is made from a blend of cotton and linen fiber.

KESTENBAUM: Paper bills are cheaper to manufacture than coins, he says, and they last surprisingly long. According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, a $1 bill lasts about four and a half years.

CRANE: U.S. currency, you know, it's some of the most durable banknotes on the planet. And, you know, the $1 bill is probably the hardest-working note there is.

KESTENBAUM: So, what to make of this. The coin people say coins are better. The paper people say paper is better. Both cannot be true.

BENINCASA: And to make things more confusing, both sides point to the same official report to make their case.

KESTENBAUM: The report was written by the Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan arm of Congress that's often called on to settle questions like this.

BENINCASA: We talked with the GAO's Lorelei St. James who oversaw the report. The GAO has recommended switching to coins.

LORELEI ST. JAMES: That still stands.

KESTENBAUM: She says switching to coins would make the government money. Over 30 years, a lot of money.

JAMES: We show that there would be a $4.4 billion net benefit to the federal government.

KESTENBAUM: But it turns out that $4.4 billion does not come from the fact that coins are more cost effective to make. Coins do last longer, but they also cost more to manufacture. No, according to the GAO, the extra money for the government comes from this other weird thing. It's going to take us a minute to explain.

BENINCASA: It turns out if you switch from dollar bills to dollar coins, you can't just do a one for one replacement. You actually need more coins than you would bills. Why? Because people don't like carrying coins around.

JAMES: A lot of people when they take their coins out of their pockets at the end of the day or their purses, they'll put in what we call a coin jar.

KESTENBAUM: The coin jar effect. In Canada and the U.K., the governments had to put out all these extra coins, over 50 percent more, just to keep enough money circulating. The GAO says these extra coins mean extra money for the government.

BENINCASA: Because the government makes a profit from every bill or coin out there, so more coins, more profit. It's called seigniorage.

KESTENBAUM: So case closed, right? Not so fast. We're here to tell you there is something big missing from that GAO report, which is where all that money the government is getting comes from. It turns out it comes from us.

BENINCASA: To help explain how this works, and to render the final judgment, let's meet one more person, Robert Whaples. He's an economist at Wake Forest University.

KESTENBAUM: Whaples weirdly came to us via the dollar coin lobby, a group called the Dollar Coin Alliance. The Dollar Coin Alliance said make sure you talk to him; he's a pro-coin guy.

BENINCASA: So, we called Whaples up. He read the GAO report, thought about it, and he said the choice is very clear: The paper dollar wins, the coin loses.

ROBERT WHAPLES: It's clearly an inferior substitute. People are going to be putting them on top of their bureaus instead of spending them for transactions. And that seems like a big waste of resources to me.

BENINCASA: Whaples says all that money the government makes on the dollar coin, all that extra money, it doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from us.

KESTENBAUM: Think about it this way, if I have a paper dollar, I'll probably use it or put in the bank. But if stick a coin in a jar, I'm not getting anything from it. I'm not earning any interest on it. It's like we're paying a tax.

WHAPLES: That is exactly how I would see it.

KESTENBAUM: Well, but the Dollar Coin Alliance said I should talk to you because you favor the...

WHAPLES: Yeah, I guess they made a mistake.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

KESTENBAUM: There you have it.

I'm David Kestenbaum.

BENINCASA: And I'm Robert Benincasa, NPR News.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Speak it, pur pyar se (but with love)

The other day in the morning while I was dropping jispa to school, she was a little cross with me. She said that Jasmine and I were making too much fun of her for a particular thing. Yup. But Jispa don’t you make fun of us too. Don’t you make fun of me? When mom does something, we make fun of her and when dad does something mom makes fun of me. Come on man, that’s how a family works. That’s what keeps family in check.
Then I started – “you want what a monarchy is? It’s when a king rules. And now we have democracy (which I had explained to her earlier) what’s the worst thing about a king? He is answerable to no one. He is a king because he was born one or is the most powerful person.” “But can’t his ministers tell him anything?” “No Jispa, his ministers also can’t. Didn’t you read Akbar and Birbal. In spite of Akbar being wrong, Birbal couldn’t directly tell Akbar anything, so he used to think of clever ways to tell Akbar. Because if the king is pissed at you, you are in trouble. He is most insensitive to criticism. That is something we must avoid at all costs. In a democracy, I explained the most important role is that of the opposition. It’s their job to criticize” I explained. “err – what is opposition” Jispa asked. “Well… You know the Prime minister is from the Congress party.” “Yes” she said. “That is the ruling party. The other party is the opposition, and India right now that’s the BJP.” “Is it the one with the clock symbol” she asked. “no, that’s is another party. This is the NCP. The BJP is the lotus and the orange flags”. “ah yes” she said. “You see, the ruling party is always scared that whatever they do, they will be criticized. They will have to always do good stuff. If they think of something stupid then the opposition will slam them. That’s what keeps them in check”. “oohhh”. I think the penny dropped.
Just at the time we hit school and she was to be dropped off. She gets out saying “you know dad, it sounds if you are giving a lecture. What you are saying is interesting, but the way and the tone is very boring. Like you are giving a lecture”. Rascal, %%$$##@&. Luckily she was out of the car and half way to the school gate before I could react. BLAT! I came home and told Jasmine about this. Her eyes opened wide and I said “ya. That’s exactly what I was saying. The freedom to criticize authority. She just used it. I have no option but to accept”
Freedom to criticize is such a fundamental concept. I don’t think we seem to get it. We think of every criticism as an assault on our fundamental right to feel right about everything we do. We are correct and in positions of power we are God. No one in power likes to listen to criticism. Be it a parent or a boss. Why do we behave thus? Even a child’s first instinct is to reject it or take it personally. Is it a deep down genetic instinct or is it largely due to the criticism giver that we react thus. For years we have thought that those who love us don’t criticize us. So if you criticize someone do you not love them? Can you not improve, is change that hard?
I have tried and tried really hard to accept it. I have changed my first reaction from ‘screw you’ to possibly you are right. I keep telling myself that one must improve, constantly improve and to improve one must listen, come from a stand point that the other person might have something to say, or a point you might have missed. It is the most difficult thing to do. You must start by at least by understanding the counter point.
So at home, I have always encouraged Jispa to speak her mind. Speak it out loud and clear. Now as she is learning to speak I am trying to teach her to be constructive about it. While its important to be clear, its also important not to be direct and blunt about it. Be polite, sweet and bear the flaw while trying to communicate what you want to change about it. One thing this will do for sure is severely undermine authority as we traditionally understood it at home.
I was telling Jasmine to be very careful now with Jispa. We have taught her to think and to talk. She will give it back sooner or later. If Jasmine and I are not careful, we will get it back and hard. My mom had told me not to teach my daughter to argue. Don’t talk with her like this. You will regret it. Yes. I will get hurt by it, but I will surely hope not to regret it. If she is to stand in this world on her own, she will learn to give it back. What I must now surely focus on is to allow her to give it back politely and without malice. When Jispa and jasmine fight, I keep telling Jispa, ssshh… quiet. Don’t push mom thus. You might be right but understand the context and fight right. You don’t play direct and blunt. You play it slow and easy.
With me her fights are different. I listen. She gets jammed for over emphasizing a point or pushing it too far. I keep telling her – I am listening, aren’t I? Then relax and tell me the issues. It forces he rot think rather than attack. I agree to a few points. Promise to solve a few and if outside my control, I tell her I am powerless.
Hope fully she will learn to say it, hopefully as a family we will learn to accept and change a lot of things. Hopefully we won’t bite each other’s heads off. Hopefully we change for the better. One doesn’t know about change, but one is certain – absence of criticism will lead to disaster.
I came across this lovely podcast that seriously questions Apple’s Chinese vendors and their commitment to basic worker conditions. What a brilliant podcast. The criticism starts in the first part in the form a monologue given by an artist who does these shows. He uses entertainment and humor to make a brilliant point, and then he involves us in his story and makes some very direct points. He uses emotions, leads us on… just lovely, the way he says it.
The podcast then in the second part, attempts to verify his claims, allows for points and counter points, gets expert opinion and leaves you the listener to judge and take your call. In fact it ends with a difficult to refute point on sweat shops and how the west might be completely wrong in their interpretation. It leaves you to judge and take your call. It does not take a moral stand point, which too many people seem to take these days.
To my mind this is podcasting at its best – entertaining, engaging, relevant, informative and balanced.
This is how criticism must be given. Opposite view points are critical. I have maintained that there is no absolute truth. There is only your version of it. Everything can be questioned. There are always multiple sides to what we see and what we feel. Even criticism must take this into account. While you criticize, remember you too are looking at the opposite angle. Balance it. Try and see how both coexist. Your version and the other version. And only if in your mind – if these opposites reconcile, will you find …..

-------------------------------------------------------

The podcast -
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/transcript
Mike Daisey performs an excerpt that was adapted for radio from his one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." A lifelong Apple superfan, Daisey sees some photos online from the inside of a factory that makes iPhones, starts to wonder about the people working there, and flies to China to meet them. His show restarts a run at New York's Public Theater later this month. (39 minutes)
What should we make of what Mike Daisey saw in China? Our staff did weeks of fact checking to corroborate Daisey's findings. Ira talks with Ian Spaulding, founder and managing director of INFACT Global Partners, which goes into Chinese factories and helps them meet social responsibility standards set by Western companies (Apple's Supplier Responsibility page is here), and with Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times who has reported in Asian factories. In the podcast and streaming versions of the program he also speaks with Debby Chan Sze Wan, a project manager at the advocacy group SACOM, Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, based in Hong Kong. They've put out three reports investigating conditions at Foxconn (October 2010, May 2011, Sept 2011). Each report surveyed over 100 Foxconn workers, and they even had a researcher go undercover and take a job at the Shenzhen plant. (15 minutes)

the law of unintended consequences

warning - RAMBLING ALERT. PROCEED AT OWN RISK

There is nothing sadder in this world than a wasted crisis. There is so much to learn and so much to understand from it. To repeat an oft repeated cliché – history repeats itself and those who don’t learn from it are condemned to repeat it. the last few years we have seen the best of crisis hit us. There has been so much to learn from it. A lot of free time is also spent learning and understanding.
The last time (2008) the crisis hit I was hooked on to the RSS feeds. They saved me and my brains from entropy. I read every day and I blogged every single day. Learning and creative wise they have been the best of times. A crisis is much too important an event to be wasted. These times are no different. We seemed to have gone out of the crisis we thought we were getting into and jumped right into another one. I always wondered how the dam euro worked with different countries. I thought – hey that’s a swell idea. I am sure the euro would be managed by one central authority and I thought there would be an amazing fiscal consolidation with all the Euro zone members coming together as one central banking authority. Only the present crisis helped me explain what now seems like a dam stupid idea. You have a monetary consolidation but not a fiscal consolidation. Are you like… nuts? How the hell can you do that? Only an idiot would agree to it. I clearly remember the launch of the Euro on TV. I think it was covered on a program called the world this week. There was plenty of hype and euphoria. But sure, in hindsight vision is always 20-20. These very same critics remained blissfully silent all through these years.
But coming back – this time around I have discovered podcasts. Economic podcasts that explain the situation, explain the issues at hand, possible solutions, historical background, et all. Along with listening to them I have been reading the Economist. A lot of it then begins to make sense. I just can take my mind off the Keynes versus Hayek podcast. Man. All our lives we understood the Keynesian theory and the idea that we must spend our way out of trouble, while Hayek kept reminding us of the issues that we would face with loose money. They also pointed to the rap videos that sought to explain the two theories in direct contrast with each other makes for interesting learning.
V1 -


V2


I must admit that I first saw the video while the first crisis was in full effect and at the time I don’t think couldn’t fully grasp the strength of the Hayek idea. Loose monetary policy will result in misplaced investments and a bad hangover with inflation coming knocking at your door, sooner or later. I think that is precisely the reason why Keynes is an easy policy to digest for the politician. It shows action – one must do something about the crisis now! To rephrase Keynes – in the long run… every politician is dead. Hayek on the other hand possibly tells us to sit tight and bear the pain. Pain is essential but only the tough will survive. Otherwise you will get misallocated funds, inflation and an attempt to prop up the weak, that should have died in any case. Today I see it very clear. Hayek seems right. India followed a loose monetary policy as a knee jerk reaction to the global crisis. We wanted to be seen as a government ready to fight the recession and protect growth at all costs. I too believed in it. What is life without growth after all? So in effect we attacked degrowth when there was none at all. What only happened was that we grew at a lesser pace than before. Which is a natural thing. It is a natural response to the economic situation. But if our FM wouldn’t have done anything, he would have been pillared for twiddling his thumbs. Also the argument could also be that inflation is a lesser pain than unemployment. So possibly Keynesian policy is possibly the right way to go.
Then you add the NREGA effect to this. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of 120 (US$2.43) per day in 2009 prices.
When the Congress government kept announcing schemes to promote the socialist agenda, I was the lone dissenter. WTF. We can’t ensure we get any public distribution right, and none of the schemes really work , so why should we support these budgets and call them great budgets. The markets loved them and all was forgotten. Some even attributed some the victory to the NREGA program – read this http://imaginingindia.com/2009/05/28/after-the-election/ . Interesting.
So now you have a lot of money being pumped into the economy. More money and my daughter will tell you – inflation follows. And it does. So we have inflation with prices rising. So now the government tries to control inflation by raising interest rates and attempts to suck out liquidity. It is squeezing our stomach while tightening our belts. Can I hear Hayek laughing?
After all this I was wondering why we never learnt Hayek in economics while we heard of Keynes. A chance encounter with my economic teacher and I got the answer. Keynes is taught at graduate level while Hayek is taught at post grad level. Oh Stupid stupid idiots who set the curriculum. Most of us are going to go through life with a graduate degree. So now we know what to do without understanding eth consequences of what we do. So year after year you will have students who understand that governments must interfere must have not been taught what happens when you do interfere. Oh this is such a wonderful example of our education system. Most of us are graduates with some exposure in economics before we move on to our other streams, possibly management and go through life not knowing about the other side. Sheesh.
Forget it. I am getting too depressed. But here, while we are swimming in different theories, here is one more. I think the reason you will see inflation is because the RBI wants us to see inflation. Economics is nothing but a game that is being played in our minds. Recession happens when we feel not so confident about the future, growth is when we feel better about it, inflation happens when we feel that we have more money and want to spend more to get a good. Economics works in the collective and indivual minds of the people, and our country is not all educated. I am sure not a large percentage of the population has anything to do with economic theory. They behave in tune with what they see. They don’t understand inflation and sentiment. They care if Greece is going nutty printing money. They react to what they see. And the Government or the RBI is telling them in their face that the RUPEE IS DEVALUING. The RBI is taking extra care to ensure it happens. How is that?
Well its simple. They are now telling you that the rupee is now worth a lot less. In fact through a very powerful visual it is telling the population that the rupee is now almost half of what it used to be, sometime back. Don’t believe me? See this… the old rupee and new one rupee coin.

the date on the big one is at the back -2010 and the new one is dated 2011.
Now any illiterate person looking at the coins will also tell you that the rupee is not the same anymore. It has shrunk. And hence now you require twice as much material to be worth the old rupee. In effect the new rupee is half the old one. INFLATION!
I know it’s a corny idea, but I firmly believe that symbolism matters. We decide a lot on the basis of what we see and interact with. Surely the shrinking of the rupee is not just because we shrunk the size, but this is a clear admission of the fact that it has shrunk so those who don’t believe in it, kindly start now.

the Hayek versus Keynes podcast can be accessed here -http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/28/141802704/the-friday-podcast-keynes-vs-hayek Listen to it. its fun.

world consiparcy

I have nothing against Robin Sharma or Paulo Coelho. Though I am sure either would be slightly slighted to see either written in the same breath. But what can I say I abhor them both. Equally. No no … not personally but I don’t like their books. I read one from each author (tried to) and its not that they speak lies; but I don’t need a whole book to know the truth that is apparent in my face. I have spoken about it in the past, and the reason I mention it now is because I was reminded by Paulo’s lines in the Alchemist - “When you want something, the whole Universe conspires to help you realise your desire”.
Ever since our office moved to kalina I have been driving to work. No other convenient option. It’s definitely helped me cut my commute time. But the trade off has been no reading in the trains. I have also in the past written about bad radio programming and the same songs with inane radio jockeys. Aggghhh. Makes my blood boil just thinking about them.
So while browsing around I came across ted.com and their audio downloads. I downloaded a few onto my cell phone and picked up a connection cord to the car deck. WOWieeee….. Driving has become much more pleasurable. From one of the economic blogs I was following I came across and another download with an economist. I love it! I was wondering what to do with my driving frustrations and the options emerged. There is a wealth of data there. I am still not ready for audio books on serious topics but this stuff is welcome spring water. If you know of interesting interviews on audio download with anyone at all, anyone – sports, entertainment, economy, business, vagabonds.. Whatever.. Please send me a link. In fact send me a link for any interesting audio downloads. Yes I know podcasts have been there since evolution. But I was never the music types and hence never took to the ipod. Hence podcasts gave me the miss. I have been trying to figure out a way to stay connected to podcasts with out itunes or any software (office laptop does not allow installations). So I am pretty limited. Learnoutloud.com is one discovery. Many more to follow I am sure.

So there I was reminded of The Alchemist. But did I need to read the whole book to know this? No, for sure not. I knew of it in many different ways, but I guess reading the book helped me remember it. so I guess in that way it was useful, but as a rational thinker one must ask ‘at what margin?’. The time and money spent to read that book so that you remember the obvious? Nopes. I have better things to read and do and spend on.