GDP - Gross Domestic PROBLEM

A week back the paper said that Gross Domestic Product is under control and rising. Also there was a mention of GDP crossing 6 points in 2010. It said that last month's CPI(UNME) for all items, less food and energy, was up. I was ecstatic, even though I had no clue what CPI(UNME) meant. It sounded like some pill that I have to take for my HDL and LDL/ VLDL ratio control. (If you are wondering what this gibberish is, please refer to my earlier blog titled Medi‘SIN’.) In any case, I later found out that CPI(UNME) meant Consumer Price Index for Urban Non-Manual Employees.

What do all these mean? It means that the economy is back on rails. But that worries my wife. She would always buy only stuff that was on sale. When recession was showing its ugly teeth, only one soul was jumping in joy. That’s my wife. She saw the doors swing open to a discounted world. Everywhere the sale was happening. The speed with which she accumulated things (I would term them crap or trash) was amazing. Did you know there's a Plantain Fruit peeler that was available just for Rs 100? And would you believe that it's easy to find something like that on sale?

During recession every shop was putting up a sale. Buy ONE. Get FIVE… Buy a pressure cooker and get a HOUSE free! (yah… why not? With all the accumulation of junk, you sure require a separate house!)… Buy FOUR tyres and the CAR is free! … Buy a car and the petrol is free for lifetime!

One such deal that my wife couldn't pass up was FREE tickets for a Consumer Exhibition that was happening some 50 kms away from the city one weekend. So we woke up early on Saturday and drove down to the exhibition. Of course, a ticket normally costs Rs 50 per head. And after saving our Rs 100 in tickets, we spent Rs 3,000 on what I call junk and probably Rs 500 on petrol. And now you know where that Plantain Fruit Peeler came from. I do not know what a Veg-Gratero-Choppero-Scrapero is, but I am relatively certain we did not need it… that too when it costs 400 rupees. She even actually got to buy a cream at a 90% discount that can set a man’s hair to give that fashionable wet look. She bought it for me. She still owns that product, with the vague hope of me growing my hair back. (Incidentally people who know me well know that I sport a clean tonsured head for the last 3 years!)

But with the receding recession, the Off Sales are off. Durable-goods discounted sales are off (but now tell me what constitutes a durable good? And is a durable good the opposite of a perishable evil?) O.k... O.k.… I am digressing. The fact of the matter is that all products henceforth will be available without offers… at their normal undiscounted prices. SN(FWF). But GN(FMF)... Sad News (For Women Folk)… But...

Now I know that Economic Uncertainty (polished word for recession) is the equivalent of existential angst for men folk like me! But after the lessons I have learnt this time I will refuse to be UNCERTAIN next time my wife calls me to accompany her for a sale. :)