Can Country A do something to Country B at the WTO because the latter is not passing on full fuel price to the customer, leading to no decline in supply? demand and consequently high prices of oil for Country A? How do these kind of things work? Is it possible for one country to destroy…
Why fine dining costs so much in Bangalore
Blame the Bangarappa government of 1993, which took a decision to stop issuing more liquor licenses, a decision that still continues today.? According to themadman ?(who runs the excellent Shiok, currently temproarily closed), the only way one can start a restaurant serving liquor in Bangalore is to buy a permit from someone who is shutting…
Indian editions
For the last one year or so, I’ve been relying on bloggers such as Tyler Cowen for my books recommendations. Basically I read about a book on a blog, or say Marginal Revolution does a book forum on the book, and I soon get interested in the book, and go out to buy it. And…
consulting
Wish I’d read this two years back
Water Privatization revisited
I first wrote about water privatization on this blog back in 2006. I had written that bit as part of a term paper for an infrastructure course at IIMB, and it seemed like we didn’t do too well as far as the term paper went. I revisited the topic sometime last year when i talked…
The GS Report
I’m in the process of reading the Goldman Sachs report about what India should do to become a superpower by 2050. Have read some 4 pages of it so far.
In the name of equality
In temple towns such as Horanadu and Sringeri, the temple has a virtual monopoly over accommodation for tourists. There have been a few private lodges springing up in both places of late, but indifferent quality means these are places of last resort for tourists. The temple accommodation, however, is well maintained and clean, and most…
Letting Bear fail
This is a tubelight post. Was supposed to have written this two months back. I sometimes wonder if the US Fed did the right thing by encouraging JP Morgan to buy out Bear Stearns rather than to just let the latter fail. I know letting it fail would have had significant negative impact on the…
Opportunity Costs
The concept of opportunity costs seems to be non-trivial, in the sense that most people don’t seem to get it. When I first learnt it as part of my Economics course at IIT Madras, I thought it was fairly common sense. However, looking around at a variety of people, it doesn’t seem to be that…
Oily predictions
I propose a new business model. Make a seemingly outrageous long-range prediction. It could just be anything, but you might want to stick to the financial world. Once you have decided on the prediction to make, think up of about six possible reasons why this prediction could come true. Given that the prediction in itself…
Pleasant Observations
This morning, on the way to the gym, i saw a pleasant and wonderful sight. In fact, it was a curious problem but the solution gave me hope that the average intelligence in India is not too low. It was shortly passed 7 am, and the traffic lights at South End Circle had just come…
More on petrol pricing
In a recent piece in the Indian Express, Atanu Dey argues that keeping fuel prices low is effectively delivering subsidy to the rich, by subsidising the cost of car transport. In response to this, he says there should be an annual fuel surcharge imposed per-car. This way, he says, fuel price hikes can be prevented…
Fuel price hike
So petrol prices have gone up by a whopping 10%, and LPG by an even more whopping 16%. It’s quite ironical that the government, which in the name of the aam aadmi had rolled back a number of reforms has had to do this in the final year of its reign. They say that the…
Hotel Dwaraka
In its earlier sit-down avatar on Bull Temple Road, it was known for doling out copious quantities of chutney in buckets. No sooner had you emptied half the chutney on your plate, a waiter would materialize and pour a bucket of the stuff into your plate. The main item on the menu here was the…
On introducing democracy
Ravikiran Rao argues that the reasons most Indian parties are afraid to embrace inner party democracy is that the people who are in charge are afraid that if they introduce democracy and lose the first election, their opponent might destroy the democracy and just keep the power with himself. Isn’t this the case everywhere? Be…
Ministry Formation – my theory
So Yeddyurappa has been finally sworn in as the CM of Karnataka, this time hopefully for a longer period. Some 29 people have already been sworn in with him, leaving just four more slots (there is a limit of 34 on the size of the ministry). Trouble has already started brewing as some senior leaders…
Death Markets
I wrote this in a mail to the Satin group. This was in response to a mail by Amit Varma talking about priests in Haridwar who conduct the pre-ashes-dunking ceremony, and their fees, and the bargaining, and what could be a decent solution for the problem. I thought it might make sense as a standalone…
Can I play with elasticity?
The government’s latest gimmick to keep petrol prices unrealistically low is to impose a special additional levy on income tax and corporate tax in order to finance the deficit. Basically a scheme to rob peter and pay paul. Make the higher-income guys pay for the excess oil consumption by the lower income guys.
Buying pickles in Sringeri
That’s what i did immediately before I proceeded to the VidyaShankara temple to look for porn. I spent half an hour at the Sri VidyaShankara Home Products store buying pickles and other assorted condiments. I ended up buying a bottle of Appe Midi Mango pickle (made out of whole uncut tiny mangoes). Then one bottle…
More on pricing of air tickets
More than a week back, I had written in my blog that the airports need to change the fee structure of user charges, etc. so as to drive the marginal cost down to zero so as to ensure more efficient usage of seat space and better revenue management. It seems like I didn’t? do my…
Zoning with respect to the new airport
Now that the airport has been successfully moved, despite the vehement protests from the powerful IT-BT-ITES lobby and various others, the next fear is that these companies will move close to the new airport. As it stands now, I’m not sure how the NH7 and other roads that lead to the new airport are going…