Basically Blah

From the BBC article "Who knows why oil prices are high"

So what is it that moves oil prices up and down?
"It's the fundamentals, stupid," says Mark Lewis from Energy Market Consultants.
The fundamentals are factors that influence the supply of, and demand for, oil.

"We really don't know what the fundamentals are doing at any point in time," Mr Lewis says.
"The markets are looking for signals from the fundamentals. Some of them are irrelevant, some of them are wrong, some of them are meaningless, but they affect prices nevertheless."

Believe me this two paragraphs are from the same article which finally says no body has any clue why the oil-prices have gone high. Another case of a confidently confused analyst. Wish I got a job like Mr. Lewis that pays me for uttering gibberish.

Olympia : Gods' Abode

Oly beef steak --- Just ask any true-blue Kolkatan about it and if he/she doesn't get misty eyed with nostalgia there's definitely a problem with that bugger's lineage.

Did you know Ritwik Ghatak had his last drink with Uttam Kumar in this pub discussing about their next film. Ghatak had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital where he took his last breath. There are so many such stories associated with the stalwarts of Bong-heartland and this pub. I wish someone comes up with a book on the known and unknown stories of this legendary pub on the Park Street.

Long live Oly pub and its steaks -- HIC

[ pic courtesy : Oly pub group on Facebook ]

It's all becoz of the software bug

If you've seen the movie Office Space, you must remember the priceless expression on the faces of the 3 software programmers, when they found out that their money swindling virus that was supposed to deduct a few pennies only, has amassed a whooping $305,326.13 only a day after it was introduced. And this was followed by the declaration from Micheal Bolton with a dead-pan humor that it must've been a bug in the code that he overlooked.

Phew...sometimes real life follows the reel life!!!

The estimated 500+ billion dollar losses in sub-prime will now be attributed to a software glitch that apparently caused wrong AAA+ ratings for these stinky investments.

Somewhere in some corner of this zaleem IT world, entrapped in a cubicle, a computer programmer is scanning through lines and lines of if-else loops and is sweating a lot. Don't worry bro, pretty soon to save their own skin and regain the investor's faith in this "your guess is as good or as bad as mine" type silly economics, they'll implement another mandatory auditing like SOX or BASEL2.

So wipe those beads of sweat and hang on there.... you'll be back in action in no time adding more else-s to the ifs.

The Outsider

The Outsider has always been my favourite novel. My admiration started in the early pages where the main character Meursault informs his boss about his mother's death and adds "I am sorry", before realising he needn't have said that. Since opposite attracts, that was the moment the hypocrite in me feel in love with the urtmost honest Meursault -- an outsider to anything and everything surrounding him.

As they say, life really moves in circles. Last Friday morning I got a SMS from a colleague saying that he has to fly back home as his dad has passed away and he sincerely apologizes for any inconviniences caused. In my ideal deja-vu WTF moment I realised we all have become the Outsider from our own surroundings. And then I typed in "Take care...sorry to hear abt ur father.."

Sub-prime Crisis and Silence of the Liberal Bloggers

Around U.S. $200 billions went down the drains.

Around U.S. $135 billions were written off by taking loans from Mid East and China.

Around 10 biggies in Wallstreet laid off their CEOs or if the CEO was spared then who-ever he/she found to take the blame.

And all because of this ?

We can be either sprititual and blame that human greed is the cause all the woes.
Or try be pragmatic and pin-point that the major cause was the lack of regulations.

The proponents of free market solutions to anything and everything from child-education to saving extinct species - the leading liberal bloggers of desi blogosphere are suspisiously silent on the issue.

But knowing their shortsightedness [1] it's neither suprising nor amusing.

[1] Almost all the subprime SIVs had AAA ratings by all leading rating agencies. How do you apply caveat emptor in these situations.