This blog post is about a relative of mine, who, for purposes of this blog post, shall be called “Commie Uncle”. That name is intentional, for he is surely a commie. Ages back, he managed to land himself a PSU job with the help of a recommendation from his cousin’s wife’s cousin’s girlfriend’s cousin’s uncle. [...]
The cost of credit default swaps (CDSs) for 10 year US Treasury bonds have reached an all-time high, trading at as high as 24 basis points. In this regard, what should we use as the risk-free rate? Traditionally yield on government bonds has been used as the risk-free rate. But when the government bonds are [...]
Last week, Kumble was issued a notice by the BCCI for talking to the media about selection committee meetings. Kumble’s “crime” was telling the Mumbai Mirror that he insisted on two specialist keepers in the party. Leaving the controversy alone, my hunch is that the selectors might have insisted on Parthiv Patel being the lone [...]
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 [...]
Long ago, Soviet Russia decided that a good way for them to propagate propaganda in India would be to distribute magazines at subsidized rates. My father had taken the bait and subscribed to all such magazines available – Soviet Union, Soviet Woman and Misha. All of them were available at dirt-cheap rates (don’t exactly remember [...]
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 [...]
I have a proposal to make. If you are visiting Bangalore soon that is. As you might have figured out from reading my blog, a large number of books that I want to read aren’t available in India. I can ask a bookshop here to import it from the US but that would make the [...]
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. [...]
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