There once was a beautiful country by name Pigisem. There were two states in that country: Seca and Seb. Our story happens in the grand state of Seca.
Every 5th and 6th day of the week, all the citizens (well, almost) of the Seca state will venture out to a market to usually buy the only three eatables they are allowed to buy. Peculiar market it was. The three eatables will be sold one at a time for roughly 90 minutes in subsequence. The seller of the good is believed to be visiting from a different intellectual plane on the through n Dimensional teleporter transformation.
The 90 minute market was supposed to be controlled and governed allowing the sellers to sell their wares in a way they saw fit. But over the course of time, a few Seca citizens started engaging in some of the selling activities themselves.
Deeply concerned that the market is getting unregulated, and to accentuate the future, a self-styled, bespectacled, and sharp witted one Mr. Righto incorporated a rating agency (also carrying his name) to rate the power of the market participants. The tagline for the company was “Kick monopolies, cartels and anyone who dares to disrupt the market”.
Famous among the rating agencies candidates are:
JKJ Company – “You Are Wrong”
The JKJ Company is not so much of a company than a one man job. There was unanimous acceptance that JKJ was a pure monopoly wielding unmatched market power. People often compare JKJ to the Reliances and the Microsofts of the world. When the giant JKJ Company decides to enter a market it will enter with a Big (disruptive) Bang that changes the status quo and takes over the entire market. The usual market entry strategy for the JKJ Company is embodied in its corporate tagline “You are wrong”. The moment this slogan is heard by any of the state’s citizens from the leftist leaning section of the state, they shiver to death. Those who don’t shiver go to the loo. Though people of the state have known since time immemorial that the JKJ Company was a monopoly, it was Righto agencies that first awarded JKJ company the monopoly rating formally. For this achievement, M/S Righto agencies is awarded The state’s citizens platinum guild award.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Flat Tyre
I am retelling a story (with slight modifications) that was told to us by Professor Malay Bhattacharya in our Statistics Class.
Four MBA students, who were batchmates & close friends, were studying in a highly ranked B-. The term exam was fast approaching and the friends were nervously preparing for the most difficult subject of the term: Microeconomics.
The exam was scheduled for a Monday early morning session and the studious friends slogged night and day preparing for the test. They studied Demand Supply Functions, Consumer Theory, Theory of a Firm, Game theory and several other topics and mastered every one of them. They were bright students after all, but a little too playful.
Too playful, that they decided they will go for a binge on the weekend preceding the exam to a city that was about 60 miles away.
They drove to the City on the Sunday evening and partied hard through the night. So much so that they forgot they had a test on Monday morning and showed up late in their hostel, late for the exam.
They went to the Economics Professor excusing themselves for not showing up for the exam due to a flat tyre on their way back. The professor - a perfect gentleman he was - said "Alright young men! I understand your situation and I want to give you a fair chance. So I will give you folks a re-test this afternoon. But I dont have a lot of time to prepare another set of questions, so I will limit myself to two. Just two questions and no more. But in order to compensate for that, I want to put you each in a separate room, alone by yourself to write the exam!"
The students, counting their goodluck, thanked the Professor for not only allowing them to take a retest, but also generously allowing to limit the questions in the exam. The professor mysteriously smiled in response and said"But dont expect it to be an easy nut to crack".
In the afternoon, the Professor sent them to separate rooms where ther were alone. The clock ticked 1:00 and the question papers were distributed to the students in different rooms. As promised there were two questions.
The first one was for 5 marks: "Describe Prisoner's Dilemma"
The second one was for 95 marks: "Which trye went bust?"
And the students got only 5 marks in the test. If you dont know why, see what is Prisoner's Dilemma here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
Four MBA students, who were batchmates & close friends, were studying in a highly ranked B-. The term exam was fast approaching and the friends were nervously preparing for the most difficult subject of the term: Microeconomics.
The exam was scheduled for a Monday early morning session and the studious friends slogged night and day preparing for the test. They studied Demand Supply Functions, Consumer Theory, Theory of a Firm, Game theory and several other topics and mastered every one of them. They were bright students after all, but a little too playful.
Too playful, that they decided they will go for a binge on the weekend preceding the exam to a city that was about 60 miles away.
They drove to the City on the Sunday evening and partied hard through the night. So much so that they forgot they had a test on Monday morning and showed up late in their hostel, late for the exam.
They went to the Economics Professor excusing themselves for not showing up for the exam due to a flat tyre on their way back. The professor - a perfect gentleman he was - said "Alright young men! I understand your situation and I want to give you a fair chance. So I will give you folks a re-test this afternoon. But I dont have a lot of time to prepare another set of questions, so I will limit myself to two. Just two questions and no more. But in order to compensate for that, I want to put you each in a separate room, alone by yourself to write the exam!"
The students, counting their goodluck, thanked the Professor for not only allowing them to take a retest, but also generously allowing to limit the questions in the exam. The professor mysteriously smiled in response and said"But dont expect it to be an easy nut to crack".
In the afternoon, the Professor sent them to separate rooms where ther were alone. The clock ticked 1:00 and the question papers were distributed to the students in different rooms. As promised there were two questions.
The first one was for 5 marks: "Describe Prisoner's Dilemma"
The second one was for 95 marks: "Which trye went bust?"
And the students got only 5 marks in the test. If you dont know why, see what is Prisoner's Dilemma here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
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