Inflation and the growth in rodent population!

Inflation and the growth in rodent population

If you are looking for a good example to explain the phrase ‘motley group’, the best would be the subjects for which Nobel Prize is awarded each year. They are peace, literature, physics, chemistry, medicine (or physiology) and Economics to boot, though as an after thought! It is not unusual for the Nobel Prize being awarded to two or more people of highly contradicting views on the same subject as we saw in 1974 when it was awarded jointly to two eminent economists Myrdal and Hayek who were virtually at loggerheads! But then anything is possible in Economics! If you want a ringside view of the process of selection of the Nobel awardees, you must read Irving Wallace’s fabulous novel ‘The Prize’

Do you wonder why I am talking about the Nobel Prize now? If you do, let me assure you that the Nobel Prize is far from my agenda. Instead I am going to talk about economics which is what everyone is doing right now. If you want to put this statement to test, come to the rose milk shop in the East Mada Street of Mylapore on any evening and you will find half a dozen septuagenarians discussing what is hurting world economy in general and the US economy in particular. I couldn’t conceal my admiration when one of them was comparing the role of US in world economy to the evergreen song of ‘Kandan Karunai’ that if Lord Muruga laughed in Tirupparamkundram, the echo of it would be heard in Tiruchendur! He went to the extent of suggesting that since the actions of the US President always had worldwide repercussions, the voting in the US Presidential Election must be conducted all over the world. He even attributed the unprecedented rise in the price of tomatoes here to the economic depression that swept over the US!

Inflation is one aspect of economics that every one is concerned with. I received my first lecture on inflation from my maternal grand mother (b.1888 d.1972) when I was in my primary school. She used to regale us with stories of the British Raj and how the four-day lavish wedding of my mother cost them only Rs.10, 000! We always found it difficult to keep our mouths from hanging wide open when she narrated stories of how a bag of rice would cost just Rs.2 etc. Talking of the late ‘60s, she used to lament how people were buying up things whether they needed them or not which resulted in such rise in prices! If she happens to see the monthly shopping list of my grand children alone now, she would die of a heart attack again! How right was the US banker Herbert Prochnow when he said ‘It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father’!

While street smart persons like my grand mother could explain away inflation in a lingo that could be understood even by a school boy like me, the professional economists would indulge in confounding pedagogy to take even simple things away from the pale of understanding. For instance, if you ask an inebriated economist why he goes on imbibing the stuff when it is only making it difficult for him, he would say that he is researching into the law of diminishing marginal utility! All their talk about the rate of inflation coming down impressively from 9.4% to 8.3% makes no sense to us as we go on paying more and more for less and less!

The other day, I went to see an old friend of mine in Triplicane in Chennai. I was surprised to find that even he was talking of inflation! He was telling me how the cost of catching a rat with a trap has gone up from 10 paise a decade back to Rs.2 now. When I looked askance at him, he attributed the increase to the rise in the price of a masal vada from 10 paise a decade back to Rs 2 now. To those who, in turn, look askance at me now, I must tell you that the preferred bait of a Triplicane rat is a Masal vada and it will never settle for anything else. The rats simply will not touch anything other then this vada. For instance, keep a piece of bread hooked to the trap and you will find that the trap continues to remain open for days but if you keep the masal vada as bait, you can hear the thud of the trap shutting close within 30 minutes with a huge rat sitting inside and nibbling blissfully away at the vada. With that explanation, you can understand how the rise in the price of vada aids the growth of rodent population which in turn affects the food grain storage.

I prefer learning all about inflation in this way rather than from the scholarly articles of eminent economists. Because they never know what they are talking about and to make it worse, they make it appear as though it is our fault!

 

My dear Mol
More than your prompt FB, your ability to look at the American economy and its worldwide implications as seriously as I do makes me happy indeed!
I think that your economic sense is a direct result of consuming all those dead tomatoes supplied by your 'humrikanised' bhajjiwala!

I dread to imagine the cherubic faces putting on a careworn look. It can be as nerve wrecking an experience as seeing Mamta Banerjee in faded jeans! But then the stout-hearted that we are, we can survive this and more! I have a close Doctor friend who gets worried sick when there are too many patients around because that increases the possibility of more hypochondriacs waiting to tell him all about their imaginary diseases!

I can understand why your friend has stopped hunting for a bride in these days of recession. It is probably due to a perceived apprehension that recession affects the heart's capacity to feel love!

A lot of people expect Obama, the magician, to cause the dollar rub shoulders with the Euro. But wherever the dollar lands, our mindset of calculating the salaries received in US in terms of Indian rupees and feeling very satisfied about our status will continue!
Sri

 

Dear Aishu
My mum always says that the maid who keeps asking for a rise is the one to keep at any cost. According to her, the people who ask for a rise will be clean and honest and we may not have to worry about any pilfering by them.Maids who meet the pressures of inflation by pestering us for a rise are any day preferable to maids who meet the inflation through their nimble fingers!

I understand that the TV stars led by Devayani are planning a hunger strike against NDTV Profit and the like protesting against their day long telecasts of the depression sweeping across the globe. They contend that these channels must refrain from telecasting news about the American recession and stock market collapses when their serials are on air!

Idhu eppidi irukku?
Sri

 

Dear Shanthi
Just as I was typing my reply to you a couple of days back, I lost my internet connectivity and got it back only an hour back!

All our politicians, not excluding the Harvard product P Chidambaram, are like Adolf Hitler's propaganda man Joseph Goebbels. Their job is made easier by the fact that a majority of our voting politician is illiterate. They will say that the inflation has finally been harnessed and brought under control at a time when even window shopping will cost us money. Many families now feed on only the proverbial 'ettu suraikkai'!

I totally agree with the beggars' reluctance to accept Re1/- and the only way to tackle this problem is to give that Re.1/- with a list of things that can be bought with it. If we can make that list, it will help the beggars but if we can't think of anything to put in that list, we would be compelled to increase it to Rs2 or more. Either way, the beggar will benefit!

An in-house economist is a great thing indeed. Being non-committal and evasive, they are not likely to complain even if things went against their liking! Like the guy when he was asked if the French Revolution caused an economic depression in the 18th Century, he replied that it was too early to comment!
Sri

 

Dear Mindi
It is interesting to observe how inflation affects everyone though differently according to his status. While the people in Triplicane may complain how the catching of rats with a Masal Vada has become awfully unaffordable which in turn has given them, the rats, a fresh lease of life, in another society the abnormal increase in the prices of perfumes might be forcing the people doing something that they hate most viz. taking bath daily.

By the way, do you know that 'Tirupparamkundrathi nee sirithal' was the only song in Kandan Karunai set to music by the late Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, the rest being by KV Mahadevan?
Sri