Skip to main content

January Round-Up

A lot happened during the month of January. But one blog-worthy story is that I landed a job interview with Mckinsey. The 'experience interview' went well but I botched the case interview :(. On the positive side I learned a few things about management consulting and the importance of structured thinking and presentation. While I have spent a great deal of time these past few days trying to figure out what I could have done differently I have also decided that I would not let that failure dictate my pace in 2012.

Take my new-found love for art for example. When I visited the MoMa earlier in January I met Degas, Rivera, Picasso, Van Gogh et.al. I saw the famous 'Starry Night' by Van Gogh, "The Indian Warrior" by Rivera, Picasso's "Still Life with Chair-Caning" and others. These works moved me in a way that art has never done before and I now realize why. Before going to the museum I did my due diligence and googled some of the works that were on exhibition. The SMART HISTORY videos and the Khan Academy have been useful in initiating me into the world of art history. If, like me, you did not major in Art History I recommend learning about an artist's work and its place in history before going to an exhibition.

As a result I have started paying serious attention to art and plan to visit the National Gallery of Art in DC to see Picasso's earlier work.

Renoir, Moulin de la Galette, 1876 from Smarthistory Videos on Vimeo.

Comments

Post a Comment

Constructive feedback is always welcome. Thank you

Popular posts from this blog

Unemployment by state in the USA

Below is a visualization of unemployment rates by county using a powerful Python library called Bokeh . The two maps are for the states of Texas and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As the second largest economy in the United States (10th largest in the world), Texas shows interesting county variation in macroeconomic factors such as unemployment. According to Wikipedia , in 2015, Texas was home to six of the top 50 companies on the Fortune 500 list and 51 overall (third most after New York and California). The northern counties were least affected by the financial crisis of 2008/09. Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington area encompasses 13 counties which constitute the economic and cultural hub of the region commonly called North Texas or North Central Texas. Bokeh Plot The least affected counties in Massachusetts were the southernmost tourist areas of Nantuckett and Dukes County. The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Malaysia at a Cross Roads: Diagnosing the Constraints to High Income Status

Malaysia at a Crossroads: Diagnosing Constraints to High-Income Status In 2008, Malaysia was recognized by the Growth Commission – a distinguished panel comprising 2 Nobel Prize Winning Economists and other leading development practitioners – as one of thirteen countries that sustained high growth in the post-war period. The 30-year stretch that caught the attention of the Growth Commission was between 1967 and 1997 when Malaysia grew at an average of 7.3% per year. This long stretch of growth was interrupted by periods of external shocks including the Volcker shock of 1986, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997/8, later the so-called Dot Com Bubble of 2001, and more recently the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Despite these shocks, Malaysia remained resilient - formally earning the title "Upper Middle Income Country" in 1992. (See summary figure that breaks down the country's per capita growth story). As...
2 comments
Read more

Modeling Core PCE inflation: A dual approach

Today's release of the August 2025 Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation data drew widespread media attention, with coverage highlighting both the persistence of inflation and its implications for Federal Reserve policy. Across outlets, analysts pointed to resilient consumer spending and income growth as signs of underlying economic strength, even as inflation remains above the Fed's 2% target. The consensus among media reports is that while inflation is not worsening, its stubbornness continues to challenge policymakers navigating a softening labor market and evolving rate expectations. To provide deeper insights into inflation's trajectory, I've developed a forecasting framework that combines two econometric approaches — ARIMA time series modeling and Phillips Curve analysis—to predict Core PCE inflation. This analysis presents a unique opportunity to validate my forecasting methodology against eight months of 2025 data. ...
Post a Comment
Read more