Anatomy of the Meltdown

Here's an very nice New Yorker article that talks about Ben Bernanke and the financial meltdown.

And here and here are some excellent articles that gives an overview of the financial crisis. I found the links to these ariticles in Greg Mankiw's blog

Spiderman and a Chopper

Here's a way to fight the liquidity crisis!

And here's a way to kill time!

Articles on Monetary Policy

Here's an article that appeared on Livemint that provides a very nice overview of Monetary policy - from an Indian perspective

And here's an article from The Economist on the same topic.

My battles with cell phones

Cellphones are wonderful gadgets, but I perpetually seem to have problems with the instruments. Here’s an account of my close encounters with the darn machines.

The first cellphone I owned was a brick. It was a hardened rock in every sense – it could withstand damage even if you dropped if from two floors above and, at the same time, not pick a iota of signal at any point. But it was one of those handy devices with which one felt truly safe. I knew I could cause some serious damage to someone, if needed, even if I couldn’t call the emergency lines. I proudly carried around my weapon of choice.

Then I started to get seduced into the world sleek machines. I got my first flip-phone. It’s wasn’t the most extravagant looking flip, but it certainly a step above the brick in the evolutionary ladder. I flipped hard, flipped often and flipped like a trigger-happy cowboy. And then it flipped. I was left with two pieces – the base on one hand and the display on the other. I reverted back to the days of the yore as I used the base to dial and used my hands-free talk. Unfortunately this wonderful tag-team couldn’t handle the missed call culture. Out of sheer pity for the flip, and possibly practicality, I decided to rest the headless communicator.

Then came along the razor. It was cool, trendy and was the then latest and greatest communicating device in history. But razors do become quiet blunt if you bury them under the sand – and it doesn’t matter if you didn’t do it on purpose. It was a two faced machine - a sleek machine outside but a dusty bowl inside. However, it continued to work like a charm until it finally bamboozled me by spinning off my pocket and taking a journey on its own in a city cab.

Thus I woefully entered the world of borrowed communicators. There was the flip that had to be perpetually on life support – remove it from the outlet and the energy drained the next instant. It was a land-line masquerading like a cell-phone. Then there were the brick and the slider that were promptly recalled by their rightful owners. Finally, came along another razor that had numbers hidden in secret places and a voicemail that talked to me! Works well if you get used to it!

Distressed by these maniacal machines, and with the strong intent of staying away from the egoistical machine that proclaims itself as “I” the phone, I signed up with a sleek slider. It was quite reliable until I got ambitious and abruptly moved to the wondrous world of blackberries. But then I quickly learnt a hard lesson. Blackberries don’t go well with milk and cereals. As healthy as it may sound, strawberries are always a better option. This dark colored berry merely hissed in disapproval and has been resting peacefully since. The scorned slider, at that point, conveniently discovered a manufacturing defect and went on an indefinite strike. That's a slider scorned for you!

And that leaves me searching for a reliable machine to voice out my profound messages to the world. I truly yearn for the days of post-cards, smoke signals, and messenger pegions. Kabootar (a)jaa (a)jaa, indeed!

Indecision 2008

The US Presidential elections are in two days. It has been a very interesting campaign for the last several months. I have been following it a little too keenly and people who know me also know that I am a strong supporter of Barack Obama - not that it matters for I don't have right to vote.

However, even as I support him, I do acknowledge, there are inherent risks in voting for Obama. It is not as much as he is an unknown entity as it is about the highly probable gulf that exists between what he believes and what he can actually do. We have seen him give thoughtful answers to complex problems but will the lack of his executive experience affect his ability to execute them? He has shown the ability to attract some exceptionally talented people around him, but will their opinion matter in a possible liberal era of a democrat congress and democrat senate? These are legitimate concerns, but no one, including Obama, can really answer these questions convincingly.

While the way he carried himself through a grueling twenty month campaign under intense scrutiny does assuage some concerns, I do believe that the possible Obama administration is likely to have surprises that not all people will like!

And here's a very nice editorial from The Economist on this topic.