Author: Damian Merciar

Damian Merciar is Managing Director of Merciar Business Consulting, http://www.merciar.com, a niche business economics consultancy founded in 1998. He has over twenty years experience in the areas of commercial Business Strategy. He is experienced in the transition environments of nationalized to private sector state utilities and the senior practice of commercial management, advisorial consultancy, and implementation. He has carried out policy advisory work for government ministries and been an adviser to institutional bodies proposing changes to government. He holds an MSc Economics from the University of Surrey’s leading Economics department and an MBA from the University of Kent. Also attending the leading University in the Middle East, studying International Relations and Language, for which he won a competitive international scholarship, and has a BA (Hons) in Economic History and Political Economy from the University of Portsmouth. He is currently based in London.

Misunderstanding (Totally!) Competitive Currency Devaluations

David Glasner's avatarUneasy Money

Before becoming Governor of the Resesrve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan professor was Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Business School. Winner of the Fischer Black Prize in 2003, he is the author numerous articles in leading academic journals in economics and finance, and co-author (with Luigi Zingales) of a well-regarded book Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists that had some valuable insights about financial-market dysfunction. He is obviously no slouch.

Unfortunately, based on recent reports, Goverenor Rajan is, despite his impressive resume and academic credentials, as Marcus Nunes pointed out on his blog, totally clueless about the role of monetary policy and the art of central banking in combating depressions. Here is the evidence provided by none other than the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper whose editorial page espouses roughly the same view as Rajan, summarizing Rajan’s remarks.

Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan warned Wednesday…

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AS IF STILL BURNING

A date many of us will have forgotten:

Kenan Malik's avatarPandaemonium

hiroshima before    hiroshima after

This week marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War. Today marks  the anniversary of an even more grotesque event – the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Three days later the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. These remain the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare.

Some 12 km² of Hiroshima were destroyed, as were around 69% of the city’s buildings. The images above, which were taken by the US military on the day, show Hiroshima before and after the bombing. Some 66,000 people are thought to have died in Hiroshima on the day; probably a similar number again died over the next four months as a result of their injuries or from radiation sickness. So fierce was the heat that people were vaporised but their shadows left upon the walls.

In the years since the…

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On Being Evacuated: It’s every volunteer’s worst nightmare.

saralaskowski's avatarSara in Peace Corps Guinea

Today volunteers in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia received the information that we will be sent home for an undetermined amount of time as a cautionary move against the rising risk of Ebola.

Electron micrograph image of the Ebola virus. Electron micrograph image of the Ebola virus.

Friends and family back home are overjoyed at the news, but volunteers in-country are stumbling around in a state of shock. Projects that have taken months of sweet-talking the authorities, grueling grant applications, planning every step of the way have to be left now – postponed indefinitely. Bags must be packed. Close of Service dates for volunteers preparing to leave will be moved up. Pre-service training has been stopped dead in its tracks for the recently arrived group of volunteers. Somehow, we must all find the words to explain to our friends and host-families the harsh truth that we are leaving and don’t know when we will be back.

The…

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