Officially retired

Finally managed to 'officially retire' at 36. Hope it lasts. Lots of free time now. Becomes boring if activities are not planned. Have taken to reading fiction lately ( Da vinci code - Borrowed in the afternoon, finished by night , just like the college days !). Just started on King Rat. Promises to be a riveting read.

Here are a few topics I want to start writing about. Hopefully can compile them into a C.S. Lewis type essay collection later.

1. The queue and the market forces
2. The borderless terms ( life, human, city etc)
3. Improving Saravana Stores checkout
4.


1. Thoughts on the queue at Mambalam Railway station.
A queue is a mini marketplace in action. The invisible hand of the amrket ensures that the lengths of the queues are almost the same. Any external regulator would be a nuisance and would spoil the neat elegance of the system.

Let us assume the Railway does appoint a 'queue overseer' who is incharge of alloting people to queues. So when you walk into the booking area, you cannot stand in any queue, but have to wait to be shown your 'proper' queue. How complicated the system has become ! Suddenly two sets of queues have sprung up. First you queue to be alloted your line. Then you queue up for booking.

Even such simple attempts at improving the market forces can cause chaos. So it is no wonder all the government's attempts to interfere with the market forces caused chaos. Right from 'fixing' the purchase price of sugarcane/tea to 'stabilising' the rupee, all attempts of the Government to regulate the elegant market have created more problems that they tried to solve.

I tend to believe the only duty of the Government is to ensure the market forces operate without checks. And everytime the Govt steps in, with a well intentioned plan, all of us lose in some way.

I never cease to wonder that the Koyambedu market, filled with mostly illeterate vendors, has such an excellent price fixing mechanism for the whole gamut of vegetables, fruits and hundreds of other items. They do not vary much from vendor to vendor. There is no centralised bulletin which fixes the price and circulates it among all. There is no enforcing mechanism to ensure all vendors sell at the same price. Yet the price remains largely constant across vendors. It might be interesting to study the lead time it takes for the price information to filter down the market. For example, if 40 truckloads of tomatoes come in instead of the usual 10, how long does it take before the tomato prices fall ?

It is elegant, cheap, does not rqequire manpower and intimately involves those who have the greatest stake in the system. So why does the Government want to meddle with it ?