Month: March 2014

Notes on GDP, money and wealth

Considering how ubiquitous talk about GDP and growth rates is, it is noteworthy that as a concept it is of fairly recent vintage. The idea of having a measure of the “income” of a country was invented by the American economist Simon Kuznets for use in a US Congressional report in 1934. The “product” part of gross domestic product refers to the production of goods and services. It is an aggregate measure — and hence a macroeconomic measure. It is a measure of the total amount of goods and services that an economy produces. Full disclosure: I am not a macroeconomist and find the subject painfully boring. But here I am only discussing the limited idea of GDP.
Continue reading “Notes on GDP, money and wealth”

Happy Holi

Wishing you all an enjoyable Holi. Like all Hindu festivals, this one has multiple meanings. I cannot vouch for the accuracy but this site has some information on what Holi is about. Here’s a video of a Holi celebrations in 2012 in Utah. The creators of this video, The Good Line, say, “This was filmed in Spanish Fork, Utah (of all places). The Hari Krishna temple holds this festival every March. It has grown into the largest Holi celebration in the western hemisphere. Everybody is more than welcome to come!” (Vimeo.) The videography is spectacular.

Beware the Ides of March

The Dalai Lama is a rare celebrity I admire. “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama”:

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

And now the traditional “Beware the Ides of March” post — thanks to $0.02 for the reminder:

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1