Web logs

While the U.S. has a reserve of 9,200 tonnes of gold, China has 1,054 tonnes and India 565 tonnes.   Indians sit on an estimated 18,000 tonnes. India has always had the largest gold reserve with individuals.  It was $424 an ounce in 1990 before crashing to $255 in 2001

It has to break up...  We cant have a single monetary union with wildly different fiscal policies..  n starkly contrasting nature of economies...   peripheral countries ought to float their own currency at a much lower rate than euro and increase their productivity...   u cant subject them 2 years of frugality n austerity ie internal devaluation... of course german exports will be adversely impacted but the alternative looks worse..  there is going to be chaos..  whichever path we take...  we should desist from competitve devaluation if we have multiple currencies...

It has become a rolling crisis..  Everytime you put out a fire somewhere, u see that the fire breaks out elsewhere a tad bit later..   We will keep lurching between one to another with severe uncertainty..   Unless our remedies address the core structural problems...   Or our innovations in the main street create a genuine demand...

I am in blood/Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o'er. As Kenneth Muir writes, "Macbeth has not a predisposition to murder; he has merely an inordinate ambition that makes murder itself seem to be a lesser evil than failure to achieve the crown." At least since the days of Samuel Johnson, analysis of the play has centred on the question of Macbeth's ambition, commonly seen as so dominant a trait that it defines the character. Johnson asserted that Macbeth, though esteemed for his military bravery, is wholly reviled. This opinion recurs in critical literature, and, according to Caroline Spurgeon, is supported by Shakespeare himself, who apparently intended to degrade his hero by vesting him with clothes unsuited to him and to make Macbeth look ridiculous by several  n imisms he applies: His garments seem either too big or too small for him – as his ambition is too big and his character too small for his new and un...

All too often, an acquisition motivated by the allure of a specific brand, such as PepsiCo's purchase of Quaker Oats to obtain Gatorade, also brought a legacy—from breakfast cereals like Cap'n Crunch to dinner favorites like Rice-A-Roni—that complicated the portfolio manager's task.

Capitalism doesnt work on paper..  Communism does..  Capitalism works in practise..  Communism doesnt...

Why aren’t bond investors reacting with more alarm to the process of money creation?  One possibility is that, with inflation and deflation both plausible consequences of a debt crisis, investors are spreading their bets, buying gold as a hedge against the former and bonds as a hedge against the latter.  Another factor is different time horizons. Inflation may be the eventual result of QE in a few years’ time. But in the short term the risk appears to be deflation.

 Europe is contemplating cuts in fiscal spending and US is headlong into jacking it up...

There’s something about Singapore Airlines. Over the past four decades, it has earned a stellar reputation in the fiercely competitive commercial aviation business by providing customers with high-quality service and dominating the business-travel segments. SIA has won the World’s Best Airline award from  Condé Nast Traveler  21 out of the 22 times it has been awarded and Skytrax’s Airline of the Year award three times over the past decade. What’s not so well known is that despite the quality of its services, SIA is also one of the industry’s most cost-effective operators. From 2001 to 2009, its costs per available seat kilometer (ASK) were just 4.58 cents. According to a 2007 International Air Transport Association study, costs for full-service European airlines were 8 to 16 cents, for U.S. airlines 7 to 8 cents, and for Asian airlines 5 to 7 cents. In fact, SIA had lower costs than most European and American budget carriers, which ranged from 4 to 8 cents and 5 to 6 cents re...

Throughout the 1990s, U-Haul, Ryder, Hertz-Penske, and Budget waged a fiercely competitive battle in the U.S. consumer-truck-rental business. U-Haul, long the dominant player in the industry, appeared to be at a disadvantage. With its older fleet of trucks, it had higher maintenance costs than its rivals, and it charged lower prices. Barely breaking even in truck rentals, it seemed fated to fall from industry leader to industry laggard. But the numbers on the bottom line told a different story. U-Haul was actually the most profitable company in the industry, its 10 %  operating margin running far above the industry average of less than 3 % . Ultimately, in fact, the number two competitor, Ryder, abandoned the consumer rental business, selling off its fleet in 1996 to a consortium of investors. What explains U-Haul’s success? Answering that question requires us to step back and examine not only U-Haul’s strategy but also its industry’s profit structure. U-Haul prevailed because it s...

Good god..  He didn't actually travel to Pakistan in this trip.  This is the second country he is visiting since he assumed office. Goes on to show how influential Indian businessmen and Indian diaspora ( apparently, 5% of population) have become back in Britain.

The last time you had a Tory in No. 10 and a Centrist Dem in the White House, the relationship was pretty frosty..  U have a left of centre Prez, this time around..  The next 2 years will be good fun...

Welcome step...  How long will this last...  I am pretty certain that the next time the oil price shoots over 150 dpb, the govt will step in...

When constraints and ambitions combine, miracle happens

Indians used to joke that it was prophetic that a local mathematician had arguably, around 500 AD, invented the number zero—because that was how many innovations Indians developed thereafter

There exists a correlation between the two not a causal relationship. Quite often, it is the underlying sustainable competitive advantage in meeting the customers needs effectively and efficiently that drives these two factors..

With the academic body of knowledge and the empirical evidence that we possess today, if one predicts the evolution of global economy in the next few decades with regards to the emerging economies and them taking the centre-stage, It is hard not to envisage more financial crises, and high unemployment in the future in the developed world... The implications are huge...  The western world will not want to lose its hegemony...  It is highly imperative that developing word focuses on developing their defence capabilities simultaneously...

It is so funny that the monsters Fannie Mae n the Freddie Mac didn't find a mention in the Bill.

Firstly, There is no such thing... UK is a pretty junior partner in this relationship..  US just uses UK to push its agenda in the EU fora..  The so called sp. relationship massages the UK ego..  UK will continue to stay away from EU for eons to come.

The implication of this legislation has to be studied deeply to fully appreciate the factors behind the protracted Great Depression..  It is gud tarriff hikes didnt happen this time around

Its approach to outfitting stores with web kiosks to make available stuff not present in stores is quite novel and sounds like a reverse approach.