Bear and Bull

The Indian stock Index, Sensex, has been very bullish lately. Reasons - Contributions from RIL, ICICI Bank, ONGC, L&T and Bharti Airtel.

My blog entries have taken a bearish dip. Reason - Opportunity Cost.

Will return back soon in November.

Ig Nobel Winners in Economics

My Compilation of Ig Nobel Prize winners in Economics

1991 - Michael Milken, titan of Wall Street and father of the junk bond, to whom the world is indebted.

1992 - The investors of Lloyd's of London, heirs to 300 years of dull prudent management, for their bold attempt to insure disaster by refusing to pay for their company's losses.

1993 - Ravi Batra of Southern Methodist University, shrewd economist and best-selling author of The Great Depression of 1990 and Surviving the Great Depression of 1990, for selling enough copies of his books to single-handedly prevent worldwide economic collapse.

1994 - Juan Pablo Davila of Chile, tireless trader of financial futures and former employee of the state-owned Codelco Company, for instructing his computer to "buy" when he meant "sell." He subsequently attempted to recoup his losses by making increasingly unprofitable trades that ultimately lost 0.5 percent of Chile's gross national product. Davila's relentless achievement inspired his countrymen to coin a new verb, "davilar", meaning "to botch things up royally."

1995 - Nick Leeson and his superiors at Barings Bank and to Robert Citron of Orange County, California for using the calculus of derivatives to demonstrate that every financial institution has its limits

1996 - Dr. Robert J. Genco of the University at Buffalo for his discovery that "financial strain is a risk indicator for destructive periodontal disease."

1997 - Akihiro Yokoi of Wiz Company in Chiba, Japan, and Aki Maita of Bandai Company in Tokyo, for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets.

1998 - Richard Seed of Chicago for his efforts to stoke up the world economy by cloning himself and other human beings.

1999 - None

2000 - The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, for bringing efficiency and steady growth to the mass marriage industry, with, according to his reports, a 36-couple wedding in 1960, a 430-couple wedding in 1968, an 1800-couple wedding in 1975, a 6000-couple wedding in 1982, a 30,000-couple wedding in 1992, a 360,000-couple wedding in 1995, and a 36,000,000-couple wedding in 1997.

2001 - Joel Slemrod, of the University of Michigan Business School, and Wojciech Kopczuk, of the University of British Columbia, for their conclusion that people find a way to postpone their deaths if that would qualify them for a lower rate on the inheritance tax.

2002 - The executives, corporate directors, and auditors of Enron, Lernaut & Hauspie (Belgium), Adelphia, Bank of Commerce and Credit International (Pakistan), Cendant, CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Gazprom (Russia), Global Crossing, HIH Insurance (Australia), Informix, Kmart, Maxwell Communications (UK), McKessonHBOC, Merrill Lynch, Merck, Peregrine Systems, Qwest Communications, Reliant Resources, Rent-Way, Rite Aid, Sunbeam, Tyco, Waste Management, WorldCom, Xerox, and Arthur Andersen, for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world. (All companies were forced to restate their financial reports due to false or incorrect accounting and are U.S.-based unless otherwise noted.)

2003 - Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.

2004 - The Vatican, for outsourcing prayers to India.

2005 - Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.

2006 - None

2007 - Kuo Cheng Hsieh, for patenting a device to catch bank robbers by ensnaring them in a net

Supreeth Quarterly

It has been 92 days and 38 postings since I started this blog. I also happen to have completed one quarter. How have I fared so far? What has been the learning experience? Has any reader of my blog been benefited by my postings? Where do I go from here? Do I see myself celebrating 5 years completion, 2 years completion or at least one more quarter of blogging?

Individually, it has been a great learning experience. I have been talking a lot in "Economic Terminology" and this has been irritating few of my friends. I do not know how long I will be able to continue to blog but my Economic learning will definitely continue.

One of the major learnings for me this quarter is about how narrow is the differentiating line which separates MicroEconomics from MacroEconomics. One can not talk about either of these in total isolation. I quote this because when I started blogging, I intended to study only microeconomics.

Happy Blogging to me :-)

10 businesses facing extinction in 10 years

MSNBC lists down 10 businesses that might go extinct during the next decade. Lets examine each of them

1) Record stores

Online music stores are slaughtering record stores. Could this phenomenon be carried over to other kinds of stores as well? There is hardly anything that can not be purchased online.

2) Camera film manufacturing

Photoprinting is also reducing, but might not go extinct. I recently bought a photoprinter myself.

3) Crop dusters

Sorry what?

4) Gay Bars

Yeah right !!

5) Newspapers

Even though I like my epaper, the touch, the smell, the feel of newspaper and its ink is irreplaceable.

6) Pay phones

Imagine this for the next decade- WiFi everywhere, WiFi enabled PDA. Now connect to Google Talk over the WiFi Internet and speak to any one across the globe. All that you have to imagine is that every person on this earth has a Google account and is always logged on :-)

7) Used bookstore

What did I tell you in my point about Record stores

8) Piggy Banks

We won't have Piggy Banks anymore. In fact, we would be seeing fewer real banks (branches) too.

9) Telemarketing

Go back to point 6. As long as Google is being used, marketing is covered

10) Coin operated arcades

Sorry I am lost.

Pizza Wars

One of the trade-offs common to economic decisions is between Efficiency and Equity. While Efficiency refers to the size of the economic pizza, Equity refers to the slice of the economic pizza.

On a different note, Pizza companies seem to be working on increasing both efficiency and equity in the Indian market. Link here

Updated Knowledge Links

Found some online material for learning economics. Most of them are webcasts of college courses. Please see the updated Knowledge Links ====>

Coffee and Fries

The world ruled by Coffee and Fries.

Any takers for Latte Index to Big Mac Index