Allow me to introduce my latest crony – the esteemed Professor Ultashastri from the Department of Economic Mismanagement at the University of Mangoville. Before Professor took charge, the department was infested with fools who promised economic management but their policies led to disaster, one by one, with each policy resulting in the exact opposite of the intended results. Henceforth we will endeavour to actively mismanage the economy so that we get better results. It is a contrarian philosophy but hey, we have to think out of the box in these difficult times.
However today Professor Ultashastri will not be talking about policies. This is just an ice breaking session where he will answer some questions from the audience. No personal attacks and no questions about your romantic life please. If you want to launch personal attacks on me or any member of the government, please do so in the PrisonLifeForDummies App and if you want advice on relationships, please tag Kakoli the Cat. Patience is advised as she is still learning how to use Twitter.
Shastri ji, please explain Recession in simple terms. My boss keeps saying that a recession is looming and therefore we will not be given any bonus or increment. I have been hearing this for the last 7 years
Your boss seems to be an intelligent person. It is possible that he studied economics in my class. Recession is the default state of the world economy, interrupted by brief periods of growth, even though investment advisors would like you to believe the opposite. The only way to deal with this is that you offer the same excuse to your team. They will threaten to quit en masse, and you can use this threat to counter your Boss that a recession cannot be looming if so many people feel confident of either finding another job, or waiting it out. In case your team actually quits, you can ask your boss to transfer some of the salary savings to you. Don’t bet on it though.
We are so poor. Why can’t Supreme Leader simply print money and give it to us?
Supreme Leader believes that if you are taught to fish, you will eat for the rest of your life. Whereas if you are just given a fish, you will frame it and keep it in the living room, raising a stink and making life difficult for everyone around you. On a more serious note, if you were to be given free money, you will go on a shopping spree and unless we can produce unlimited goods, there will be a shortage, causing inflation. Then you will again complain that poor people are being hit by inflation and will want to overthrow the Supreme Leader. Why will he inflict this misery upon himself, when in any case you are not voting for him?
I keep hearing that Mangoville is heading towards Stagflation. What is it and should we be worried?
A reduction in the size of Dominos pizza, while keeping price constant. Ok, that was an ulta explanation but then my name is Ultashastri and the explanation still holds true. In simple terms, if your salary is not increasing, but your boss keeps giving you more and more work, should you be worried? If your appetite is increasing, but your dietician says that you need to eat less and less or you will die, should you be worried? In short, if all good things are stagnating, and all bad things are increasing, you should be worried Donkey Singh
Sir, people say that prices are determined by demand and supply. My neighbour is trying to sell his apartment since 6 years but not able to, and is still increasing prices every year. Please explain this puzzling situation.
There is no puzzling situation idiot. Your neighbour is greedy and clearly in no dire need of money. All principles of economics fail under such a scenario. She/He is simply waiting for another idiot to fall into their net and buy an apartment which they don’t need at a price that shouldn’t be paid to a person who already has a lot of money. You want to know what a paradox is? I keep buying shares all the time and the price keeps falling, so I keep buying more to improve my average and it keeps falling. I would think that my demand has some impact on improving the price, but it doesn’t.
My husband keeps telling me that money lying idle is no good because it has an opportunity cost. He keeps looking all over the house to find where I have hidden the money so that he can use it for gambling. Last week he tore down the bathroom wall and now we have a leakage problem. Thankfully I had hidden it in the flush tank. What is this opportunity cost?
Theoretically gambling could be better than just sitting over money, but your husband clearly seems to be an idiot and I wouldn’t trust his judgement. When you married that idiot, you gave up the opportunity to marry another person. You obviously took whatever decision you did because you are also an idiot and you thought that living life with another idiot is better than living alone as an idiot or marrying an intelligent person and being treated like an idiot.
Even though my salary keeps going down, I keep eating 2 Biryanis every day. Does it means that Biryani has ‘inelastic demand’ ?
I don’t know about the demand elasticity of Biryani in general, but your trousers must be very elastic that they can accommodate 2 biryanis every day. To be specific, elasticity is measured in 2 ways – with respect to income (like in your case) and with respect to price. What would you do if the price of Biryani went up? Would you eat less or continue to eat 2 every day? If you continue to eat 2 every day, it means that the Biryani is very good, or that you don’t care. In either case, please DM me the brand that you prefer, I would like to invest in that company.
Sir, my investment advisor says that markets are efficient and arbitrage is not possible. She says that I cannot buy fried chicken in my village where it is cheap and sell it in my housing society where it is more expensive because soon everyone will start doing it and it will become expensive in my village and cheaper in the society.
Mangoville seems infested with idiots like you and your advisor these days. Do both of you really think that everyone in your housing society is interested in selling fried chicken to each other? How much fried chicken does the world need to consume? If you think the difference in price is substantial, and there is enough demand, please do it. In case it hasn’t struck your low IQ brain, there will be transaction costs like transport, storage and wastage etc. If you are engaging Rickshaw Rowdy for the transport, please account for pilferage too. Not to mention that he will substitute the fried chicken he ate with stuffed chicken he stole from Mangoville Museum, resulting in overall poor customer experience. Not worth the hassle in my humble opinion.
Sir, Supreme Leader is threatening that he will increase interest rates because inflation is galloping. This will only make my personal loan costlier and instead of mortgaging just one kidney to buy Iphone 14 Pro Max, I will now have to mortgage one kidney plus appendix. This sounds counterintuitive to me.
How old are you? Did you not study in biology class that your appendix is useless and will not serve as a collateral for Iphone purchase. In fact removing your appendix is an additional cost, so you better have health insurance if you are thinking along those lines. Coming back to your question, no it is not counterintuitive. It is idiots like you who are constantly borrowing and spending and driving prices up for everyone. Just cut the crap already. Secondly, if interest rates are higher, sensible people will invest money instead of buying Iphones. In fact Supreme Leader is thinking at another level. He wants to raise interest rates to the level where people stop eating, brushing their teeth and taking bath to save money and invest it instead. Then industry will collapse and Supreme Leader will bail them out with your savings, paving the way for nationalisation of the economy. May his dream come true so that I can become the Finance Minister of Mangoville.
Sir, what is this fiscal deficit that I keep hearing of. Now my wife has also started using the term for our home finances all the time. She is threatening to ‘disinvest assets’ if we cannot meet our targets. I am afraid I will be sold off as a slave. Please educate me so that I can avoid this unfortunate situation.
You are lucky if your wife considers you an asset that can be monetised, even if as a slave. My wife thinks I am a liability and is willing to pay to get rid of me. Fiscal deficit is a very simple problem that can be taken care of by increasing taxes. Look at Bhooka Singh above who keeps eating Biryani regardless of his income or price of Biryani. I can always tax Biryani at 100% and he will continue eating. In your domestic situation I suggest the same. Ask your children to pay taxes on the food that you provide and school fees that you pay through your nose. For more information on how to make your children productive members of society, please visit the recruitment page of notorious gangster Nefarious Narry. Their fatality rate is quite high and they are always looking for replacements.