Archive for February, 2012

Saint Santorum needed Michigan, But he couldn’t get enough Republicans, “Damn it Mitt,” said the senator, “I’m going with the Democrat electors.”

Oh forlorn college days, of frustrating algorithm on silly Matlab, Did the hard work really pay? Bloomberg does it with a keyboard tab.

The anti-Lynas camp organized a public forum at the Malaysian Parliament some time ago last year. There was a panel of several men and women highlighting the cost of allowing Lynas to operate its rare earth metals refinery plant in Pahang. An expert took his turn to speak. He patiently explained the inverse-square law in [...]

Liberal Malaysians in general are happy to stress on the wisdom of the crowd. In a context where the government holds a condescending attitude towards the public and in times when information spreads faster before the government can act, it is an appealing point to subscribe to. Travel around and try to talk politics among [...]

This has to be a case of taking a dim view of justice, where the judgment is too stuck in technicality. The notorious Anson Wong was freed by the Appeal Court. The judges reasoned that the earlier harsh judgment of 5 years worth of imprisonment did not take into account Wong’s guilty plead, the fact [...]

[2503] A picture on Thaipusam

The Malaysian GDP figures for the 4th quarter came out today, with the full year growth being slightly above 5%. Judging by the components of the GDP and their respective growth, I find the growth rate of 5% to be too convenient for the government, which projected the 2011 economy to grow between 5% and [...]

[2501] Happy Valentine’s day

Via Greg Mankiw, from Elisabeth Fosslien. p/s — Oh, Dr. Goose rounds up the econosphere’s Twitterverse: Who says there’s no romance in monetary stimulus? Those outside of the Twitter econosphere may not know that the network was recently swept by a wave of #FedValentines, as the trend was hashtagged. It began with Penn economist Justin [...]

Here is a microeconomic contract theory puzzle with the incentives do not quite line up perfectly. According to the Financial Daily today, the MRT project delivery partner (a joint venture between MMC Corp and Gamuda) will be punished by the project owner if the cost of the project exceeds 15% of some base. Any cost [...]

Does anybody know why whenever there is a discussion on foreign exchange reserve, it is typically measured in terms of imports and external debt financing? I took these metrics for granted in the past. They seem intuitive at first. It provides a humanizing reference to what can be meaningless large numbers. But they lose their [...]

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