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Showing posts from 2010

Towards Village

Going Home....... and that after being more than a year away is really sensational. Going to Chitral is best when it is summer but autumns has got its own colors too. Here is a collection through which I have tried capture that beauty. These pics have been taken on way onward from chitral. Many more to come.

Childhood Buddies

It seems a while we are grown up now. Even more the guy on the right is married. Time flies away. It used to be time when we only came to home for having a meal otherwise it was not unusual even not to left each other even sleeping. However the harsh reality of life is that now it takes years only for a brief chat with your boyhood friends. I had not met him for two years. Some years back even a day would have been hard to pass sans them.

Quotes about Economics

W ell! Fed up with the boring Economics?? Let us see what others have to say about this strange field of study. I f all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.  George Bernard Shaw E conomics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.  John Kenneth Galbraith An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.  Laurence J. Peter A n economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.  Alfred A. Knopf An economist is a man who knows a hundred ways of making love but doesn’t know any women.  Art Buchwald F or those of you who don't understand Reaganomics, it's based on the principle that the rich and the poor will get the same amount of ice. In Reaganomics, however, the poor get all of theirs in winter.   Morris Udall B lessed are the young, for they will inherit the national debt. More funny Herbert Hoover quotes If God had mean

Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2010.

I didn't really knew until latter on about the Economic Nobel Prize. Well there was so controversy about the Peace nobel prize that all other went to oblivion. Just a reminder the this year nobel prize in Economic Sciences (a pleasant name) was shared by three persons. Those of my elders are: Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides. T hey have to settle on sharing an amount between them which a chinese man in prison got alone. Well side stepping the prize, we can talk in a bit detail about these people,, 1. Peter Diamond            US citizen, born 1940 and got PHD in 1963,, hmmmmm he might have started going to school while still on feeder,,, anywayz perhaps in those times it was that easy. 2. Dale Mortensen:            Born in 1939 this guy was a bit late as compared to the first gentleman as he got his one in 1967 (may be he was a bit dull in studies). 3. Christopher A Pissarides           Can you believe this guy is from cyprus but in the process of brain drain

Contribution of Muslim Scientists

If anyone of u remember those bio etc book of Matric in which we had to memorize all those nonsense contribution of Muslims to Science etc. I am going through those again. It is interesting to see the unspecializaton of all those macho men who it seems were jack of all trade but master of none. A person it is written had command over Medicine surgery, Physics and not to mention math which it seems was the most loving subject in those day ( strange). Many books were written and hundreds of cure were discovered by these ingenious for every single disease like optics etc. Whatever they did a headache for me are those arabic name which are unusually longer and really hard to cram in. Whatever wish me best of luck ;p

Frictional Unemployment

Tough times are those in which you search for any jobs days after days. Endless browsing through the job sites and becoming a regular reader of the daily newspapers (mostly the ads) yet endeavor is yet to see its end. You don't know where all those of your CVs are going and why you are not being called for a test? All these happens because in Economics we read that there is Frictional unemployment in the economy. Going through these lines I feel strongly that one of the victim or contributor to this Frictional unemployment is me :(

Earth Quake in Islamabad

I had just gone to sleep with an aching stomach and was not yet fully slept when a power jolt shaked all the underconstruction building on 1st floor of which we have got a room. All the previous day I was out in Islamabad and Pindi and had came after evening was well in. Here the night was not good as i was feeling immense pain in my stomach which is still quite there now. After the quake subsided i was unble to go to sleep and remained vigilant for any aftershocks through out the night. The quake was unusully powerful and I felt really worried. I felt it was more powerful than the 2005 one when I was in Peshawar. However no loss of life or any other damage is reported.

PHD in Economics

Not many universities offer PHD program in Economics in Pakistan. And of those offered only a few can be said to produce quality PHDs. So the other choice remains is to go for study in Abroad. But it not comes at free. There are requirement of GRE and Toefl which are a hard to do job for a Pakistani student. Here are few advice for the aspiring Economists. A lot has been said & done already. Study for your GREs because they're very important -- get multiple computer practice exams. Take courses & obtain research experience that you think will prepare you well for grad school. This might include graduate economics classes, or finding some offbeat & compelling research topic for an undergrad paper. Or maybe just trying to fill some deficiencies in your mathematics training (like, e.g., if you haven't taken multivariable calc & linear algebra). I think the econ courses are better preparation than are the more sophisticated math courses, but probability & math

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

I have always been confused by this term. My teacher in International Economics in QAU would used derive it through some formulas which we will instantly memorize for the forthcoming Sessional Exams but really did not get what purchasing power parity means?? There were example in our book about the hair dress in US an in other part of world. The basic concept of PPP is that a currency normal exchange rate may not depict its original purchasing power. For example a hair dress in Pakistan costs say 85 Rs. It means it should be one dollar in USA. But it is not. There say it is in 5 dollars. So what the exchange rate is based on this? It is 16 PKR/USD. Thus in PPP the PKR value is much higher. So a basic concept of PPP is that the goods and services determine real exchange rate. An interesting PPP index is developed by the Economist which is called Big Mac Index, named after a famous product of an international fast food chain. It compares the prices of Big Mac in different countries of th

Real Estate and Islamabad

After hectic search,, lot of mental and physical exertion at last i got hold of a room with two other roommates. Real Estate is a booming sector of economy currently in federal capital and getting accommodation here is a hard fetched phenomena. With the influx of people from outside for jobs, educations and other opportunities in the federal capital, the housing prices are way out of the reach of ordinary people. So the suburbans like Rawalpindi, Barakahu etc bear the influx of immigrant to the federal capital. Here also most of the problems occur when you are a bachelor i.e u do not have a family with you. Same is the case with us. No landlord is going to give your room on rent unless he knows you someway otherwise outrightly rejects. There are hostels for students in the city but they have compulsory messing and other facilities which you don't really are able to enjoy but you have to pay if you are using them or not. So it is not possible for you to revert back to a hostel for

Paul Coelho's Alchemist

It was fascinating. It en-thrilled me through out and I went through it the same day I started it. I had downloaded it some days backe in the university and it was lying in my flash drive. Today the power to my room was cut off and I had ran out of charge in my cell so teethering was not possible. So just for a moment I started reading the Alchemist (in pdf) from my notebook. As I started and read a few pages I lost into it. It was only after my notebook went out of charge that I came back to senses. Promptly I went to mend the wires to restore electricity supply and after connecting the notebook I read the book till the end. Towards the end I accept to be in a hurry as I wanted to know how the end was but I was able extract some best line out: here those are: “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” “When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he firs