teaching of economics on money some quotes

Sir , sorry . daddy, what is money?

Money is what money does, says Walker.

Will you elaborate/explain a little bit?

Again I will quote my dear, from memory:

“Money is a matter of function four,

A medium , measure , standard and store”

Fantastic  nice couplet like kural  the great kural

Yes you are right  sakthi , my joe.

Shall I tell one more sentence to capture the flow and the flavor

Go on daddy  I am eager to learn

Money is round so that it can circulate and

 money is flat so that it can be piled up.

 Great quote…Now go to sleep  we shall continue tomorrow

Yes and No I am in good mood and my fingers

 are eager to wander the keyboard.

Yes I do understand  get some good sleep

You only told me that sleep deprivation is

More dangerous for health…….

No problem I feel young while romancing with

My girl friend, wife, and companion:ECONOMICS

Good  we shall meet in the afternoon( India time)

Ok bye my kisses to my master great Arjun

teaching some economics to our leaders part-1

Teaching some economics to our leaders part 1

Indian rupee is now the focus of attention. Gandhi notes not of Nehru dynasty bearing 100s and1000s have become just a piece of paper not even worth for toilet purpose. But the PM has given time for exchanging the old into new notes .I have not watched TV debate on this subject.

I remember an English movie seen long ago wherein a gang attempts to print British pound sterling notes on a day when football match was going on in Bank of England. After the print out they notice that the colour has faded/changed and get frustrated. One fellow will take a note and light his cigarette and another take a bunch of notes and put them into the holes of the canvas shoe.

Going back to our surgical strike on Gandhi notes  honest tax payers need not worry whatever the  rules the govt may  formulate  provided they  are the regular tax payers   and their taxable income is below the limit and hence have not bothered to collect the pan number or  file returns .The govt must focus on those who have  the stock of wealth and the flow of income  but did not bother to realize their citizenry obligations to government .

Being a passionate teacher and reader in macro, monetary and international  economics for more than four decades I felt that daily I should work like recditing prayers which I do not normally do.

Once this becomes the habit  and walking also becomes an integral part of my lazy life  then I will write sambandhan’  wickipedia  on the financial crisis of 20 th century  my dream project

What I write in the next few days will be from my memory  and after 2017  I will try  to collect my notes and books and write in a different style  but in an understandable language…I seek the divine intervention to make me work on a daily basis…..In case I commit any mistake or the treatment of the subject is not adequate  you can correct me

I keep all my students in mind especially the MIM guys  and the list is long to narrate.  Already I have written to narendra  perhaps this will be the continuation of that exercise and I will be connected with my students spread all over the world.I  sit before the laptop(which gives lot of problems as it has aged) and the time is 2 AM…It will take some time to regulate my sleep pattern and study schedule  and I also want to relax in the retirement period by spending more time on the beach…… but at that time  Harikumar’s  the courage to Act or Armstrong’s The future of Money or Suresh Neela kantan’s  soros book on euro will be my companion…..it is easy to say   dream   but very difficult to do    I have been sufficiently and affectionately warned by Citi bank Sampath kumar that I should work more and write more on economics     the time has come now thanks to MODI’s shock  I will begin with money Keynes and Friedman   -all in the context of  the current situation  educating the rulers who may not have read the subject as I have studied   It is not knowledge  but the feel   like love feeling for the subject that matters most 

strong liquidity preference but still in acute liquidity crisis

Chicken briyani and  the unintended consequence of Modism

MY sick and ailing wife for more than three decades (who has now only working relation ) yesterday demanded plain Briyani and chicken 65.Despite the fact that the wallet was bristling with 500 and 1000 rupee notes(only a few days back fifty thousand was withdrawn from IB university branch  and another fifty which was given as advance for the apartment purchased over a period of 6 to 7 years from the salary amount exclusively with little assistance from the eldest daughter I was struggling for liquid cash of just 100 rupees.

For ages I have been paid only in higher denominations and we never botherd  to keep  changes . Despite high liquidity preference in the last six months for varied reasons I was in a liquidity crisis. A road side fruit vendor near my home enjoying the shade of y neem tree (which will meet its death in a few months like the 100s and 1000s as my daughter will be constructing her home)  agreed to lend 100 provided I purchased fruits for 300.Went to the shop the familiar one where my younget daughter used to buy  but it was closed : economics was at work  people did not have the change.   Yes those who have not paid the taxes for ages but sitting on the mountain of the cash  also need to change  and the govt must allot PAN  to those people without waiting for them to apply

I returned back and asked her .She was insistent that she must take and celebrate.She appreciates the PM for the bold measures with all her imagined enemies’ bombarding her every second.I only wish OUR  PM had her boldness and righteous anger against the parasites sapping the energy of India  who are they   we will elaborate  in the forthcoming postings

I  went to a shop opposite to Sarguru and got nice stuff and the balance of Rs 15 was treated as loan. Unusually it was good and she relished. She took only the white part of the boiled egg and just tasted the leg piece and 80% 0f the food landed on my plate…

I remembered the article by MSS pandian in EPW  long ago:The chicken Briyani and inconsequential Bhramanism…The crisis  on the monetary side now is welcome provided the authorities  take follow up action .there are shocks and disturbances in real economy and the poor suffer. I will articulate as economics teacher  on a daily basis and let kural and global crisis wait

 I am happy that Mr Modi has made my better half to understand my value in running around  and the nation will know the significance of Mr Modi….will he prove that he is a man difficult to dislike    Time alone can tell..My friend Bahu… are you listening   I am only the critical commentator by training and subject knowledge  not a blind supporter of any one including Modi   I only want him not to be hijacked by the corporate vested interests and extreme Hinduthava and behave like PM for all the states and for the people and come out of CM mindset .

Translating a Tamil Poem: tea flower

Tea Flower-A poem by Mounan in Tamil

The chembaruthi plant is over-flowing/Bristling with flowers

Those who walk devouring the captivating flowers

Experience a feeling of   tasting a cup of good tea.

Like the mouth of a child desirous of receiving kiss

The flowers in convex shape during rainy season

Look like the whitened lips of a girl,

They change colour.

At the sunset time,

When they reflect and transmit

The nature’s excessive lust (kama),

In the shrunken part of the flower,

Magaranthangal transform into liquid

-Translated by prof D Sambandhan of Pondicherry central university.

(With due thanks to Aananda vikatan dated  6 August 2015)

An exercise in translation: Loving Loneliness by Poet Pazhani bharathi

Loving Loneliness – a poem by  pazshani bharathi

In the current issue of KUmdham   Life  dt  26-10-2016.

It’s a pleasant feeling to love loneliness

As there is no one new there

Beloved people are close by your side.

In the empty cup in front of us

We shall take our smiles as fog /mist porridge

And drink it( abundantly)

We shall drink  the tears like a

Bitter alchohal

Like the outer mirror of loneliness.

we shall see our face staring it.

We shall float our  heart

As a bubble/a ripple on water.

When that is  sparkling on us

We may be there or cease to exist.

It is a pleasant sensation

To love loneliness.

Translated by prof d Sambandhan of

Pondicherry centrl university.An  

I exist because of you and vice versa

We live in an interdependent system where everything depends on everything else,In all we eat and wear the infinite labour of many is involved;noone is an island.We need to depend on others for our needs. The same is also the case with them

So  while this interdependence is obvious and apparent and all of us influence and interest each other  how come hostility, hatred and all kinds of enemity creep in  and there is a dance of violence all around

Jalaluddin said long ago: the existence mine on earth depends upon the lives of my fellow beings.I exist because of you and vice versa”

His classic saying “go beyond your own needs and merge yourself into the ocean of compassion”.

The recent Cauvery water row is a fitting testimony of the dominance of hatred over love, insanity over reason and throwing away of all the canons of ethics and principles of federalism.

Two neighboring states behave like enemy territories and the idea of India is hardly visible ;indeed the surgical operation must have been conducted to discipline the rogue neighbor  but alas  this is a country where the short sighted politicians eye only on the election prospects ignoring the long run ramifications of their action on the very survival and unity of this nation which is more of a continent size….All of us are together on the map but not at all having the spirit of  Indian and TN has suffered more for parading that spirit of  Indian and displaying a cultured behaviour 

Keynes General Theory at 80

Keynes GT at 80

A few preliminaries for beginners.

In 1930s the capitalist segment of the world economy plunged into a great depression. The stock market crash and the mass bank failures created huge unemployment, social unrest and political uncertainty. The contagion was pervasive n the US, UK and Europe.

Keynes’  General Theory of Employment ,Interest and Money was conceived in the shadows of depression and  addressed  Itself to the problem of unemployment and offered a solution. For the pre- Keynesian classical orthodoxy balanced budget was an article of faith and they would never deviate from that fiscal conservatism even when the conditions of deflation would threaten the economic structure.

Keynes in his GT,  brought about  a transformation in the outlook and attitudes of  the economist and statesmen towards economic problems. By changing the character of public finance ie by advocating the unbalanced (deficit) budget to balance the economy , he introduced a radical policy shift towards lax fiscal policy to combat depression;monetery policy becoming  ineffective in  Liquidity Trap situation,Keynes, fiscal policy began to command more professional respectability and immediate public relevance.

Summing up its relevance I think it is Paul Davidson who wrote in his, The Age Of K eynes thus:” the economics which Keynes preached in his masterwork , the 1936 General Theory  Of  Employment interest and Money, split Cambridge opinion,outraged former teachers and colleagues of the moment and set in motion  an ideological quarrel among professional economists  which lasted a decade at least.’’

“ His mind was powerful, flexible and inventive, a  trio of qualities infrequently found in  each other’s company   ….he longed to divert public officials from mistaken policy to enlightened action,:

It is something very strange but true that when Keynesianism was on the decline and monetarism emerged as a counter revolution Nixon told: we are all Keynesians now/

The decade old global economic crisis gave fresh oxygen to the economics of Keynes and I have already written a small  monograph. In the remaining period of life I will read kural and the financial crisis more and supplement with my accumulated notes crying for publication