The euro crisis: A fatal recession? | The Economist

A fatal recession?

THERE is a lot to keep track of in Europe these days (Charlemagne is a great resource for this, by the way), but here is a brief digest. First, George Papandreou’s gambit to get the opposition behind efforts to implement necessary reforms seems to have been a success. Greece will get a new, transitional unity government to put the plan in place, though Mr Papandreou will not be leading it. This is good news for the euro zone, on the whole, as it implies that there is not yet a viable political force for departure from the euro within Greece. The medium-term political outlook for the country is highly uncertain, however.

via The euro crisis: A fatal recession? | The Economist.

 

Greg Mankiw’s Blog: What would Keynes have said about Obamacare?

What would Keynes have said about Obamacare?

It is impossible to know, of course, but this passage from an open letter Keynes wrote to FDR in 1933 offers some hints (emphasis added):

You are engaged on a double task, Recovery and Reform;–recovery from the slump and the passage of those business and social reforms which are long overdue. For the first, speed and quick results are essential. The second may be urgent too; but haste will be injurious, and wisdom of long-range purpose is more necessary than immediate achievement. It will be through raising high the prestige of your administration by success in short-range Recovery, that you will have the driving force to accomplish long-range Reform. On the other hand, even wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action, before you have had time to put other motives in their place. It may over-task your bureaucratic machine, which the traditional individualism of the United States and the old “spoils system” have left none too strong. And it will confuse the thought and aim of yourself and your administration by giving you too much to think about all at once.

via Greg Mankiw’s Blog: What would Keynes have said about Obamacare?.

 

The euro crisis: Eurodoom | The Economist

The euro crisis

Eurodoom

Nov 1st 2011, 15:01 by R.A. | WASHINGTON

I SUPPOSE it’s worth mentioning that Europe is back to crumbling before our very eyes. Late yesterday, the prime minister of Greece announced a plan to hold a referendum on the newly negotiated rescue deal. I’ll let Roberto Perli, from the International Strategy and Investment Group, explain the political dynamics:

via The euro crisis: Eurodoom | The Economist.

 

Bretton Woods – What they wont teach or tell you … « 2ndlook

Prequel to Bretton

Keynes’ first book that gained him some following in the world of economics was the ‘Indian Currency And Finance‘. This work examined in significant detail the workings of the Indian currency system. The Indian colonial currency system was anchored to the British pound – and various other local Indian currencies were in use – and even legal tender in large parts of India.

G5 will take on G8

Thus there was always great pressure on Britain to keep the British pound on gold standard – as there was always the option for the common citizen to use coinage from other kingdoms and princely states. In 1900, the British colonial Government tried to enforce circulation of British sovereigns in India – which failed.

Of course, gold importation into India was severely restricted. The gold blockade against India was effective as the major gold production centres were under Anglo Saxon occupation (Australia, Canada, USA, South Africa, Rhodesia, Ghana, etc.).

via Bretton Woods – What they wont teach or tell you … « 2ndlook.

 

Please vote for me in Wagon R Smart Ideas Competition

Hi All, I have participated in Wagon R Smart Ideas Competition.

Please have a look at my profile there and vote for my Idea. You can also click the like button on my profile page there, which would give me one Facebook like and an additional vote.

http://wagonrsmartideas.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&Itemid=53&user=51845

Please try and ask all your friends and colleagues as well to generate votes for me. All the cooperation and time taken out for this is highly appreciated.

Hope to have cooperation from all the readers of my blog.

Regards,

Vaibhav

 

Bday bashes and the all other fun.

This is my first post after i have graduated. Its a very elating and joyful moment. I leave for Hyderabad day after. Its been a very memorable ride for me all this while (the engineering years).
Got flunk a couple of times, Advanced Microprocessor took everything outta me, had my worst nightmares of different block diagrams of 8086/286/386/486…………………………………..
Hail my juniors who take this course .

How nice it was being in those college days, going out for tea at 3 in night.
Now can only miss those late night bday bashes, with all those countless bikes on the road, the gang which has gathered to make life hell for the b’day boy hitting the road was very exhilarating .
One would have felt that the biggest sin we have done is getting born !!!! and then having such a gang to live with.

Round 1, 2, 3… Nobody wanted to stop until some fella get his nerve irked by seeing the boy almost getting killed by the janta.
That was the day when ‘HE’ (the bday boy hereafter ) used to feel that all these guys are not his friends but a pesky fly who are sucking blood out of his ass.

WE used to feel that if ‘HIS’ parents would have ever seen the kid getting screwed, they would have died of cardiac arrest. Pain of being treated as football on the day on which in ‘HIS’ childhood he was treated as a king was mammoth.

After all this guy was forcefully made to treat ppl with chai and sutta and anything else one can found 2-3 in the night.

We guys cannot forget that night at Karnavati, (don’t remember whose Bday it was though ). But the villain for everyone turned out to be Bhuvan Maru. Despite the cops warning us not to come back, we turned up atleast a couple of times back there. Mr. Maru was so firm that day in getting all of us getting hard hits on our asses.
First one to get hit was Rohit Gupta, it was Akshat then, I was the next one, Mayur , Golchha and some others were soon to follow.
We still laugh sometimes remembering the way Maru called us all back yelling, ” Aa jao, Aa Jao , maine baat kar li hain.”
Bang the danda goes. @#$%$&*&.

All craziness done, but wait,
Kanik: Guys we should go to that Cyber cafe near passport office, we can get something to eat there.

Godara: Bloody m********, b*******, _ _ _ _ _ ……, How much more u wanna get beaten.

Vaibhav(Me): Right ! My ass has swelled.

Everyone: Laughs(Hahhaha) Why is it that u got the hardest dude!!!.

Me: the biggest sinner gets it anyways./\/\

Everyone: Let us go there guys!!!.

Wroooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………………

All bikes turned towards the cafe.

Aseem: well now who is singing a song, gaana gao yar!!!.

Shopkeeper: Sir please keep ur voices low, cops can come up.

Everyone: ( thinking in minds) ah uh ouch .^*^^.
lets go back yar.

Shopkeeper: NO NO sir ji, no need to worry that much , just keep ur bikes at proper place and keep ur voices low.

Vikas: ( thinks he is singing , but sound like he is yelling) , Mera ek laundry ka bill ek aadhi padi novel, ek ladki ka fone no, mere ek kaam paper……………
…………..
…………..
…………..

Everyone: Nana na na na Nana na na na!!!

We all came back at four in the morning. Amazing night it was.

Miss these good old days the most today when i just turned up 24 two days back, and was feeling nostalgic about these kinda bday celebrations.

All these years people have been strong, persuasive, ambitious, angry, hopeless, crazy, mean, Dreamer, considerate, bewildered, obnoxious, gleaming and what not….
Miss all of them. Hail all my friends.

 

Last Days …In the end its right…

” Its something unpredictable but in the end its right. i hope you had a time of your life. I take my last viva and reviews and of my undergraduate degree in 12 days from now, so i believe its my last entry as a undergrad, i graduate after that.”

Its been quite a ride for last four years, i came as a guy somewhat intimidated with an idea of engineering school, very sure that i want to major in Computer Science( quite contradictory right). I joined Computer Engineering  course with my personal focus on learning more amd more open source software. I am leaving as a Comp Sci major with a lot of side classes, who went for Sattelite Communications, and Alternate Energy courses, who took interest in a Workshop practice during freshman days, who learned lot of FOSS stuff( not required to graduate though).

Nirma University as a place will change ,make you rethink, make your life interesting in many ways ,  but if u do something againest the system life can be hell for you( who would have experience this better then me). I was a good target to be changed though in a positive manner , i never enjoyed initial days of my life here, but with time it made me realise that one can make out his own joyous moments here. If at all i would have gone somewhere else i would have gone through my college roughly as i went through my schooling days- nice grades, good appointments, liked by all faculties for studies but disliked by all for mischief , with a very small group of people around, feeling weirdly unsatisfied and not sure why, but after being here i learned how to enjoy not studying for just grades, how to enjoy and party with friends at 3  before the semester exams, waking up whole night fighting counter strike on LAN, secretly saying I hadn’t had enough challenges in life or in academics before coming here.

I am no longer afraid of getting screwed, in addition to rethink upon my values, Nirma can do exciting things to you psychologically. It can hurt you sometimes. I could have had a much easier life the last four years if I’d been just about anywhere else.As a top high school student you’ve probably spent the last four years working hard to get into good college, and it’s been told once you get there, you’ve done what you needed to do, you have it made. That’s not true – it’s once you get here that the fun really starts.

May these college days does not end, may we get some more time to cherish the moments.
No one has ever imagined that all janta would be doing so much sentiyappa about leaving the college, but we all may have well understood now why its there.
There were days when people used to feel, “when are we going to get rid of this college”, before that we had same feeling about the school days,
but now we feel school days were the best days of our lives, i firmly believe when all of us are sitting back in our offices or attending master’s courses,
we surely gonna miss these days.
This totally reminds me of the beautiful song by Green Day,
“So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial.

For what it’s worth,
it was worth all the while.

It’s something unpredictable
but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.”

I lived later three years of my college in Lavkush Apartments , the most happening place of all times .
All parties , all fun and frolic was used to organized and announced there, people would still not be able to forget Mr. Bhan announcing himself to be the majesty.,
Well those superb terrace parties wont be back again, but memories remain.

So for now , i am enjoying my vacations at home in Ajmer, a town that borders Jaipur the capital city of Rajasthan state. I’ll be working for Deloitte as an Associate Analyst – Enterprise Applications, and would be put into Oracle Apps. I think it’ll be a lot of fun and it will be a good preparation if i decide for my MBA at some point of time. Its a well paying job that uses my major even.(!!!)

A little tip for people incoming to Nirma , take the selection of your flatmates seriously (cannot stress this enough), its very crucial for having the “Time Of Your Life”. Ask for help if you need it. Stand up for yourself as a student.

Make Nirma a better place.

 

Yaarana …Awesome Video

 

Inner Echoes

<<>>

I am very Hopeful that everything would be fine…
Things get dense and darker as college progresses,
thunders of dooms hounds over and above,
my savior will he ever come.

Catching up with the pace of Dubious World,
I feel like sitting down for long alone hours Thinking of ME…

These days will never be so scorching again,
may the joy of hell and sorrow of heaven,
be visible to this entire Human Race…

The colors of Spring Autumn Winters and deadly Summers,
make me all the more tethered,
splitting up and aching down relentlessly,
I feel like sitting down for long alone hours Thinking of ME…

I now a loner look around to people, jigsaw puzzled with others.
Like a melancholy of experiences, enchanting voices of critics on me,
I feel like sitting down for long alone hours Thinking of ME…

When did I see myself comparing with them, but to them…
The idea of irrefutable and objective facts,
make me drenched with reconciling emotions.

I am not a dead fish in the shop, but
Depends on the equipment you pick to fish.
The asynchronous nature of ‘friends’ pests in disguise
allows contours of relationship at a slower pace.

Before losing it why do I hate giving it a chase,
I feel like sitting down for long alone hours Thinking of ME…

I know what it takes to stand alone in the crowd,
I know what it takes when everyone around feels you good for nothing ,
I know what it takes to wait for a Hug which would never arrive.

But I don’t know the joy of being told,
“O Boy!! Don’t worry, things would be fine.”
I don’t know the pleasure of being understood,
I don’t know the comfort of being appreciated.

Some praises which I receive may be plenty , but plebian.
Some critics which I receive may be less now, but furious.
People considered me a Bad Boy,
but I am now, all the more colder, harder, and with less fears of “Opinions”.
I now totally lack the virtues which accompany respect and respectability.
If I cannot lead, I go alone…
When not talking to myself, I now wear a mask,
Solitude now finds a place in me, inaccessible to praises or blames.

I once have heard,
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is a school of Genius.”
Didn’t know the crux though, till I started realizing my innerself.

I was gaining back my vaporized powers,
new optimism started spooking in.
Someone was influencing my positiveness,
Someone’s presence and someone’s absence.
Was this someone “My Solitude”?

I now feel like sitting down for long alone hours thinking of this ‘someone’.

I now recollect all the happenings in my undergraduate years,
As a ‘light’ of learning experiences,
As a ‘pleasure’ of standing alone,
As a ‘joy’ of fighting it out alone,
As a ‘ride’ of feeling the enriched side of doing it Alone.

Now after thinking for sometime
I realize that I have become complacent with these traits of lonesome
and my breath now goes more deep,
exploring my inner enchanting and cautious solitude.

Life goes on like a moving train.
Halting when you ‘grow’ weak,
and grabbing speed when you get coal of motivation.
For long I used to think the other way,
“ You take power”, but now it is known to me
“You empower yourself”, that’s how you grow in power

I now think of running for long hours, in search of ME…

Trains have always taught me a lot
meeting new people , taking new lessons
I wish I can be in so much riches one day
so I can give it to all the beggars in the trains.

I now want to be in a race of meeting umpteenth new faces,
searching in each of them the ‘Unusual’ ME…

Looking outside the window, different forests,
Looking outside the window, different places,
Looking outside the window, different people,
All just give me a glimpse of ‘Active’ ME…

Now surrounded by people and facets of new life,
I think of sitting down for long alone hours
searching of that lost ‘Alone’ ME…

THE END