Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

I would like to wish Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri
Maaf Zahir Batin

Oil price drop 10sen

Yes, let's rejoice!.

I watched the "60 minutes Bersama Menteri" in RTM, listening Dato' Shahrir Samad explanation with great detail on how he came up with the price drop.

This is a great news. Don't complaint too much on why not dropping more (for now, I mean). Price drop is better than nothing. The economy is going towards recession anyway.

Inflation due to oil price is due to speculation (I want to say, this is an artificial inflation). In a true sense, we're going towards recession.

As a direct impact, I've started carpooling with friends and take more public transport. You should do that too.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

I spent my whole entire weekend finishing up reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb .

I must say that it is a carefully researched piece. The author (Richard Rhodes) paying attention to such details that make the reading very pleasant and visual reconstruction of the scene clearer.

Note that I didn't understand almost 3/4 of the physics explained (I didn't take many physics courses). But a lot of new things such as Uranium enrichment, fission, nuclear reactor, cyclotron, calutron, racetracks, plutonium etc make me wonder just how much I appreciate nuclear physics.

The atomic bomb dilemma is thus, the advancement of nuclear physics was causing the dropping of two atomic bombs that ended World Word 2. On the one hand, the atomic bomb ends the war, on the other hand, it opens up a new era of possible mass destruction of human being, far beyond what our forefathers have witnessed.

I sincerely hope that there will be no more nuclear arm race, and the world will stay safe as it is now.

C++ joke

I was browsing emails from one of the mailing lists I subscribed, and I found someone pointed to this hilarious website about a supposedly fake interview with the C++ creator Stroustrup (yes, I have his book on my desk):
C++: Is it really a Cruel Joke?

It's surely meant to be a joke, unless you want to take it seriously.

Stuckflation

Do you actually believe in "Stagflation" as a natural phenomena in economics?
Or do you think we really can create "stagflation" on a whim?

Here's what I believe - stagflation _mainly_ occurs when there's a concerted effort on price control/manipulation on a particular economy. When there's a global oil crisis, mainly controlled/manipulated at higher level of a common people, we see that price goes up and there's no choice.

And when would the stagflation occurs? Stagflation most likely occurs when the price was uncontrolled (such as oil price, but not necessarily the only one) that sparks "cost-push" inflation at the time when we are heading towards recession. Think of cost-push inflation as the sudden rise in ordinary goods without any extra-ordinary increase in demand. Oil is a good example, because somebody can just say that oil is short.

The result would be stagflation. When everyone "stuck" to pay bills and to run errands, I invented a new terms - "stuckflation". (maybe some one else's already did, but I really came up with this myself).

Stagflation can be avoided with careful response with price changes. As we all aware, economics is mainly about price stability. Carefully monitoring the price of basket of goods, and quickly responses to it via monetary policies can save a lot of money.

Of course, this has almost no practical usage for ordinary person like me and you, but it helps to understand when do we need to spend money/buy on what, and when it's better to save for later.

But when you're stuck - do nothing.

Ramadhan

Saya ingin mengucapkan Selamat Berpuasa dan Selamat Menyambut Bulan Ramadhan yang mulia kepada semua Muslimin dan Muslimat.

Belanjalah berpada-pada di Pasar Ramadhan (saya tahu banyak makanan yang best).