What Would Happen if Marijuana Were Decriminalized? A Freakonomics Quorum

Read the blog here:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/pot-quorum/

The question is not relevant to Indian society but the fundamentals are same.

We have been fighting battles to win over deceases such as TB and cancers (oral and lung). I fail to understand the economics behind harvesting tobacco. Today I saw a notice in ToI about warnings on packs of tobacco products. It is pretty graphic for smoking products but appeared pretty benign for chewable products.

Will they deter our youngsters to not indulge in - remains to be seen. I think the negative externality of its social impact is not reflected in price of tobacco products. It should be internalized and passed on at the grass root (farmer) level. Giving subsidies to farmers (free electricity, water, even fertilizer) will not allow the externality to be internalized even with tax on final product. Also, while cigarette appears to heavily taxed, other products such as chewable tobacco are not.

IPL-MC

While watching the IPL final a few hours back, I decided to choose IPL as my topic for Managerial Communication submission. Here is why:
"Mukesh Ambani is not throwing money into cricket because he loves the game; it is hardcore business for him." Sources say that Reliance applied its normal business filters on the IPL franchise too. As a policy, the group does not get into any new business unless it has the potential to generate a return on capital employed of over 35% in the medium term. Sources say that Reliance is convinced that its Mumbai franchise can exceed this target.

Read the related stories.
http://www.blonnet.com/catalyst/2008/02/21/stories/2008022150020100.htm
http://business.outlookindia.com/inner.aspx?articleid=1036&subcatgid=501&editionid=31&catgid=9

Not that there is anything new in what I read, even the articles are more than a year old, what attracted my attention was the way Modi handled the challenge of elections. First the IPL itself and then holding it in SA!

Snakes, HBW and Sensex

Yesterday while cleaning the house, Aparna spotted a baby snake of unknown origins. She managed to remain calm and waited till the creature left the house on its own.
The Pygmalion effect seems to be at work: we were talking about them and now snakes seem to be everywhere. I just saw one on my way to library.

Sensex seems to be inspired by the sudden jump in snake population in IIMC.
[“ Correlation may not cause causation, but I find that they often occur together.”]
It jumped so high, that the market had to be closed. What a way to get a holiday for BSE and NSE staff!

Time to get back to HBW for that is the exam I have to write tomorrow. Tomorrow I will calculate the probability of snake appearing again in my kitchen - the distribution function appears abnormal with mean at 500 and variance approaching infinity.