Monday, October 09, 2006
Today I had a rare evening shift at work.
As I was driven back home some one half hour ahead of midnight, I caught myself entering a contemplative mood. It is difficult to fall into one of those moods when you have so much vibrant chatter and camradiere going on amongst fellow passengers.
I was doing something new at work and had in due process learnt of several things. As the Wine coloured Tata Qualis threaded its way across the not-so-crowded streets in the heart of New Delhi, I lost track of my colleagues' repartees while mentally doing a look-back at the day's events.
It was an eventful day, bustling with news.
The Democratic Republic of North Korea had confirmed that it had gone ahead and conducted a successful nuclear test, which it claimed would help in maintaining the peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the surrrounding region.
In conducting this underground nuclear test, clandestinely in defiance of world bodies, the communist state had drawn severe condemnation from almost all nations.
This poverty stricken country had only last year been the second largest reciepient of food aid in the world survives on aid from China and South Korea but spends almost 25 per cent of its GNP on its military.
Then,
A Columbia University professor of political economy won Nobel Prize for Economics for his contributions to understanding the relationship between inflation and unemployment.
Until Edmund S Phelps, economists believed when labour gets scarce and unemployment comes down, prices must by necessity go up to reflect increasing wages. Phelps' introduced the less quantifiable factors of expectations and information. What happens to the Philips curve then?
Governments and central banks could no longer assume that employment and inflation goals were exclusive factors in determining tax, budget and monetary policies. The less quantifiable expectations of employers and workers were also important factors that had to be calculated in.
The 73-year-old author will receive the prize money of 1.37 million dollars has been written about as a man who has authored a great number of books and articles in which he explores how new ideas lead to growth and why they find such fertile soil in the US and less resonance elsewhere.
Somewhere on the internet I found out that the septugenerian economist professor had channelled his childhood fascination for numbers into a lifelong obsesion. He used to count all the cats in his neighbourhood in Chicago and also busy himself identifying all the automobiles on his street.
Never tell a child who wants to count cats that he his wasting time. Look at Phelps!
Postscript
I missed a couple of people today. People, whom I knew would share with equal or perhaps more zest my enthusiasm and eagerness to discuss all the happenings. Persons, who will never perhaps share the same cab with me.
As I was driven back home some one half hour ahead of midnight, I caught myself entering a contemplative mood. It is difficult to fall into one of those moods when you have so much vibrant chatter and camradiere going on amongst fellow passengers.
I was doing something new at work and had in due process learnt of several things. As the Wine coloured Tata Qualis threaded its way across the not-so-crowded streets in the heart of New Delhi, I lost track of my colleagues' repartees while mentally doing a look-back at the day's events.
It was an eventful day, bustling with news.
The Democratic Republic of North Korea had confirmed that it had gone ahead and conducted a successful nuclear test, which it claimed would help in maintaining the peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the surrrounding region.
In conducting this underground nuclear test, clandestinely in defiance of world bodies, the communist state had drawn severe condemnation from almost all nations.
This poverty stricken country had only last year been the second largest reciepient of food aid in the world survives on aid from China and South Korea but spends almost 25 per cent of its GNP on its military.
Then,
A Columbia University professor of political economy won Nobel Prize for Economics for his contributions to understanding the relationship between inflation and unemployment.
Until Edmund S Phelps, economists believed when labour gets scarce and unemployment comes down, prices must by necessity go up to reflect increasing wages. Phelps' introduced the less quantifiable factors of expectations and information. What happens to the Philips curve then?
Governments and central banks could no longer assume that employment and inflation goals were exclusive factors in determining tax, budget and monetary policies. The less quantifiable expectations of employers and workers were also important factors that had to be calculated in.
The 73-year-old author will receive the prize money of 1.37 million dollars has been written about as a man who has authored a great number of books and articles in which he explores how new ideas lead to growth and why they find such fertile soil in the US and less resonance elsewhere.
Somewhere on the internet I found out that the septugenerian economist professor had channelled his childhood fascination for numbers into a lifelong obsesion. He used to count all the cats in his neighbourhood in Chicago and also busy himself identifying all the automobiles on his street.
Never tell a child who wants to count cats that he his wasting time. Look at Phelps!
Postscript
I missed a couple of people today. People, whom I knew would share with equal or perhaps more zest my enthusiasm and eagerness to discuss all the happenings. Persons, who will never perhaps share the same cab with me.
Labels: contemplation, delhi, norht korea, phelps
hey,
chanced upon this... were u in acj? looks like ... who r u??? In any case, enjoyed reading