Can be best described by looking at the “objects” that defined our bets at different points in time. Most of those phases seem to have faded away, but I clearly remember two of them – the Pepsi phase and the Perk phase. The Pepsi era started with their “nothing official about it” campaign during the…
I have more than a hundred feeds on my Google Reader. It could be much more, just that I haven’t bothered to keep track. Apart from these hundred odd feeds, I also read posts which have been shared by people on my GTalk friends list. And then, you have people who send you the odd…
In a seminal post written over a year back, I had classified people into two, based on their working styles. I had called them “studs” and “fighters”. Studs, I had argued were people who had the knack of finding the easy way out. Who liked to work around corners, and find short cuts. And who…
I’ve always been a “topper types”. I started topping class when I was in first standard (and no, they didn’t announce ranks before that), and as if that wasn’t enough, my parents made sure that all relatives, and all teachers in school knew about my superhuman arithmetic skills. And as if even this wasn’t enough,…
Two weeks back we were all given dual screens at office. A couple of days after that, those of us that had joined recently got Bloomberg logins. It’s a very restricted version of Bloomberg, with most of the strong features having been disabled. One feature that is enabled, though, is to get the graph of…
Earlier this evening, I went to check out a gym here in Gurgaon. The place itself was fairly nondescript – basic and decent but nothing extraordinary. What wasn’t nondescript was the price chart. Monthly: Rs. 1800 Quarterly: Rs. 3600 Half-yearly: Rs. 5000 Annual: Rs. 7000 The amount of discount you get as you sign up…
After the Fed bailed out Bear Stearns and arranged for its sale to JP Morgan, I blogged saying that the Fed hadn’t done the right thing, and was now creating a situation of moral hazard. When Lehman was in trouble, I said that this was a good time for the Fed to make amends for…
A while back I was talking to Pota about the IITM Open Quiz, and its possible demise. I think what happened was that the quiz was in general closely held. Three of the four original quizmasters were from the “no questions asked” team, and even after I graduated, people who continued ownership of the event…
Or should I say ex-Lehman employees? Assuming that most of you haven’t been fired yet, I’ll drop the ex. I know that a couple of days back, I wished for your company’s demise. That had nothing to do with you. I wished for that because I thought that was the right thing to be done.…
But Lehman has to go. In the “larger interests” of continuing a vibrant, risktaking and efficient worldwide financial system, it is best that the Fed does not bail out Lehman. I had written about this a few months back, in hindsight, after Bear was bailed out by Fed who arranged for a hurried takeover by…
Every time I think about this article in the New York Times, I find myself agreeing more with it. The basic premise of the article is that in the short run, one has a limited “supply” of willpower, and by every activity you do that consumes willpower, you are reducing your ability to do other…
Today I complete four months of joblessness. Time seems to have flown quite quickly. Looking back, I don’t really know how I spent these months. I think I read quite a bit. I chilled out a bit. Slept well. Ate well. Hardly travelled. Hardly got bored. One one hand I’m happy that I didn’t get…
Following the Telgi scandal the Karnataka government had a great brainwave. They decided that one of the reasons duplicate stamp papers were in circulation was that stamp paper was available freely. The only remedy to this, it was decided, was to restrict sales of stamp paper. So now the street corner guy doesn’t sell the…
Some 3-4 days back, I wrote a post in the Indian Economy Blog with a conjecture as to why India never got an overwhelming “gentleman class” in the way that European countries did. I forgot to cross post it here back then, so I’m doing it now.
Yesterday I gave my old bike for servicing. It was in such bad shape that for a while I was worried that the cost of servicing would be greater than the salvage value of the bike. This morning, when I went to pick it up, I was pleased to see that the bill came up…
I’m very suspicious about job openings which say “CA/MBA”. I get the feeling they are looking for fighters only, with not much requirement for much intelligence on the job.
A few minutes back I finished reading Richard McKenzie’s Why popcorn costs so much at the movies and other pricing puzzles. Since the book is not available in India, I managed to procure an online pirated version through a friend. And since the book isn’t released in India, I didn’t feel guilty about reading the…
Left-wing economics is idealistic, and the basic assumption is that everyone is a good guy, and he will work in the best interests of the system. On the other hand, the basic assumption behind right-wing economics is that everyone is inherently a bad guy, and will work only for his own benefit. Hence, systems have…
So on Wednesday I watched a Hindi movie in a theatre after a gap of a year and three months. The previous time too, Ashwin was with me, though the rest of the personnel were disjoint. Anuroop also joined us this time, before he embarks on a mission to sell phones in the seven hills.…
When I got my house painted three months back, the head painter suggested a new method of calculating his fees. Instead of charging by the man hour, which is how usually painters are charged, this guy proposed that we pay him by the square foot. Once all the work was done, he and I together…
The latest podcast on Econtalk has Duke economist Mike Munger talking about public transport, and how things have changed for the worse in Santiago after public transport was nationalized. One of the points mentioned in the podcast talks about homogeneity in services after nationalization. Munger talks about how usage of the public transport system dropped…