Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Jun 13, 2008	Honest about Inflation
Unlike his Sri Lankan counterpart (who, in his defence doesn't have a clue about these things) the finance minister of Pakistan, Sayed Naveed Qamar, has admited that government is responsible for inflation in that country, which stands about an "all time high" of 11% (Sri Lankan inflation is at...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Jun 11, 2008	Ajay Shah on Sri Lanka's inflation
A few days ago Ajay Shah, whom I refer to a lot on this blog had yet another excellent piece on inflation . I asked him on his blog, what he thought of the Sri Lankan situation with inflation and repeated claims by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka they are not responsible for it. Inflation hovers...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  May 24, 2008	Making sense on Inflation
Ajay Shah points me to this article on this economist article on Inflation on emerging economies, arguing it bare resembles to the great inflation of developed countries in the 1970s. With inflation of about 25% in Sri Lanka and with the Central Bank more or less claiming that inflation...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  May 18, 2008	Does this sound Familar?
1.15 As Monetary Authorities, we have been humbled and have taken heart in the realization that some leading Central Banks, including those in the USA and the UK, are now not just talking of, but also actually implementing flexible and pragmatic central bank support programmes where these are...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Apr 30, 2008	What's Up With Food?
As you probably know, the world's food prices are soaring. So far I've come across two basic explanations which I find reasonable for the hike in food and commodity prices. Increased demand, constraint supply. This one is straight from your basic Econ 101 textbook. The increase in...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Apr 19, 2008	Inflation for Dummies.Take 2
Mises Institute blog recently had an interesting piece by Henry Hazlitt on "everything you need to know about inflation". Here's a key excerpt: The word "inflation" originally applied solely to the quantity of money. It meant that the volume of money was inflated, blown up, overextended. It...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Apr 8, 2008	Starving Billionaires
( Starving Billionaires in Zimbabwe ) With the rate of inflation at 100,000% that's the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Recently, the Zimbabwean reserve bank put out a $50 Million currency note . I wonder if the Zimbabwean central bankers are pushing "cost-push" theories like their...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Mar 29, 2008	Inflation for Dummies
The theory of oil-induced inflation For the Background of this post, do read my last one. This post is a result of the many frustrating times I spent listening government politicians, the media, and most other people attributing the causes of inflation to increasing of prices in the world...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Mar 25, 2008	My Socialist Experiment
When I was growing up, this idea that 'our country was poor' puzzled me. How can we be poor I thought, the government print the money don't they? So how can they have all the money and still be poor? After days of thinking over this, I came to the conclusion that perhaps printing money costs,...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Feb 24, 2008	Raponomics
Greg Mankiw's 10 principles of economics, The Rap Version : What can I say, just Awesome. I don't know about #7, but WTF. For anyone feeling really bored, here's the original version: People face tradeoffs The cost of something is what you give up to get it Rational people think at the...... [view]

Posted By:  deane034 Posted On:  Feb 19, 2008	Inflation and Booze
This is what a Sri Lankan Government official had to say about not including alcohol and tobacco from the new consumer price index: Sri Lanka's statistics officials said alcohol and tobacco had been dropped from the index because of a government policy against the use of intoxicants known as...... [view]