Me, An Economist speaks...

Here come the exams.

The nights without sleep and the claustrophobic library. The smell of kerosene on the Xeroxes and that of sweat in the heat. As if, it wasn’t enough already.

Or else, why would I want to know how much cheese would Country ‘A’ produce to have an Absolute Advantage (???) over another Country ‘B’. Assuming there are only 2 countries in the world? Why? Isnt it a fact that there are more than 220 countries? So why consider only 2? And why talk about cheese and chalk (or wine or whisky or vodka for that matter), when we could talk about so many other things? Are we Swiss? And then to make matters worse, we have a diagram depicting the same. There is a straight line that cuts the y-axis at so-n-so point and the x-axis at another one. So? How does it matter? How would it have mattered had it not cut at that precise point and some where else on this earth? And then come another half a dozen assumptions. And some more equations. A couple of properly preened graphs that remind you of nothing but….but…..nothing, just plain pain and boredom. And we got to write all this in our exam paper. 3 hours of bullshitting, gassing, faffing, chaffing, laughing, crying, ducking, hooking, weaving…and all those verbs that u can think n put down. Why?

Because, they call this International Economics. They also call this MBA. I call this Absolute Disadvantage. I also call this a two year unpaid leave from office, with Opportunity Costs = SD2 – T + NMF, where
SD2 = the salary I would have drawn for the two years
T = the taxes I pay to the Govt.
NMF = the College Fee.

And you know what’s worse, I am talking like one of ‘em.