Why MMT is needed

Lars Syll on Real World Economics Review Blog:

Few issues in politics and economics are nowadays more discussed — and less understood — than public debt. Many raise their voices to urge for reducing the debt, but few explain why and in what way reducing the debt would be conducive to a better economy or a fairer society. And there are no limits to all the — especially macroeconomic — calamities and evils a large public debt is supposed to result in — unemployment, inflation, higher interest rates, lower productivity growth, increased burdens for subsequent generations, etc., etc.

But the truth is that public debt is normally nothing to fear, especially if it is financed within the country itself (but even foreign loans can be beneficent for the economy if invested in the right way). Some members of society hold bonds and earn interest on them, while others have to pay the taxes that ultimately pay the interest on the debt. The debt is not a net burden for society as a whole since the debt cancels itself out between the two groups. If the state issues bonds at a low-interest rate, unemployment can be reduced without necessarily resulting in strong inflationary pressure. And the inter-generational burden is also not a real burden since — if used in a suitable way — the debt, through its effects on investments and employment, actually makes future generations net winners. There can, of course, be unwanted negative distributional side effects for the future generation, but that is mostly a minor problem since when our children and grandchildren repay the national debt these payments will be made to our children and grandchildren.

To both John Maynard Keynes and Abba Lerner, it was evident that the state has the ability to promote full employment and a stable price level – and that it should use its powers to do so. If that means that it has to take on debt and (more or less temporarily) underbalance its budget — so let it be! Public debt is neither good nor bad. It is a means to achieve two over-arching macroeconomic goals – full employment and price stability. What is sacred is not to have a balanced budget or run down public debt per se, regardless of the effects on the macroeconomic goals. If ‘sound finance,’ austerity, and balanced budgets mean increased unemployment and destabilizing prices, they have to be abandoned.

 

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Financial Fragility without Banks: Lessons from 18th century

Stein Berre and Asani Sarkar in the blogpost on NY Fed’s Liberty Street Blog:

Proponents of narrow banking have argued that lender of last resort policies by central banks, along with deposit insurance and other government interventions in the money markets, are the primary causes of financial instability. However, as we show in this post, non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) triggered a financial crisis in 1772 even though the financial system at that time had few banks and deposits were not insured. NBFIs profited from funding risky, longer-dated assets using cheap short-term wholesale funding and, when they eventually failed, authorities felt compelled to rescue the financial system.

With or without banks, financial fragility will always be there in some form or the other…

Insights from Newly Digitized US Banking Data, 1867-1904

The NY Fed has digitised banking data from 1867-1904. They share some findings via their Libertystreet blig:

The National Banking Era, which spans the period between the Civil War and the founding of the Federal Reserve System (roughly 1863 to 1913), is an exciting laboratory for empirical banking research. The end of the 19th century was an important phase in world history, with globalization, the modern corporation, and economic growth all taking off at the same time. This was also a period of fast growth and rapid westward expansion for the U.S. banking system, as shown in the animated map below.

Growth of National Banks across Space and Time

Source: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Annual Report to Congress (1867-1904).

Unlike modern banks, national banks were able to issue bank notes, but they otherwise operated much as banks do today, taking deposits and making loans. The regulatory regime of the period, however, was decidedly different. For instance, banks’ geographic footprint was heavily restricted, mostly confining them to the local market, and bank capital requirements posed a barrier to entry for potential competitors rather than a restriction on leverage for incumbent firms. In previous research, we exploited both of these regulatory peculiarities to shed light on classic questions regarding the effects of banking competition.

ChatGPT on Mostlyeconomics blog

I asked two questions from ChatGPT on Mostlyeconomics blog.

 

1. what is mostlyeconomics blog? Its answer:

Mostly Economics is a blog that focuses on the field of economics, with an aim to educate its readers on various economic concepts and ideas. The blog covers a wide range of topics including macroeconomics, monetary policy, banking, financial markets, economic history, and more. It was founded by Amol Agrawal, who is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Ahmedabad University in India. Mostly Economics provides readers with analysis, insights, and news on the global economic landscape, making it a valuable resource for those seeking to understand the complexities of the world of economics.

2.  please write a poem on mostlyeconomics blog

Amidst the vast online sea,
A blog on economics came to be,
Mostly Economics its name,
A wealth of knowledge, it does contain.

From monetary policy to global trade,
The blog covers topics with no shade,
From historic events to current news,
It sheds light on economic views.

With research papers and data galore,
It educates readers, more and more,
Making sense of economic theories,

And simplifying complex queries.
For those who seek to learn and grow,
Mostly Economics is the way to go,
For economics is not just a subject,
It’s the very fabric of our world, direct.

So let us read and absorb the views,
Of Mostly Economics, a blog so true,
And broaden our knowledge, day by day,
In this ever-changing economic fray.

🙂 Let me bask in the ChatGPT glory.

On Marginal Revolution Blog:

3. please write a poem on marginal revolution blog

Marginal Revolution, a blog so grand,
Tyler and Alex at the command,
Economics is their subject of choice,
And their knowledge, you cannot poise.

With posts so lively and diverse,
Marginal Revolution will immerse,
You in the world of economic thought,
And present it in a way that can be taught.

From public policy to trends in tech,
The blog’s insights are all in check,
The authors present their ideas with ease,
Making economics a subject that will please.

Their commentary is sharp and clear,
Their analysis something to revere,
Marginal Revolution is a place to learn,
And explore the ideas that can turn.

From macro to micro,they cover it all,
Making sense of economic rise and fall,
For those who seek to understand,
Marginal Revolution is a must-have in hand.

So, let’s delve into the world of economics,
With Marginal Revolution, as our logic,
And broaden our knowledge with each post,
For economic insight that matters the most.

Quite similar yet distinct as Chat GPT does differntiate the core content both blogs carry…

Thanks a lot to all the vistors and well wishers.

 

 

Should graduate programs keep macro in the first-year sequence?

Tyler Cowen on the MR blog:

I have heard that MIT is pushing macro out of their required first-year sequence, noting I am not sure what the ex post regime will look like.  But in general I am macro-sympathetic, for the following reasons:

1. Many economics graduate students are from emerging (or retrogressing) economies, and macro issues are truly important for them.

2. Many graduate students are from “developed” economies (with apologies to Peter Thiel), and macro issues are truly important for them.  In America we had a major financial crisis in 2008-2009 and rampant inflation more recently.  It is hardly the case that all the problems have been solved.

3. Macro is the main vehicle for teaching people about economic growth, which is probably the most important topic in economics.

4. The Fed has a very good economics staff, and probably that tradition will be harder to continue if macro is taken out of first-year sequences.

5. You might argue that standards in macro are looser, by the nature of the field.  I would suggest it is easier to advance a new idea in macro, perhaps for the same reason?  Along related lines, macro still has more singly-authored papers, a sign that the field requires less conformity of ideas.

6. If you write down a short list of the candidates of “Greatest Economist ever,” did they not all do macro?  Doesn’t that tell us something?

That all said, I would make macro sequences “more practical,” more about economic growth, more about economic history, and less about dynamic programming than is often currently the case.

emphasis is mine..

Happy new year to all the visitors!

Wishing all the vistors and well wishers a very happy and prosperous new year.

The blog was on a mini-break and hence no posts for more than a week. The blogging to resume in 2023.

Ashish who writes an awesome blog named econnforeverybody has some nice things to say about mostlyeconomics blog. Thanks a lot Ashish. Such comments keep the blog going.

 

Why Macro is *Hard*?

Ashish echoes my thoughts on teaching macro in his super blog:

I began teaching a course on introductory macro this past Saturday at a college here in Pune. I often tell my students that my job in a macro course is to leave them more confused at the end than they were at the start. That always evokes laugther by way of response, but as anyone who has learnt (and especially taught!) macro will tell you, I’m quite serious.

Macroeconomics is hard, it is confusing and as the person responsible for teaching it, you’re always on your toes, because you’re never sure if you’ve understood it yourself!

Adam Smith and Pin-making: Some Inconvenient Truths

Prof Timothy Taylor on his fab blog conversable economist says smith’s pin factory example is not a great example of gains of division of labour:

One of the famous anecdotes in economics is about division of labor in a pin factory, as told by Adam Smith starting in the third paragraph of The Wealth of Nations. (One suspects the fame of the story is partly related to the fact anyone who cracks open the book will find it at the very beginning.) Smith notes in the text that his example was already common at the time he used it. But those who specialize in this area have pointed that Smith’s example was based on second- and third-hand reporting, while actual studies of pin-making in the 18th century suggest that it may not be a great example of the gains from division of labor.

Read the post for more details.

Ideas on revising the Bank of England’s mandate and changing the way monetary policy is pursued in the UK

Costas Milas in this blogpost on LSE business review blog –

As UK inflation, currently at 9.4% and heading for 13%, is much higher than the official inflation target of 2%, Liz Truss is accusing the BoE of having been too slow to increase interest rates. Costas Milas argues that, 25 years since the Bank of England was given operational independence, it makes sense to revisit the issue of the bank’s mandate and look at things that can get better, as long as changes do not compromise the bank’s independence.

If boe’s mandate is revised, it will be another churn in history of monetary policy frameworks

Hurtling to 80 and beyond: Netaji’s weight vs Indian Rupee

Manasi Phadke in another humor-filled column:

The Rupee valuation and Netaji’s weight have been both breaching the 80 mark. Clever Guptaji is worried about the former whilst Netaji is busy worrying about his weight. Read the conversation that never happened about hurtling to 80 and beyond in my humour column Tweakonomics 2.0 in the Hindu Business Line! Pasting it here for you! Enjoy!

Hilarious!

Scottish Enlightenment vs. Irish Enlightenment

In an earlier post Tyler Cowen had written on Irish economics and economists.

He follows up with a post on Irish enlightenment and compares it with Scottish enlightenment:

The Scottish Enlightenment seems like a real enlightenment to most observers, the 18th century Irish Enlightenment (Swift, Berkeley, Burke, toss in James Barry too) does not.  In my admittedly unorthodox view, I think the Irish Enlightenment simply had different concerns but was no less of an enlightenment.  Much of the Scottish Enlightenment was concerned with the following:

1. Increasing market size and division of labor

2. Martial virtue and security against foreign enemies

3. Sympathy

That all makes broad sense when you realize that Britain was indeed building the world’s largest economic market, and furthermore had to worry about its enemies on the Continent.  Regular social interactions were becoming normal enough that one could ask basic questions about sympathy, and assume that some degree of sympathy was present.

None of those conditions held true for Ireland.  Market size was small, and external market relations typically were controlled by the British.  As for military issues, Britain could dominate you in any case, so martial virtue was of secondary import, at least until later civil wars.  And sympathy was not to be assumed at all, for reasons of religious, political, and class prejudice.

My “standing on one foot” version of the Irish Enlightenment would be a concern with:

1. Is toleration at all possible?  Toleration needed before sympathy!

2. Can we expect there to be progress at all?  James Barry argues for the universality of progress, but Swift doubts whether moral progress is likely.  Burke wishes to take progress in baby steps.  Berkeley is skeptical altogether.  If you are ruled by the Brits, the richest society to date, but they are still bastards to you, maybe you will be more skeptical about moral progress.

3. A sense of terror from difference, as mirrored both in Burke’s aesthetics of the sublime and the voyages in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.  Everyone is running around deeply afraid of “the other,” and this concern surfaces also in Burke’s fears for the French aristocrats.  The enthusiasms of the French revolutionaries reminded Burke all too much of the earlier Irish civil wars and rebellions and massacres, even though in both cases he knew the privileges of the nobles were not deserved.  Swift is consistently asking whether one culture can understand the other at all.

…..

Overall, the Irish Enlightenment wasn’t nearly as optimistic as its Scottish counterpart.  But it was far more mindful of the perspective of the victim, presaging more modern developments.  And later in the 19th century, the Irish Enlightenment turned its attention to themes of depopulation and excessively high land rents, both extremely relevant to current times as well…

The Irish Enlightenment is, dare I say, underrated?

  Hmm…

250 years of the first global credit crisis

Stein Berre, Paul Kosmetatos, and Asani Sarkar of NY Fed in this post:

June 2022 marks the 250^th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1772-3 credit crisis. Although not widely known today, this was arguably the first “modern” global financial crisis in terms of the role that private-sector credit and financial products played in it, in the paths of financial contagion that propagated the initial shock, and in the way authorities intervened to stabilize markets. In this post, we describe these developments and note the parallels with modern financial crises.

…..

Intense as the twin panics of 1772-73 were, authorities were able to stabilize markets and restore confidence in the economy. These events resulted in a larger role for the institutional infrastructure of finance, focused around central banks and other state institutions, and created a set of financial stabilization techniques that are still in use today. The availability of these new tools was fortuitous, since Europe was entering the period of the most profound changes in economic growth and capital investment in human history. 

Yoga day at central banks across the globe

Manasi Phadke in her humor column at Business Line looks at how few central banks are doing different Yogasanas:

• ECB  – Vinyasa Yoga
• Fed – Power Yoga
• RBI – Iyengar Yoga
• State Bank of Pakistan – anti-gravity yoga
• People Bank of China – Yin Yoga
• Russian Central Bank – Hot Yoga
• Sri Lanka central bank – Hath yoga

Read the article to find out why. 🙂

 

 

From 1980s Debt Crisis to Crypto Era: Changes in IMF’s Financial Stability Monitoring and Reporting

Tobias Adrian, Fabio Natalucci and Mahvash S. Qureshi in this IMF blog post look at financial stability since 1980s debt crisis. They also point how IMF’s reports on financial stability have changed with times.

Monitoring the health and outlook of the global economy and member countries is the bedrock of the Fund’s work. This surveillance role, outlined in amendments to our Articles of Agreement first adopted at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, charges us with overseeing and safeguarding the international monetary system.

In the early years, surveillance focused on the macroeconomic and exchange-rate policies of member nations, but growth in international banking in the early 1970s highlighted a need to better track global capital markets and assess financial-stability implications. Consequently, the Fund started discussions with monetary authorities in major financial centers and in 1974 initiated internal reports on market developments and prospects.

Starting in 1980, the report known as International Capital Markets became our main vehicle to monitor conditions in financial markets, warn of risks, and analyze disruptions like Latin America’s debt crisis of the 1980s or Europe’s exchange-rate mechanism crisis in the early 1990s. But that era’s rapid expansion and integration of global capital markets, and the ensuing financial crises in Asia and several other emerging markets, highlighted the need to better assess systemic risks.

The introduction of the Global Financial Stability Report marked an important step toward a more comprehensive and frequent assessment of cross-border capital flows and financial market risks. In his forward to the first GFSR, the then-Managing Director Horst Köhler noted how the report had its roots in crisis.

“The rapid expansion of financial markets has underlined the importance of a constant evaluation of the private sector capital flows that are the engine of world economic growth, but sometimes at the core of crisis developments as well,” he wrote. “Opportunities offered by the international capital markets for enhancing global prosperity must be balanced by a commitment to prevent debilitating financial crises.”

 

 

Similarities between Rafa Nadal’s 14th French Open victory and India’ Wholesale Price Index

Manasi Phadke, one of my favorite economics writers  is back to blogging. Manasi has this wonderful talent of explaining economics and economic events around us in a fun way.  Her profile is “ brave economist trying to laugh against the odds.”  🙂

In the comeback post, Manasi compares Nadal’s 14h Roland Garros win with Wholesale Price Index which has been hovering around 14% too:

What does Rafael Nadal have in common with the Wholesale Price Index of India (WPI)? A lot! For starters, both have crossed the 14 mark, the former at Roland Garros, and the latter in India. Both have huge teams backing them to move away from 14 – errr, albeit in opposite directions. Aggressive Serbians put both into a tizzy! Fortunately for Nadal fans and unfortunately for Indians, both look fairly unstoppable at 14.

She says WPI is divided into three categories: i) primary articles, ii) fuel and power, and iii) manufactured articles.

Rafa Nadal too has a WPI: Winner Potential Index:

Rafael Nadal too has a WPI – a Winner Potential Index. This index number tracks the potential that Nadal can win against any other opponents in a Grand Slam final at Roland Garros. The index, never released in the public domain, is a closely guarded number within Team Nadal. The index categorizes opponents into 3 main classes – i) primary challengers, ii) muscle and power, and iii) miscellaneous threats.

The primary group is further sub-divided into pure brilliance and Roger Federer. Federer is important enough to be tracked separately. ‘When Federer has these patches of utter brilliance, the only thing you can do is try and stay calm, wait for the storm to pass. There is not much you can do when the best player in history is seeing the ball as big as a football and hitting it with power, confidence, and laser accuracy.’ 

The muscle and power group contains Novak Djokovich. The wily Serb flexes brain muscles as quickly as the rest of his body. ‘He is a machine. He’s doing very well mentally everything’. 

The miscellaneous group contains a variety of players such as Puerta, Söderling, Ferrer, Thiem, Stan Wawrinka and Ruud. The wins averaged across the 3 classes should give the overall winning potential for Nadal at Roland Garros. However, a simple average will not suffice! If a win against Roger Federer, say, requires double the effort and concentration and creates (considerably more than) double the cheer as compared to winning against another player, then this win would mean a lot more to Nadal.

The WPI has to reflect this reality. Hence, each of the classes within the index is given a ‘weight’ based on the number of wins against the player as a proportion of total wins (14) till the current year i.e. 2022-23. Of the 14 wins of Nadal at the Roland Garros finals, 4 are against Federer, 3 against Djokovich and 7 against the others. Thus, for Nadal’s WPI, the primary, muscle power and miscellaneous threats have a weight of 28 per cent, 21 per cent and 51 per cent respectively.

The overall WPI is calculated as a weighted average of wins from all of the classes.

In 2022, it was Novak in the muscle power group who was seen to be the major trouble-maker at Quarter Finals. Challenges from the primary group were relatively calm, with Federer not playing in the French Open this year at all.

Phew.

Finally:

Forget the Russian conflict. Don’t worry about oil. Don’t even think about wheat. There are still two more Grand Slams left in this year’s season. Nadal is in top form. The RBI better watch out.

Manasi is in top form too. Hope she maintains it!!

In another comeback post, Manasi writes “Wheat Nikala, Gaddi leke” based on the famous song in the movie Gadar: Mein Nikla, Gaddi leke..:-)

 

How easy is it to understand central bank publications?

I wrote about RBI’s communications last week asking whether people/markets understand what RBI says?

Timothy Munday of Bank of England in this Bank Underground post asks similar question related to Bank of England:

How easy is it to understand this sentence you are currently reading? How easy it is to understand this sentence that has dependency arcs that are longer that make it more difficult to read? How about if my writing is magniloquent? Or what if I use normal words? Writing style matters for how easy it is to read text. This post asks if writing style can influence how long markets take to digest Bank of England monetary policy information. I find that Bank of England publications that summarise their content in the first sentence, and use less unexpected vocabulary, are associated with a faster time for swap markets to reach a new equilibrium price following the publication release.

The Monetary Policy Report (MPR), Minutes and other publications have material effects on asset prices (Hansen, McMahon and Tong (2019). But these moves in asset prices may take hours (or days) to materialise. The November 2021 MPR was 56 pages long. That publication was released simultaneously with the Minutes, which was 15 pages long. Subsequently, there was an hour long Q&A, the text of which was 14 pages long when transcribed. In other words, markets received a deluge of information. That information will only be fully reflected in asset prices when market participants have had time to read and digest the publications.

A discussion of what the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) chooses to say in these documents is well above this author’s pay grade. It is the result of a long process of deliberation by the MPC and staff. The content of that discussion, the outcome of the MPC’s decision, and the reasons behind it, are taken as fixed.

How the MPC chooses to communicate is a different issue (and indeed has been discussed on this blog before). This post asks if writing style can influence how long markets take to digest Bank of England monetary policy information. In other words, if the Bank of England writes more clearly, does that lead to a faster time for market prices to move to a new equilibrium?

His analysis shows simpler communications do help:

There are two features that are significant at the 5% level and two at the 10% level.

Documents with higher contextual expectancy, first lines that summarise the entire document, words that are more prevalent, and are published on days without a monetary policy decision are associated with a shorter time for the market to reach a new equilibrium.

The length of dependency arcs, the initial market reaction, and, interestingly, the length of the document, do not display any association with the time taken for the market to digest the Bank’s information.

….

The above analysis comes with several caveats, and so our results should be read in with them in mind.

Only correlations between some (handpicked) textual features and how long it takes for the market to settle have been presented. And, of course, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Indeed, there are plausible omitted variables: one could argue that if the Bank of England has a more complicated message to convey, it must write in a more complicated style.

Furthermore, the estimates of how long it takes the market to digest communication are simple, and influenced by news releases that occur after the publications (although these should only add noise to the estimates, not bias them).

Finally, the small sample does mean that the regression lacks power. Coefficients that just dip under a 5% or 10% significant level should not be over-interpreted.

These caveats notwithstanding this is initial evidence that writing style matters, adding to the existing body of work on this topic from the Bank of England (Haldane and McMahon (2018); Bholat et al (2018). Of course content matters, and the Bank of England’s message is of paramount concern when drafting communication. But, at the margin, when that message’s substance has been formed, the style it is presented in can help the market to understand it quicker.

There is one central lesson behind writing: write as simply as possible. This lesson applies to central banks too.

The IPL and the Benefits of Competition

Nice blogpost by Ashish saying how he was wrong about IPL and the League has transformed Indian cricket.

I somehow never really had a view on whether IPL will harm or benefit cricket. I did see it is a very different type of cricket where one can watch without really being nervous as is the case in a typical match played by Indian team. I also did see how really young Indian players were rubbing off shoulders with global players which would surely help them boost their confidence. This was best seen in the iconic India-Australia series played in Australia in 2020-21 where India beat the top Australian side with a second string of players. Most of the Indian players had already played with most of the Aus players in IPL and were not just not intimidated. The overall Indian performance overseas has improved leaps and bounds and IPL has played some role there.

Coming back to Ashish’s blogpost, he says it is a good idea to study principles of economics by watching and discussing IPL. I agree! IPL teams have a lot to offer for helping understand economics, business, management etc. IPL has given hope to having careers in sport management and economics.

 

GDP vs. GNP: Which is a better measure of future economic prospects?

Tyler Cowen on MR Blog:

As a metric of how well economes are doing, gdp is underrated, as I argue in my latest Bloomberg column.  Here is one bit:

If a nation has a lot of foreign direct investment, as does Ireland, GDP will exceed GNP by a considerable amount. According to the Irish government, the country’s GDP is about 370 billion euros. Its GNP is less than 300 billion euros. The difference in GDP and GNP is largely accounted for by the outflow of profits to foreign-owned multinationals.

This isn’t just a story about Ireland. Many other nations have had significant differences between their GDP and GNP, including many developing nations and, at times, Singapore.

The conventional wisdom is that GNP is the proper measure of living standards, because domestic citizens do not have claims on the profits of foreign multinationals. That isn’t wrong, but it is also an incomplete answer. When it comes to the future prospects of a country, GDP is a better indicator. Countries that have a high ratio of GDP to GNP are especially promising, though there are some caveats.

A relatively high GDP is a sign that a large number of foreign companies view the future of the domestic economy as bright. They are “putting their money where their mouth is.”

In the case of Ireland, the country is now the only member of the European Union in which English is the main language not only for business but also for schools and public life. Foreign investors are drawn by that fact. They also see that Ireland is relatively underpopulated, and appears to be receptive to absorbing talented foreign immigrants. Furthermore, Ireland is ruled by mainstream parties and seems largely unaffected by the populism and nativism that are creating problems elsewhere in Europe.

All these realities are reason to be bullish. It is also reasonable to expect that the Irish government will be relatively friendly to business looking forward.

Note this:

There are also countries in which GNP is much higher than GDP, such as East Timor during its times of receiving lots of foreign aid. I regard that as a bearish sign, just as I regard the higher GDP number as a bullish sign.

Hope I get to visit East Timor some day!

 

Decling research output at Reserve Bank of New Zealand

Croaking Cassandra Blog writes on the declining research output at RBNZ:

Mostlyeconomics blog in 2021: Decline in viewership and posts

Today is the last day of the year 2021. Here is a quick review of the mostlyeconomics blog in the year 2021:

• Views – 1,14,551
• Visitors – 82,383
• Posts published – 721

Top 5 posts

• Impact of monetary policy on bitcoin prices – 258 views
• LIC IPO: an empirical study – 245 views
• RBI sets up regulation review authority to review its regulations – 222 views
• 100 years of Imperial Bank of India – 199 views
• Book Review: The Conjuror’s Trick – An interpretive history of Paper Money in India by Bazil Shaikh -191 views

Both the viewership and number of posts have declined compared to 2020:

• Views – 2,23,823
• Visitors – 1,58,465
• Posts published – 820

Infact the viewership and number of posts are at their lowest since 2012.

2021 was a very tough year and was difficult to  post regularly. Thanks a lot to all the visitors and well-wishers who have visited the blog in the difficult times. Highlight for the blog was its inclusion the Library of Congress Web Archives.

But then I must not complain as the viewership and posts since the blog’s inception look really good:

• Views – 35,66,872
• Visitors – 14.99,557
• Posts published – 11428

Hoping for a better 2022 for all of us.  In case the visitors have feedback/suggestions on improvement, please send your feedback.