Economics @ Home © Volume 1 Issue 15

Methods of Madness – Part 1

I owe all you faithful readers a proper explanation for my lapse in regularity in publishing a supposedly weekly newsletter. While creating a timeline in our planning is important to help us prioritize, it is of even more immense necessity that we keep to the timeline.

Publishing a newsletter is a serious issue, and I assure you that I have never taken this lightly. It is with very deep regret that I have fallen behind and failed to keep my promises. Every week that I fail to publish Economics @ Home is a broken promise to myself and more importantly, to all my readers.

One of the obvious reasons or excuses that I can give you is because of the lack of time. Nonetheless, it is a common fact that everyone has 24 hours in a day (a very good approximation). So, how can I say I lack time when I have just as much time as everyone else on this planet? My failure was in my inability to use that time effectively towards publishing. While I had intense work commitments, I am fairly certain that there could have been circumstances that I could squeeze out a few hours to do my publishing.

So for that, I regret, but will stop short of an apology. The reason is that I believe apologies mean nothing when there is no actual remorse. It is not the case that I have no remorse. I strongly believe in walking the talk and thus, I will end this folly with my sincere expression of regret and move on to strive my hardest in making it up to all you readers.

I first start by explaining the role of the Lean and Mean Machine so that you can perhaps understand why this newsletter exists in the first place and why I will take it extremely seriously. The Lean and Mean Machine Pte Ltd was set up a few months ago with three main roles. The first and most prominent role, as of today, is to publish a newsletter that is fit for public consumption. The goals of the newsletter are:

[1] to create an awareness regarding the importance of economics in our everyday lives;
[2] to analyze everyday happenings from an economics standpoint to provide what are hopefully better solutions;
[3] to maximize the potential of everyone through the sharing of experiences and knowledge.

Then the next obvious question would be, why these goals? The first role of the Lean and Mean Machine is just a part of a grand scheme of objectives. The ultimate goal of the Lean and Mean Machine is to establish an educational institution that enables and assists people who are willing to try, to maximize their potential. You could call it, a university of life. This idea stems from my experience as an Asian student. This experience has led me through an educational journey that was focused heavily on academic concentration that was meant to help me find a comfortable, high-paying job, with good benefits.

While these are noble and well-meaning objectives, it is probably more relevant for societies of the past, when knowledge and information transfers at a much slower rate. In our world today, because information, knowledge and experience can be passed on rapidly, more opportunities are available for people to be successful. Because of the abundance of opportunities, people are less restricted by their social origin to be all they can be. Imagine, the social constrictions for a peasant in the 800 BC who wanted to be a court official. With limited access to books, internet and everything else that even a seven year-old has access to these days, how does one move up the social and economic ladder? Thus, with so many obstacles, obtaining a high-paying job with benefits would be like a dream come true.

However, that does not apply in the world today. Social and economic mobility is commonplace. We hear more and more rags to riches stories these days. Thus, it is the goal of the Lean and Mean Machine to perhaps be a tiny pebble in people’s building blocks in their path towards greatness. The great ambition of the Lean and Mean Machine is to start a university that inspires people towards maximizing their potential as human beings as opposed to your typical university that awards you a shiny piece of paper that certifies your specialty in the field of Arts, Sciences or whatever you trained yourself to be good at.

Thus, Economics @ Home is a a means to an end, rather, a modest vehicle at the starting point of a long journey of aspirations. Economics @ Home should be seen as a well of knowledge and experience for all students of life, hoping to contribute their part in making this world a better place.

This concludes Part 1 of the Lean and Mean Machines Methods of Madness. I will elaborate further on the other roles and functions as well as projects of the Lean and Mean Machine towards achieving this grand scheme.