After some 25 or so tweets on the topic, and reading as much on it as possible as an academics job offers; I was wondering whether I can have anything more, and more importantly anything new to say when so much has already been stated online on it.
I have been researching on impact of Internet (and free speech and networking component of it) since last several years. I have also been researching extensively on China and on Internet and particularly on the phenomenon of Google; predicted when and where wise men dared not that Internet was mightier than the sword years ago and talked about Web 2.0 and global reforms years back. Much of it has come true, and rest will fall in line…with time. So I can definitely have something new to say on it (I was saying this to myself!), doesn’t matter that Bloomberg or NYT journalists never quote me!
Doesn’t matter as long as Web 2.0 mediums are there, I was trying to encourage myself to get into the thinking hat.
Mainstream global media increasingly quote Chinese academicians now-a-days; it’s only natural that they ignore Indian academicians as India increasingly falls behind China in relative global importance. I was desperately trying to motivate myself to think (and write this article) on how to add a new and meaningful dimension to this widely covered and followed up area.
And more so, when I held extremely positive views on Google as well as on effectiveness of most of the Chinese policies. And here’s a situation where two of your favorites are clashing with each other.
Let me be upfront here…I took a position in this dispute as I failed to remain neutral. And it was and still is in favor of Google.
But I still want both sides to reach an amicable solution. Problem is – chances of that looks remote if most of global media is to be believed. However I can still have faith in my favorites and expect both to show the maturity to solve this complex problem for the benefit of humanity, and more importantly for the 1.3 billion Chinese people or its 384 million netizens or a fraction of it who uses Google. And I am sure both parties can keep aside their selfish interests (Google as a ‘corporate’ entity as the Wall Street views it or defending the ‘party’ in case of the one-party rule in China).
Why I took a stand in favor of Google is because I believe Google, by taking this decision, has already proved that they haven’t been thinking their selfish corporate interests in numbers and future growths in accounting numbers. If they did – no firm from the Wall Street can take such a decision, nor can any analyst from the infamous Wall Street defend it. So I find it meaningless when reputed mainstream media journalists ask Wall Street analysts to justify this decision of Google. Believe me; they only know money and growth (has there ever been a measure of growth of principles?). They simply won’t get it (as Feinberg did put it while explaining how the ‘Bailed-out Bankers’ think).
My little bit of reading over this issue also told me that many Chinese look at it as a victory of China’s homegrown technology and capabilities (in some way, it falls in the same trap of the Wall Street view). Dangerously, Google’s exit can further aggravate that. Let’s look at it beyond China and the US national interests…remember here’s a company which didn’t take-off an offending picture of Mrs. Obama, the first lady, that was coming on top of Google search weeks back. That surely was distasteful, however for some – that was freedom of speech and that’s how Google’s algorithm worked, good or bad.
I know it’s difficult to define where freedom of speech must end, more so in developing societies where many of us go by rumors and sentiments and emotions before checking (how again?) the real facts and figures, due to our socio-economic background and history of growth in human rights and in free information flow. And that can make the job of governance more difficult.
It’s the age of soft superpower. I believe Internet has already to some extent, and going forward would do more, in reducing the importance of the B-2 stealth bombers or weapons of that class whenever disputes between nations come up. How much of a citizen’s mind any government can control (again in a stealthy manner?), more so when more and more citizens turn to be borderless netizens, is going to be the real challenge of bordered governments. Therefore the importance of controling Internet or its darling, social gatekeeper of Internet - Google becomes critically important in cases of cyberwarfare, or even to achieve any status close to that of a superpower.
As a netizen today, I trust The New York Times in defending human rights and values (thro’ free information flow) more than the United Nations or the US government, thanks to Internet as I access it from Kolkata in India. It was The NYT who broke out the news (and subsequently supported by few other western media like The Guardian) when the US government asked Twitter to postpone a scheduled maintenance so that Iran’s recent internal violence against its government could spread. Remember, the key word here was ‘a scheduled maintenance’ in Twitter that should be best left to Twitter. The issue was non-trivial; Iran and China belongs to different categories of nations; and Iran directly or indirectly didn’t threaten any of the US interests. If the US could go so far just to encash an opportunity presented by Iran’s internal turmoil to destabilize the nation more to get rid of Ahmadinejad; how far can it go if any such remote opportunity comes up against a potential superpower challenger like China?
Moreover, if such a thing were asked by another Government, more of one which is anti-US, during 9/11-like situation, would Twitter yield?
Unfortunately, Twitter yielded. That’s the big question today. In present age of soft superpower, in a hypothetical situation when a major dispute between the US and China leads to any war-like situation; and if any such request is placed before Google by the US government; would Google yield? Even if Google doesn’t yield on its own, can the US Government force it to yield, legally or illegally?
As that’s a hypothetical situation, no one really knows. But I hope Google will not yield in any way nor would the New York Times. Any would be challenger of the sole-superpower won’t stop at the mere intentions of Google. They surely would look for supporting evidence by the laws in the US by which Google operates and also by its infrastructure (server locations across the world and its search algorithms across these servers).
It’s the same issue why Indian government has issues in importing Chinese mobile phones, or in adopting Chinese telecom backbone infrastructure (mobile space) or even in importing Chinese power equipments in spite of techno-economic feasibility. It’s the question of trust that the supplier will be impartial in its commitment irrespective of where from in the world the customer is seeking its services and irrespective of Sino-India inter-government relationships.
There’s nothing wrong in China and its 1.3 billion people’s ambition in acquiring a superpower status or in their ambition to have homegrown capabilities that can challenge the best of the world. I rather believe it will be better for the world as it will bring in competition in these categories. And China is a real smart nation, in terms of policy-making, that recognizes the dominating weigh of soft superpower component in the overall superpower status.
So what next in this episode?
I believe Google must implicitly or explicitly acknowledge its principle (it’s mission statement: ‘organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ (irrespective of any vested interests; which implicitly is stated within the statement)) and ensure that it will never be another Twitter. True, so long it has proved it - at most one an say that Google behaved like a Twitter in China due to China’s local laws.
More transparency and actions are needed from China, even if they decide to move inch by inch, following a Chinese proverb. They must show that they are a nation which is open to the challenges that ‘soft superpower’ status brings in. After all, Google is merely another corporate entity, and as a corporate entity; they have done more than their bit in protecting universal principles (I just wish that they did not meet the US government representative hours before posting that blog, even if it was merely informing them about it). As a proud nation of its history, scale, culture and importance as China today is; it must show more open mindedness in dealing with the specific allegations that Google has brought against it.
No citizen’s loyalty, more so when that citizen is a netizen, can be taken for guranteed, be it to a firm as a customer or to a party as a supporter. Today I trust the NYT does not mean I will trust same equally when my prior wisdom tells me they may not be impartial in reporting in a hypothetical situation when India rises enough as a superpower and challenges the US on some right issues. I will start trusting local sources on that topic immediately. But in India, although there are alternatives of the NYT and that lot; unfortunately I can’t think of any alternative of Google.
That’s the short-sightedness that India is known for; and that’s the meticulous level of planning China is reputed for.
If Google fails to provide that trust to all the global citizens, I would rather ask Indian government (and all the major ones globally) to think about ways and means to achieve that soft superpower status from now itself, even though it may sound prematured for India.
However that’s a distance dream for me. I wish India rises in all fronts as China has done so far, keeping its democracy and freedom of speech. Many may think that’s a Utopian dream.
Finally I quote from Aeschylus and hope for the best in this Google-China dispute:
‘When right fights with right,
Dear Gods, let justice choose what’s right.’
True, most Chinese policy-makers don’t believe in God; however as long as their intention is God-like; we can surely find a solution to this problem, for the betterment of the Chinese people, for all netizens around the world and for all the present and future citizens of the world as well.
Ranjit Goswami is an Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, & the author of the book, Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
Friday, January 15, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
2010- let's start afresh
In India, Many Top Athletes Are Working on the Railroad
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Bill Keller Takes Exception to “Too Close to Home
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The Hugh Cudlipp lecture: Does journalism exist? by Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger.
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U.S. Arms for Taiwan Send Beijing a Message
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Fresh eyes for the new China
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U.S. and China Fall as Iceland Leads on Environmental Index
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An Ill Father, a Life-or-Death Decision
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White House puts companies on notice in China
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Google is free to leave China: Surprised the Google gets vitimized due to some exploitative policies of first world countries (FWCs) without acknowledging the benefits Google or the FWCs brought to the world.
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China Seeks To Temper Boom, Stirs Growth Fears
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The day I decided to stop being gay
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Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left
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When the ship comes home... Piracy money draws Somali youth
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Will China Achieve Science Supremacy?
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Core Conservative Beliefs: An old post, however I liked the issues and points of debate.
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A new approach to China
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Global Network Initiative
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Google’s Threat Would Mean Giving Up a Lucrative Market , Good that Reuters suggested this: Scenarios: Will Internet majors rally behind Google in China?. I liked Telegraph's view on it
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Who’s Sleeping Now?. I missed this story earlier: China to launch world's fastest train. Friedman mentions an investment of $23.5 billion. At one time (or even now), India used to have one of the largest rail network in the world!
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Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?
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Govt to pass Right to Food Act: Pranab
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China to pour some $11bn into Sarawak in Malayasia
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China May Overheat With 16% Growth, Government Researchers Say : WHat if the growth minus housing bubble minus inflation?
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Devaluation Sparks Chaos in Caracas
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America's can't-do list: Much of it looks similar to India, and much more of it may be attributed (like education) later while analyzing the relative decline of Americal influence on the world in later days, if it happens.
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The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.
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The Happiest People , and the site: Happiness in Nations
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Is America Stuffed Full of Chinese Products?
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China's Economy To Reach $123 Trillion?: Interestingly (and with the disagreements with Fogel), the author is the one who wrote The Coming Collapse of China. I go with Fogel.
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Fighting Trend, China Is Luring Scientists Home .
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Chandigarh Adults consume 136 bottles of alcohol annually
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DMK offers more freebies : I would rather welcome it, could have been better if it had the income criterion to screen so that poor (more or less educated) does not subsidise rich-less educated.
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Slovak police red-faced over botched air security test
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Argentina's central bank governor defies call to resign: When I accessed the page, it also had an ad of Clinton foundation quiz; interesting. I still admire that guy.
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Results of polls on job satisfaction are at odds
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China Dethrones Germany as Top Goods Exporter
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Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons': Last time when I visited Katwa, I saw Ganges River dolphins in the confluence of Ajay and Ganga (often, may be a few but they showed up often).
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A Crime Theory Demolished
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How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market
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Ten for the Next Ten : The guy surprisingly thinks well! I've been thinking same as a solution for climate change and to reduce Carbon-emission as well.
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What’s a Bailed-Out Banker Really Worth?
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Making College ‘Relevant’
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Bill Keller Takes Exception to “Too Close to Home
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The Hugh Cudlipp lecture: Does journalism exist? by Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger.
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.
U.S. Arms for Taiwan Send Beijing a Message
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Fresh eyes for the new China
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.
U.S. and China Fall as Iceland Leads on Environmental Index
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.
An Ill Father, a Life-or-Death Decision
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.
White House puts companies on notice in China
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.
Google is free to leave China: Surprised the Google gets vitimized due to some exploitative policies of first world countries (FWCs) without acknowledging the benefits Google or the FWCs brought to the world.
.
.
.
China Seeks To Temper Boom, Stirs Growth Fears
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.
The day I decided to stop being gay
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Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left
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.
When the ship comes home... Piracy money draws Somali youth
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.
Will China Achieve Science Supremacy?
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.
.
Core Conservative Beliefs: An old post, however I liked the issues and points of debate.
.
.
.
A new approach to China
.
.
.
Global Network Initiative
.
.
.
Google’s Threat Would Mean Giving Up a Lucrative Market , Good that Reuters suggested this: Scenarios: Will Internet majors rally behind Google in China?. I liked Telegraph's view on it
.
.
.
Who’s Sleeping Now?. I missed this story earlier: China to launch world's fastest train. Friedman mentions an investment of $23.5 billion. At one time (or even now), India used to have one of the largest rail network in the world!
.
.
.
Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School?
.
.
.
Govt to pass Right to Food Act: Pranab
.
.
.
China to pour some $11bn into Sarawak in Malayasia
.
.
.
China May Overheat With 16% Growth, Government Researchers Say : WHat if the growth minus housing bubble minus inflation?
.
.
.
Devaluation Sparks Chaos in Caracas
.
.
.
America's can't-do list: Much of it looks similar to India, and much more of it may be attributed (like education) later while analyzing the relative decline of Americal influence on the world in later days, if it happens.
.
.
.
The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.
.
.
The Happiest People , and the site: Happiness in Nations
.
.
.
Is America Stuffed Full of Chinese Products?
.
.
.
China's Economy To Reach $123 Trillion?: Interestingly (and with the disagreements with Fogel), the author is the one who wrote The Coming Collapse of China. I go with Fogel.
.
.
.
Fighting Trend, China Is Luring Scientists Home .
.
.
Chandigarh Adults consume 136 bottles of alcohol annually
.
.
.
DMK offers more freebies : I would rather welcome it, could have been better if it had the income criterion to screen so that poor (more or less educated) does not subsidise rich-less educated.
.
.
.
Slovak police red-faced over botched air security test
.
.
.
Argentina's central bank governor defies call to resign: When I accessed the page, it also had an ad of Clinton foundation quiz; interesting. I still admire that guy.
.
.
.
Results of polls on job satisfaction are at odds
.
.
.
China Dethrones Germany as Top Goods Exporter
.
.
.
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons': Last time when I visited Katwa, I saw Ganges River dolphins in the confluence of Ajay and Ganga (often, may be a few but they showed up often).
.
.
.
A Crime Theory Demolished
.
.
.
How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market
.
.
.
Ten for the Next Ten : The guy surprisingly thinks well! I've been thinking same as a solution for climate change and to reduce Carbon-emission as well.
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.
What’s a Bailed-Out Banker Really Worth?
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.
Making College ‘Relevant’
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Best of the Web - October 2009 onwards
I started this blog back in 2006...when my wife, my mother all were there. In November 2008 I lost my wife. In October 2009 - I lost my mother. However the Sun still shines, the earth rotates, birds chirp and my son still loves going to school and watching cartoons. I need to live, true the heart is heavy and asks...why blog again?
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Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites
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Chinese Slapped in Steel Dispute
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Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Sedation
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The Joy of Physics Isn’t in the Results, but in the Search Itself
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China to contribute US$38.4 bln to regional forex reserve pool: However I doubt the figure $55 trillion as global forex reserve (which I believe should be much less). I wrote to the editor on same to check the veracity of the figure as on many such occassions earlier, I found myself to be on the wrong side.
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ASEAN-China open free trade area
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Rabindranath Tagore : In Conversation with Albert Einstein
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The child born in Bethlehem
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‘New Normal’ Tops 2009 List of Overused Phrases
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The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell
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EC's public standing more than judiciary: J S Verma: The recent highlighted case of Ruchika Girhotra and millions of not-so-highlighted ones show why ECI is much better and why Indian judiciary needs to be more accountable.
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Editors Guild denounces practice of “paid news”
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Unreasonable to rebuke China over climate talks : I was not sure whether it was a Government statement or opinion/analysis on news. Surely China could have kept quite, and better Xinhua on this area. True, global media experts know Xinhua actually as a window of Govt. of China.
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There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government
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Russia’s Market Reform Architect Dies at 53
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Person of the Year 2009: Ben Bernanke The Chinese Worker - as the runner up
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China stretches the imagination with world's longest sea bridge : As I was reading the Great Wall of China (5000km or more) and millennium of years ago, I wondered on the magnitude, discipline of work. New projects show that strength. And why can't India build one such project (wall) across its rivers on both banks to minimize floods?
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Iraq Auctions Development Rights to Oil Fields
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Jobs Lost in Great Recession May Be Gone Forever
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Crackdown on China GMAT Cheating: Issues Indian institutes need to look into (like CAT) after initial stabilization.
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Ruminations on banking.
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Solar panel costs 'set to fall'
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An Economist's Invisible Hand : On Arthur Cecil Pigou
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The Other Education : Many of the comments (160 when I read it) are indeed great!
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China, U.S. Greenhouse Gas Pledges May Drive UN Deal
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Free market flawed, says survey
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U.S. Looks to Australia on Credit Card Fees
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Ahmed Rashid: Pakistan conspiracy theories stifle debate
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Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government
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Advice From Grandma
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The book that forever changed the way we think
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Reliance Bids for Bankrupt LyondellBasell to Expand
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China’s Growing Military Might
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The 100 Best Books of the Decade
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Word of the Year: an unreliable yet fascinating barometer of tech
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China: A Superpower Stirs
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Wall Street Makes It Hard to Earn Legal Living
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Trucks, Trains and Trees .
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Food: Is Monsanto the answer or the problem?
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South Korea presses home China advantage versus Japan
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The fight over the future of food
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Fed Faces Biggest Blow to Independence, Powers in Dodd Proposal .
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Keynes, Friedman Give Way to the Master of Gloom
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Witness: The news conference that toppled the Wall
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How to fill the gaps left by dollar decline
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China pushes CO2 capture, storage questions loom.
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My Seven Wonders of India
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Debate Still Rages Over Who Won the Cold War
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African nations make a stand at UN climate talks
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Internet Turns 40 Today: First Message Crashed System
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The Chinese Disconnect : Although don't agree fully...as many others say there's no country that ever grew richer by devaluing its currency. Presently the US intends to do that, and China merely is following. Moreover, when $ strengthened in the peak of crisis, Yuan also did, many other Asia currencies trade weaker (than Yuan to $)compared to their 2008 rates.
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Push to Legalize Marijuana Gains Ground in California
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Micro loans bring light to rural poor
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Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites
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Chinese Slapped in Steel Dispute
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.
Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Sedation
.
.
.
The Joy of Physics Isn’t in the Results, but in the Search Itself
.
.
.
China to contribute US$38.4 bln to regional forex reserve pool: However I doubt the figure $55 trillion as global forex reserve (which I believe should be much less). I wrote to the editor on same to check the veracity of the figure as on many such occassions earlier, I found myself to be on the wrong side.
.
.
.
ASEAN-China open free trade area
.
.
.
Rabindranath Tagore : In Conversation with Albert Einstein
.
.
.
The child born in Bethlehem
.
.
.
‘New Normal’ Tops 2009 List of Overused Phrases
.
.
.
The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell
.
.
.
EC's public standing more than judiciary: J S Verma: The recent highlighted case of Ruchika Girhotra and millions of not-so-highlighted ones show why ECI is much better and why Indian judiciary needs to be more accountable.
.
.
.
Editors Guild denounces practice of “paid news”
.
.
.
Unreasonable to rebuke China over climate talks : I was not sure whether it was a Government statement or opinion/analysis on news. Surely China could have kept quite, and better Xinhua on this area. True, global media experts know Xinhua actually as a window of Govt. of China.
.
.
.
There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government
.
.
.
Russia’s Market Reform Architect Dies at 53
.
.
.
Person of the Year 2009: Ben Bernanke The Chinese Worker - as the runner up
.
.
.
China stretches the imagination with world's longest sea bridge : As I was reading the Great Wall of China (5000km or more) and millennium of years ago, I wondered on the magnitude, discipline of work. New projects show that strength. And why can't India build one such project (wall) across its rivers on both banks to minimize floods?
.
.
.
Iraq Auctions Development Rights to Oil Fields
.
.
.
Jobs Lost in Great Recession May Be Gone Forever
.
.
.
Crackdown on China GMAT Cheating: Issues Indian institutes need to look into (like CAT) after initial stabilization.
.
.
.
Ruminations on banking.
.
.
Solar panel costs 'set to fall'
.
.
.
An Economist's Invisible Hand : On Arthur Cecil Pigou
.
.
.
The Other Education : Many of the comments (160 when I read it) are indeed great!
.
.
.
China, U.S. Greenhouse Gas Pledges May Drive UN Deal
.
.
.
Free market flawed, says survey
.
.
.
U.S. Looks to Australia on Credit Card Fees
.
.
.
Ahmed Rashid: Pakistan conspiracy theories stifle debate
.
.
.
Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government
.
.
.
Advice From Grandma
.
.
.
The book that forever changed the way we think
.
.
.
Reliance Bids for Bankrupt LyondellBasell to Expand
.
.
.
China’s Growing Military Might
.
.
.
The 100 Best Books of the Decade
.
.
.
Word of the Year: an unreliable yet fascinating barometer of tech
.
.
.
China: A Superpower Stirs
.
.
.
Wall Street Makes It Hard to Earn Legal Living
.
.
.
Trucks, Trains and Trees .
.
.
Food: Is Monsanto the answer or the problem?
.
.
.
South Korea presses home China advantage versus Japan
.
.
.
The fight over the future of food
.
.
.
Fed Faces Biggest Blow to Independence, Powers in Dodd Proposal .
.
.
Keynes, Friedman Give Way to the Master of Gloom
.
.
.
Witness: The news conference that toppled the Wall
.
.
.
How to fill the gaps left by dollar decline
.
.
.
China pushes CO2 capture, storage questions loom.
.
.
My Seven Wonders of India
.
.
.
Debate Still Rages Over Who Won the Cold War
.
.
.
African nations make a stand at UN climate talks
.
.
.
Internet Turns 40 Today: First Message Crashed System
.
.
.
The Chinese Disconnect : Although don't agree fully...as many others say there's no country that ever grew richer by devaluing its currency. Presently the US intends to do that, and China merely is following. Moreover, when $ strengthened in the peak of crisis, Yuan also did, many other Asia currencies trade weaker (than Yuan to $)compared to their 2008 rates.
.
.
.
Push to Legalize Marijuana Gains Ground in California
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.
.
Micro loans bring light to rural poor
.
.
.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Best of the Web - August'08-Sept'2009
China's overcapacity: A waste but not a mortal danger
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David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital, “Liquor before Beer… In the Clear”
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Roadside doctors with no degrees thrive in India
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Indian royal splendour on display
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Particle beams injected into LHC
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Hungry to learn across the world: The youngest headmaster in the world
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Shanghai Cooperation Organization
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Russia ready to abandon dollar in oil, gas trade with China
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China's super-rich bounce back from financial crisis
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The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate
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On Cluttered Ballots of India, Families Proliferate
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Rogoff Slams Four Toxic Words, ‘This Time Is Different’: Books
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Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize. For What?
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Will California become America's first failed state?
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Dollar Falls on Report Gulf States May Stop Using Greenback
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China Yearns to Form Its Own Media Empires
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Sixty years on: veterans of Chairman Mao's China remember
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Top 10 most significant events in shaping today’s China Mode
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China’s Mr. Wu Keeps Talking
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Patent Revolution
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Our One-Party Democracy
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Play It Cool, Mr. President
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Why capitalism fails
.
.
.
ANALYSIS-Can we predict next world crisis?
.
.
.
China vs United States: A Visual Comparison
.
.
.
GDP Fetishism.
.
.
U.S. Is Finding Its Role in Business Hard to Unwind
.
.
.
The Father Of the Green Revolution
.
.
.
China heaps scorn on U.S. tire duties
.
.
.
50 million chemicals, and accelerating
.
.
.
Trust in News Media Falls to New Low in Pew Survey : My respect and trust for NYT however has gone up (whereas most others have followed same trend as in the Pew survey findings).
.
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.
French president announces carbon tax collection program : How much does it become /barrel of crude, /mbtu of gas or /ton of coals?
.
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.
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?: Liked the cartoons on the page as well...
.
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.
China showcases commercial jet at Asia air show
.
.
.
China Tightens Grip on Rare Minerals
.
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.
It’s High Time to Ruffle a Few Billion Feathers: 'By Roach’s calculations, Americans account for about 4.5 percent of the world’s population and its consumers spent about $10 trillion in 2008. China and India, which account for roughly 40 percent of the world’s population, consumed about $2.5 trillion.'
.
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.
Victors in Japan Are Set to Abandon Market Reform
.
.
.
Chinese learn credit card perils the hard way. And this section: 'According to Professor Wang, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which tend to be private companies, account for 99 percent of the total number of firms in China; 60 percent of the country’s GDP; 70 percent of employment; 65 percent of the patents filed each year; 60 percent of exports and 50 percent of tax revenues. Despite this large contribution to the Chinese economy, SMEs only use 20 percent of China’s financial resources. Per yuan of investment, they are eight to 10 times more efficient than China’s large companies in creating jobs and four to six times more efficient in generating GDP.' is quite interesting as well. I doubt how these SMEs do it.
.
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.
ISB Founding dean Pramath Sinha...
.
.
.
Opening new chapter of China-U.S. dialogue: It's more important now to see how the Chinese view it.
.
.
.
Pope Criticizes World Economic System, Urges Social Responsibility
.
.
.
Universities test morals, knowledge: It's a much welcome change, however it must also reduce the 'rote learning' stress that most students in countries like China and (probably more so ) in India face. Therefore it should not necessarily increase the stress, rather make it enjoyable for them to read and learn. During a recent visit to Tanzania, students their said how competitive Indian education system is (in urban middle-class society), and it sort of kills a kid-boy-teenager's early life. At the same time, in-spite of such huge loads, countries like India (or even China) fail to produce globally recognized scholars, nobel laureates. That means somewhere up the value chain, system collapses (it's not alone rote learning or holistic development - facilities in colleges/universitiesand capabilities of faculties are also important).
.
.
.
Harvard Begins Case Study as Tainted MBAs Reveal Damaged Brand
.
.
.
The Rise of the Underground
.
.
.
China to Open Yuan's Role in Trade
.
.
.
CEOs Give Thanks to Hank This Thanksgiving
.
.
.
Christian Science Paper to End Daily Print Edition
.
.
.
TIMELINE: Milestones in the yen's history
.
.
.
Japan Returns to Pre-Thriller Era as Nikkei Slumps to '82 Level
.
.
.
Apple Q4 earnings: Analyzing the analysts: Can the same be said about professional journalists and bloggers/citizen journalists?
.
.
.
China Allows Short Sales, Margin Loans to Help Market : I must say I am quite surprised by part of this decision. That's China for rest of the world! I also sense that China is trying to send a message (snub?) hereby to market economy that where the US has failed, China would succeed. No doubt a bold move, however probably it was better to move more carefully at this particular juncture.
.
.
.
Japan logs trade deficit as exports slow: That indeed is a news, and most unexpected (since 1082!). I expected the real trade figures (number, for imports and exports in $bns), however that's missing from the article.
.
.
.
U.S. to lose financial superpower status - Germany & Asia Needs Deal to Prevent Panic Selling of U.S. Debt, Yu Says : Interestingly, 1st one comes from Germany and 2nd one from China. The OPEC voice can send the market in a real turmoil.
.
.
.
Morgan Stanley's Mack Seeks Protection From You: I didn't expect such a harsh criticism of ongoing policies from Bloomberg...
.
.
.
Treasury Seeks Authority to Buy Mortgages Unchecked by Courts : I have managed various reverse auctions in my earlier career with e-business service providers, but wonder how RA can be applied in such a case. Every house is unique, so for every house (mortgage), there's only one seller (or mortgage owner). If they club the mortgages in lots and based on quality of mortgage (what's likely), then again no two lots are same. Reverse auctions work when all suppliers are more or less equal in their quality of goods/services; which isn't largely true for this case. Therefore I foresee that the tresury would start buying the lowest quality of mortgages; and now one would like to be seller in the early days, believing that as the RA with $700 billion moves through (and also economy improves/liquidity/home prices improve), they would get a better price either through market (or through subsequent round of RAs). Only the mortgage holders desperate for cash would indulge in some sort of distress sales (what's the value Tresury can buy for every dollar in its 1st lot...asset of 3 dollars? I will rather put it at a less value...anyway let's see as more clarifications emerge).
.
.
.
GM puts Volt through its paces in Milford
.
.
.
Wall Street Journal to go into wine retailing
.
.
.
China paper urges new currency order after "financial tsunami": Watch the timing...
.
.
.
How to Handle a Market Gone Mad
.
.
.
Sell the U.S. Dollar into Strength: Last few days I haven't written much/posted much as I am again bit active in market (and stressful with leveraged position...and in wrong foot at times). However I have been following all events closely. Surprisingly, this is the 1st article that talked about intervention as the ongoing phenomena whereas when dollar was weak, there was active talk about it. To me it surely looks like an intervention - then why not the Russians, Chinese, OPEC world shifting their forex in this rally to Euro. Or even buying gold? Something fishy...true, the job of trading in derivatives is more stressful than a bomb-diffuser. Hope I survive this time.
.
.
.
UAL Story Blame Is Placed on Computer: I didn't know many things in the article...more about the computer-based trading (25% - astonishing!)
.
.
.
UAL shares walloped by new posting of old news: Sometime back, I talked about Indian media broadcasting/printing news without any quality check (the Goa and Nazi story); however this highlights what's happening in so called western press (many of which I consider to be reputed ones!). Hilarious indeed - only not so hilarious who sold believeing the story.
.
.
.
CERN fires up new atom smasher to near Big Bang: I briefly touched upon it in my book Wondering Man Money & Go(l)d...interesting developments. And there is a small fear in the mind as well.
.
.
.
Here is one of the better measure of Indian inflation...and here is the official website. Unfortunately, as one Reuters article suggested even today, the data always leaks out before the scheduled time for market manipulation. And it happened today also.
.
.
Asia leads mobile growth, but lags on Internet.
.
.
Google Offers Web Browser for Download to Challenge Microsoft
.
.
.
Text of Sen. Barack Obama's speech: Wish India gets a politician with similar idelogies...
.
.
.
Japan Goes on Buying Spree, Shrugging Off '80s Bubble : It talked about Ranbaxy-Daiichi as well. One particular aspect, in which I never thought about, came out here and that's 'Japanese companies have cash equal to 11 percent of their assets, the second-highest amount after China among the world's 10 biggest equity markets, according to Bloomberg data'. It's good to always have cash - just as Mutual Funds or investors have. More so in boom time...
.
.
.
Stocks Under 'Short' Order Fell During Protection Period & Did It Help to Curb Short Sales?: Markets are too powerful and its all about confidence...once the genie is out of the bottle, it's difficult to control it.
.
.
.
India Sounds `Death Knell' for Jobs With Perks: And when one adds the complexity of withdrawing this PF in one's need (e-governance in India: a status report), one understands that this is another poverty tax that govt. employs on the informal sector and unorganized employees. Could anyone in India withdraw his/her PF when one of his/her family member needs some costly treatment at a short notice? I think not. The process takes minimum few months, and probably hell lot of applications and follow ups. Makes a sense for govt. employees, otherwise it simply does not have any relevance.
.
.
.
China to overtake US as largest manufacturer: The FT subscription models (3-categories) show another interesting online trend. Regarding the article: 'China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy.' I long felt it so, and I still don't understand how service economy (where Wall Street alone can be nearly 30%) can be more than 80% of a large economy.
.
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.
Asian Yahoos Don't Give a Google About Free Web
.
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.
Microsoft $20 Billion Buyback Signaled After Slump : It's surprising to see so much buy-back when possibilities are huge...true there's no point in spending the money in the drain either.
.
.
.
China Wins Financial Olympics as Losses Hit U.S. : Remember Socialist China creates Capitalist records...
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.
Korea's No. 1 Money Manager Says Genghis Khan Model for Funds : Mirae picked up some stake in LIC Housing Finance, one of the scripts I follow (and occassionally hold, as I am doing now). I believe they entered at > Rs. 300. During the July slump in Indian markets, one day I was shocked to see the volumes in its futures. Normally the counter sees thin trading, at times to sell one contract, one needs to wait for minutes. And when NIFTY was close to 3800 or so level, with LIC Housing Finance at around Rs. 230-level; there were sale orders that numbered 100-s at one time. And there was a flood of sale orders for couple of days. Few days later, I read Mirae did close their India-specific fund, in which they had high realty exposure. There were another FII seller that month (some Mauritus-based funds like TCI or so); whereas Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse picked up the stakes. Markets are indeed as dangerous and as fluid and as volatile as fire and water. Always be careful...
.
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.
The Trolls Among Us : We see increasing online collaboration amongst MSMs as Bloomberg directly linked to this. The article is interesting, and in-spite of being a member of pro-internet lobby; makes me think about its healthy future in an absolutely unregulated environment
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David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital, “Liquor before Beer… In the Clear”
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Roadside doctors with no degrees thrive in India
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Indian royal splendour on display
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Particle beams injected into LHC
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Hungry to learn across the world: The youngest headmaster in the world
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Shanghai Cooperation Organization
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Russia ready to abandon dollar in oil, gas trade with China
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China's super-rich bounce back from financial crisis
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The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate
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On Cluttered Ballots of India, Families Proliferate
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.
Rogoff Slams Four Toxic Words, ‘This Time Is Different’: Books
.
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.
Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize. For What?
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Will California become America's first failed state?
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Dollar Falls on Report Gulf States May Stop Using Greenback
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China Yearns to Form Its Own Media Empires
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Sixty years on: veterans of Chairman Mao's China remember
.
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.
Top 10 most significant events in shaping today’s China Mode
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China’s Mr. Wu Keeps Talking
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.
Patent Revolution
.
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.
Our One-Party Democracy
.
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.
Play It Cool, Mr. President
.
.
.
Why capitalism fails
.
.
.
ANALYSIS-Can we predict next world crisis?
.
.
.
China vs United States: A Visual Comparison
.
.
.
GDP Fetishism.
.
.
U.S. Is Finding Its Role in Business Hard to Unwind
.
.
.
The Father Of the Green Revolution
.
.
.
China heaps scorn on U.S. tire duties
.
.
.
50 million chemicals, and accelerating
.
.
.
Trust in News Media Falls to New Low in Pew Survey : My respect and trust for NYT however has gone up (whereas most others have followed same trend as in the Pew survey findings).
.
.
.
French president announces carbon tax collection program : How much does it become /barrel of crude, /mbtu of gas or /ton of coals?
.
.
.
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?: Liked the cartoons on the page as well...
.
.
.
China showcases commercial jet at Asia air show
.
.
.
China Tightens Grip on Rare Minerals
.
.
.
It’s High Time to Ruffle a Few Billion Feathers: 'By Roach’s calculations, Americans account for about 4.5 percent of the world’s population and its consumers spent about $10 trillion in 2008. China and India, which account for roughly 40 percent of the world’s population, consumed about $2.5 trillion.'
.
.
.
Victors in Japan Are Set to Abandon Market Reform
.
.
.
Chinese learn credit card perils the hard way. And this section: 'According to Professor Wang, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which tend to be private companies, account for 99 percent of the total number of firms in China; 60 percent of the country’s GDP; 70 percent of employment; 65 percent of the patents filed each year; 60 percent of exports and 50 percent of tax revenues. Despite this large contribution to the Chinese economy, SMEs only use 20 percent of China’s financial resources. Per yuan of investment, they are eight to 10 times more efficient than China’s large companies in creating jobs and four to six times more efficient in generating GDP.' is quite interesting as well. I doubt how these SMEs do it.
.
.
.
ISB Founding dean Pramath Sinha...
.
.
.
Opening new chapter of China-U.S. dialogue: It's more important now to see how the Chinese view it.
.
.
.
Pope Criticizes World Economic System, Urges Social Responsibility
.
.
.
Universities test morals, knowledge: It's a much welcome change, however it must also reduce the 'rote learning' stress that most students in countries like China and (probably more so ) in India face. Therefore it should not necessarily increase the stress, rather make it enjoyable for them to read and learn. During a recent visit to Tanzania, students their said how competitive Indian education system is (in urban middle-class society), and it sort of kills a kid-boy-teenager's early life. At the same time, in-spite of such huge loads, countries like India (or even China) fail to produce globally recognized scholars, nobel laureates. That means somewhere up the value chain, system collapses (it's not alone rote learning or holistic development - facilities in colleges/universitiesand capabilities of faculties are also important).
.
.
.
Harvard Begins Case Study as Tainted MBAs Reveal Damaged Brand
.
.
.
The Rise of the Underground
.
.
.
China to Open Yuan's Role in Trade
.
.
.
CEOs Give Thanks to Hank This Thanksgiving
.
.
.
Christian Science Paper to End Daily Print Edition
.
.
.
TIMELINE: Milestones in the yen's history
.
.
.
Japan Returns to Pre-Thriller Era as Nikkei Slumps to '82 Level
.
.
.
Apple Q4 earnings: Analyzing the analysts: Can the same be said about professional journalists and bloggers/citizen journalists?
.
.
.
China Allows Short Sales, Margin Loans to Help Market : I must say I am quite surprised by part of this decision. That's China for rest of the world! I also sense that China is trying to send a message (snub?) hereby to market economy that where the US has failed, China would succeed. No doubt a bold move, however probably it was better to move more carefully at this particular juncture.
.
.
.
Japan logs trade deficit as exports slow: That indeed is a news, and most unexpected (since 1082!). I expected the real trade figures (number, for imports and exports in $bns), however that's missing from the article.
.
.
.
U.S. to lose financial superpower status - Germany & Asia Needs Deal to Prevent Panic Selling of U.S. Debt, Yu Says : Interestingly, 1st one comes from Germany and 2nd one from China. The OPEC voice can send the market in a real turmoil.
.
.
.
Morgan Stanley's Mack Seeks Protection From You: I didn't expect such a harsh criticism of ongoing policies from Bloomberg...
.
.
.
Treasury Seeks Authority to Buy Mortgages Unchecked by Courts : I have managed various reverse auctions in my earlier career with e-business service providers, but wonder how RA can be applied in such a case. Every house is unique, so for every house (mortgage), there's only one seller (or mortgage owner). If they club the mortgages in lots and based on quality of mortgage (what's likely), then again no two lots are same. Reverse auctions work when all suppliers are more or less equal in their quality of goods/services; which isn't largely true for this case. Therefore I foresee that the tresury would start buying the lowest quality of mortgages; and now one would like to be seller in the early days, believing that as the RA with $700 billion moves through (and also economy improves/liquidity/home prices improve), they would get a better price either through market (or through subsequent round of RAs). Only the mortgage holders desperate for cash would indulge in some sort of distress sales (what's the value Tresury can buy for every dollar in its 1st lot...asset of 3 dollars? I will rather put it at a less value...anyway let's see as more clarifications emerge).
.
.
.
GM puts Volt through its paces in Milford
.
.
.
Wall Street Journal to go into wine retailing
.
.
.
China paper urges new currency order after "financial tsunami": Watch the timing...
.
.
.
How to Handle a Market Gone Mad
.
.
.
Sell the U.S. Dollar into Strength: Last few days I haven't written much/posted much as I am again bit active in market (and stressful with leveraged position...and in wrong foot at times). However I have been following all events closely. Surprisingly, this is the 1st article that talked about intervention as the ongoing phenomena whereas when dollar was weak, there was active talk about it. To me it surely looks like an intervention - then why not the Russians, Chinese, OPEC world shifting their forex in this rally to Euro. Or even buying gold? Something fishy...true, the job of trading in derivatives is more stressful than a bomb-diffuser. Hope I survive this time.
.
.
.
UAL Story Blame Is Placed on Computer: I didn't know many things in the article...more about the computer-based trading (25% - astonishing!)
.
.
.
UAL shares walloped by new posting of old news: Sometime back, I talked about Indian media broadcasting/printing news without any quality check (the Goa and Nazi story); however this highlights what's happening in so called western press (many of which I consider to be reputed ones!). Hilarious indeed - only not so hilarious who sold believeing the story.
.
.
.
CERN fires up new atom smasher to near Big Bang: I briefly touched upon it in my book Wondering Man Money & Go(l)d...interesting developments. And there is a small fear in the mind as well.
.
.
.
Here is one of the better measure of Indian inflation...and here is the official website. Unfortunately, as one Reuters article suggested even today, the data always leaks out before the scheduled time for market manipulation. And it happened today also.
.
.
Asia leads mobile growth, but lags on Internet.
.
.
Google Offers Web Browser for Download to Challenge Microsoft
.
.
.
Text of Sen. Barack Obama's speech: Wish India gets a politician with similar idelogies...
.
.
.
Japan Goes on Buying Spree, Shrugging Off '80s Bubble : It talked about Ranbaxy-Daiichi as well. One particular aspect, in which I never thought about, came out here and that's 'Japanese companies have cash equal to 11 percent of their assets, the second-highest amount after China among the world's 10 biggest equity markets, according to Bloomberg data'. It's good to always have cash - just as Mutual Funds or investors have. More so in boom time...
.
.
.
Stocks Under 'Short' Order Fell During Protection Period & Did It Help to Curb Short Sales?: Markets are too powerful and its all about confidence...once the genie is out of the bottle, it's difficult to control it.
.
.
.
India Sounds `Death Knell' for Jobs With Perks: And when one adds the complexity of withdrawing this PF in one's need (e-governance in India: a status report), one understands that this is another poverty tax that govt. employs on the informal sector and unorganized employees. Could anyone in India withdraw his/her PF when one of his/her family member needs some costly treatment at a short notice? I think not. The process takes minimum few months, and probably hell lot of applications and follow ups. Makes a sense for govt. employees, otherwise it simply does not have any relevance.
.
.
.
China to overtake US as largest manufacturer: The FT subscription models (3-categories) show another interesting online trend. Regarding the article: 'China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy.' I long felt it so, and I still don't understand how service economy (where Wall Street alone can be nearly 30%) can be more than 80% of a large economy.
.
.
.
Asian Yahoos Don't Give a Google About Free Web
.
.
.
Microsoft $20 Billion Buyback Signaled After Slump : It's surprising to see so much buy-back when possibilities are huge...true there's no point in spending the money in the drain either.
.
.
.
China Wins Financial Olympics as Losses Hit U.S. : Remember Socialist China creates Capitalist records...
.
.
.
Korea's No. 1 Money Manager Says Genghis Khan Model for Funds : Mirae picked up some stake in LIC Housing Finance, one of the scripts I follow (and occassionally hold, as I am doing now). I believe they entered at > Rs. 300. During the July slump in Indian markets, one day I was shocked to see the volumes in its futures. Normally the counter sees thin trading, at times to sell one contract, one needs to wait for minutes. And when NIFTY was close to 3800 or so level, with LIC Housing Finance at around Rs. 230-level; there were sale orders that numbered 100-s at one time. And there was a flood of sale orders for couple of days. Few days later, I read Mirae did close their India-specific fund, in which they had high realty exposure. There were another FII seller that month (some Mauritus-based funds like TCI or so); whereas Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse picked up the stakes. Markets are indeed as dangerous and as fluid and as volatile as fire and water. Always be careful...
.
.
.
The Trolls Among Us : We see increasing online collaboration amongst MSMs as Bloomberg directly linked to this. The article is interesting, and in-spite of being a member of pro-internet lobby; makes me think about its healthy future in an absolutely unregulated environment
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
May-June-July 2008
SAP 2Q Beats Views; Fiscal Year Guidance At Top-End: The constant currencies part is interesting...
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.
MSM Stealing Blog Content: Times Joins Growing Trend?: I see it as a both-way process where many bloggers also do the opposite. However reputed news-agencies must not do it, and the reason offered for not acknowledging content from blogs is ridiculous.
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China to Turn Economic Growth Into Olympic Gold, End U.S. Reign:
'Hawksworth's calculations show that the top 30 countries will win 82 percent of the medals, mirroring their 84 percent share of the world economy.'
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Temasek Invests in Merrill After Getting Compensation : So new instruments keep evolving, and they always favor the large bargaining power of large buyers.
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So Long, Capitalism
.
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Randy Pausch: The lecture of a lifetime: 'Sincerity translates, in other words, on a far more primal level than language...'
Makes one wonder on the sincerity level of Crocodile Hunter or Randy Pausch or people like them, and then people like me (or us) and then the so-called decision makers who are supposed to be the most sincere about the plight of mankind at large.
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Obama addresses 200,000 in Berlin with message of unity for world's people & Obama Speaks to Germany on European Ties
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Another Meeting? Say It Isn’t So
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Berliners welcome Obama as they did JFK: '76 percent of Berliners would vote for him, and he's been dubbed by influential news magazine Der Spiegel as "the president of the world." He could "stand on his head" and it wouldn't matter, said one media critic.' Lately I am seeing Der Spiegel online (in Google News), and do like it also.
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GM Teams With Dozens Of Utilities on Plug-In Cars: Oil dependence indeed looks to be slowing down...with such innovations now a possibility. Good article.
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The Inflation Haymaker Comes A Cropper: Interesting to know the history...also I found a new thing in Foxnews 1st time...stock-proces changing in real time basis...makes better sense than the quotes that Reuters or Bloomberg gives!
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Fannie and Freddie's Enablers
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Darkness on the edge of town: Newspapers 2008.
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Trouble at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Stirs Concern Abroad
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A Big Party Without the Guest of Honor : True...what a nostalgic moment...and what changes we saw in last 100-years
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For Short Sellers, It Doesn’t Get Much Better : And imagine, a market regulator like SEBI in India is introducing these monsters in India. FIIs would come and short-sale India; and RBI and SEBI would watch (rather facilitate).
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Chinese president meets Indian PM on bilateral ties, global issues : I believe it's time for India and China to take these words to action. China should take the initiative and India should be more open, rather than uttering the same-old dimplomatic words. Trust must be built first on the disputes regarding borders, and a status quo should be maintained. I liked the words of Hu Jintao, and hope he really meant it, with due understanding of complexity of Indian systems.
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UAE GDP revision highlights region's data problems: Because they are not yet professional liars, that's why they goofed up. I take all GDP and inflation figures with same degree of credibility, Money Supply is something that can be clearly quantified; but for some reason isn't, in a single global scale.
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Internet propels Obama but also creates risks: I rather disagree...Internet allows better control than the distortions often made by the mainstream/alternate media. Here one keeps the control and clarifications. True, close coordination amongst the different groups who are manahing the campaign with the candidate is needed.
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Old Harvard Ties Failing in New Egalitarian Age: Very much true globally...
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Came across Reportr.net as a blog and Prof. Alfred Armida as its founder.
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A Classic Final That Began So Harmlessly, and So Much Earlier : Indeed. I saw the match till the 2nd rain disturbed play in Star Sports. And like Rhoden, I also supported Nadal (true, from the 2nd set onwards). Federer was invincible...till 2008. All eras end. And I was wondering at the characters...be it Nadal (22-years) or Federer (26). What was I in 22 - or most of us? Mostly immatured but arrogant, about whatever strengths we had, without knowing much of the world. Great staff. Thanks to both the players. When he lost the 4th set in tie-breal from the 5-2 lead position, I felt inexperience is costing him. And Federer, with his serve-strength, always had an advantages in tii-breakers (probably the records also showed that). 'All that remained was to crown a champion, not determine the better (sports) man (for the day)...From Wimbledon to the streets of London, this was a great moment, a moment of transition in men’s tennis and transformation in one player’s life.
' Yes, too early to say about the era...shaken or broken? I remember Federer also lost the chance almost a year back to have the largest match winning-record. He was such a person that opponent always felt he was invincible. Probably not any more...
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Biofuels May Be Even Worse than First Thought: Lately I am seeing more of Spiegel Online in Google News. I must say 'I'm liking it (Google News)' as they say for McDonald or so. On more serious note, I wonder on these two figures: 75% (as the WB says) to 3% (as the US feels). No doubt top minds are involved...that's what I say about qualitative research.
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Glaxo Scientist's `Aha' Moment May Result in Malaria Vaccine
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The Weak-Dollar Threat to World Order
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India: A billion aspirations: Ha Ha... some laughter does help. Yes, I too saw the headlines (don't remember whenther on print or online), however didn't read it (the age impropriety, and not my line). True, I read a lot of stuff online (even trash), however this is something! Would be interesting to see whether these four media-firms change their articles or not (TOIN hasn't so far, the comments clearly saw the joke), and how they run the correction.
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.
Benedict Benjamin Bernanke
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Entire US financial system is to come under the scrutiny of the IMF
: 'macroeconomics textbooks are no longer worth much in the age of globalization'.
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GM Falls to Lowest Since 1974 on Goldman Rating Cut : Interesting point would be to note how Hindustan Motors (HM) performed over this period...I believe not so badly. So with so many management gurus and stories on GM and so much bad publicity (normally) against HM, I wonder who sustains, finally.
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Warren Buffett Says Sell to Me, Not `Porn Shop,' as Growth Dips : A must read for people in M&A space. Though I am, like millions others, is a Buffet fan; I wonder whether the Halo created around his personality is vulnerable. History says yes. Question is - for him, or for his firm?
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Hong Kong to Start Commodities Exchange to Trade Oil : Interesting part is, it will be all in dollar. I suspect, too early for any such conjecture so early, that going down, few years (2013 or even early based on geopolitics and global economy), they may shift to Euro or even their own currency (or as OPEC favors).
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I liked http://theinvestingspeculator.com/ (June 2008 posts), the BP chart of A dance to the music of time, energy sources by category and comparison of oil prices with other useful liquids.
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'Markets funny, fed prints money
Says it sunny, lies like honey, too sweet for me'... from IMF: Fed Should Leave Rates Steady
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Two Sides to Story Define Wall Street in Cioffi's Tale at Bear
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Weary Americans can't fight global inflation: 'Stephen Jen of Morgan Stanley estimates that at $120 a barrel, oil exporters are getting $6.8 billion a day. At $135 per barrel the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries have proven reserves worth about $65 trillion, as compared with global stock market capitalization of about $50 trillion.'.
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Why Paul Miller in Virginia Is Wall Street's Best Stock Picker .
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Fed's Bear Stearns Books Look Prime for Cooking
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Mostly irregular these days...
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Sometime back I stated that the world loves American people and values, but its policies (foreign policies). Here is the best example of that, not in the article, but in the 1st comment as posted by WillH. The article is one in which I took interest sometime back, Supreme Court maintains post-9/11 course on Gitmo. And here is the jewel of a comment, on America really is (on which I was confused like many): 'It's truly saddening to see posters using the American flag as an avatar making comments to the effect that constitutional rights ought to be suspended for security interests. I say you are no Americans at all, you do not share American values, you disrespect that flag and all that it stands for. Shame on you. This is the land of the free, we do not sacrifice our God given rights for fear, hate, or foreign policy. The moment we sacrifice our core values for security we've sacrificed the one thing that's truly worth protecting. The terrorists hate us and everything we stand for, when we give up these precious freedoms we're doing their work for them.
Many of these detainees are scumbags, I have no doubt. But they have rights and *because they have rights I know that I have rights.* If they are guilty then bring them before a jury and let them receive the punishment they deserve. If anything, this business of detainees only hurts our cause. It shows that we are hypocrites - claiming that we support freedom, equality, and justice (e.g. the after-the-fact justification for the Iraq war) but we deny those same values when it is expedient for us to do so. Gitmo is destructive to our values and our foreign policy interests.
I find these comments truly disappointing and would encourage those of you who disagree with the Court's ruling to go to Cuba or China, do us all a favor and take your fear mongering elsewhere. Your rhetoric smacks of totalitarianism, its un-American, and un-welcome in this country that I love.'
Thanks WillH, That should not be American value, but the global human value (borrowed from America! or there historically were other instances of such values elsewhere?)
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Google Diplomats Bend Free Expression to Preserve Global Power
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Mobile Phone Is Best Way to Provide Bank Access: The role of Central Banking itself should change...
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World Bank `Destroyed Basic Grains' in Honduras, Fueling Hunger : I don't remember exactly, however following another research report, in one of my article, I did talk about either same Honduras or another similar nation's plight under the WB advice.
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Argentine Farmers Block Grain Trucks, Withhold Crops to End Tax : The food shock of which I was comprehensive was for a long time is finally here, and I believe it's likely to last longer and be short of permamnent phenomena with temporary blips. Yesterday, one TV channel showed that local (Indian) prices of rice and wheat to be around 35-40% cheaper than global prices - and here is the big dilemma. In one way, govt writes off farmers' loans and subsidizes them (how much of it actually reaches them remains a question mark), it again exploits them by 'forcing' them to sell it at 35-40% cheaper! And imagine the import-price based formula that Indian industry adopts for almost everything from cement to steel to Aluminium to plastics (barring mobile call rates!). So we encourage the rich to exploit us, and the exploit the poor to help the rich (there is also significant number of poors and non-farmers, true). And in Argentina, the farmers are protesting. I suspect similar developments in India unless our policies become fare to the farmers.
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MSM Stealing Blog Content: Times Joins Growing Trend?: I see it as a both-way process where many bloggers also do the opposite. However reputed news-agencies must not do it, and the reason offered for not acknowledging content from blogs is ridiculous.
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China to Turn Economic Growth Into Olympic Gold, End U.S. Reign:
'Hawksworth's calculations show that the top 30 countries will win 82 percent of the medals, mirroring their 84 percent share of the world economy.'
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Temasek Invests in Merrill After Getting Compensation : So new instruments keep evolving, and they always favor the large bargaining power of large buyers.
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So Long, Capitalism
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Randy Pausch: The lecture of a lifetime: 'Sincerity translates, in other words, on a far more primal level than language...'
Makes one wonder on the sincerity level of Crocodile Hunter or Randy Pausch or people like them, and then people like me (or us) and then the so-called decision makers who are supposed to be the most sincere about the plight of mankind at large.
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Obama addresses 200,000 in Berlin with message of unity for world's people & Obama Speaks to Germany on European Ties
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Another Meeting? Say It Isn’t So
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Berliners welcome Obama as they did JFK: '76 percent of Berliners would vote for him, and he's been dubbed by influential news magazine Der Spiegel as "the president of the world." He could "stand on his head" and it wouldn't matter, said one media critic.' Lately I am seeing Der Spiegel online (in Google News), and do like it also.
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GM Teams With Dozens Of Utilities on Plug-In Cars: Oil dependence indeed looks to be slowing down...with such innovations now a possibility. Good article.
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The Inflation Haymaker Comes A Cropper: Interesting to know the history...also I found a new thing in Foxnews 1st time...stock-proces changing in real time basis...makes better sense than the quotes that Reuters or Bloomberg gives!
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Fannie and Freddie's Enablers
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Darkness on the edge of town: Newspapers 2008.
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Trouble at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Stirs Concern Abroad
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A Big Party Without the Guest of Honor : True...what a nostalgic moment...and what changes we saw in last 100-years
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For Short Sellers, It Doesn’t Get Much Better : And imagine, a market regulator like SEBI in India is introducing these monsters in India. FIIs would come and short-sale India; and RBI and SEBI would watch (rather facilitate).
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Chinese president meets Indian PM on bilateral ties, global issues : I believe it's time for India and China to take these words to action. China should take the initiative and India should be more open, rather than uttering the same-old dimplomatic words. Trust must be built first on the disputes regarding borders, and a status quo should be maintained. I liked the words of Hu Jintao, and hope he really meant it, with due understanding of complexity of Indian systems.
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UAE GDP revision highlights region's data problems: Because they are not yet professional liars, that's why they goofed up. I take all GDP and inflation figures with same degree of credibility, Money Supply is something that can be clearly quantified; but for some reason isn't, in a single global scale.
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Internet propels Obama but also creates risks: I rather disagree...Internet allows better control than the distortions often made by the mainstream/alternate media. Here one keeps the control and clarifications. True, close coordination amongst the different groups who are manahing the campaign with the candidate is needed.
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Old Harvard Ties Failing in New Egalitarian Age: Very much true globally...
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Came across Reportr.net as a blog and Prof. Alfred Armida as its founder.
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A Classic Final That Began So Harmlessly, and So Much Earlier : Indeed. I saw the match till the 2nd rain disturbed play in Star Sports. And like Rhoden, I also supported Nadal (true, from the 2nd set onwards). Federer was invincible...till 2008. All eras end. And I was wondering at the characters...be it Nadal (22-years) or Federer (26). What was I in 22 - or most of us? Mostly immatured but arrogant, about whatever strengths we had, without knowing much of the world. Great staff. Thanks to both the players. When he lost the 4th set in tie-breal from the 5-2 lead position, I felt inexperience is costing him. And Federer, with his serve-strength, always had an advantages in tii-breakers (probably the records also showed that). 'All that remained was to crown a champion, not determine the better (sports) man (for the day)...From Wimbledon to the streets of London, this was a great moment, a moment of transition in men’s tennis and transformation in one player’s life.
' Yes, too early to say about the era...shaken or broken? I remember Federer also lost the chance almost a year back to have the largest match winning-record. He was such a person that opponent always felt he was invincible. Probably not any more...
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Biofuels May Be Even Worse than First Thought: Lately I am seeing more of Spiegel Online in Google News. I must say 'I'm liking it (Google News)' as they say for McDonald or so. On more serious note, I wonder on these two figures: 75% (as the WB says) to 3% (as the US feels). No doubt top minds are involved...that's what I say about qualitative research.
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Glaxo Scientist's `Aha' Moment May Result in Malaria Vaccine
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The Weak-Dollar Threat to World Order
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India: A billion aspirations: Ha Ha... some laughter does help. Yes, I too saw the headlines (don't remember whenther on print or online), however didn't read it (the age impropriety, and not my line). True, I read a lot of stuff online (even trash), however this is something! Would be interesting to see whether these four media-firms change their articles or not (TOIN hasn't so far, the comments clearly saw the joke), and how they run the correction.
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Benedict Benjamin Bernanke
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Entire US financial system is to come under the scrutiny of the IMF
: 'macroeconomics textbooks are no longer worth much in the age of globalization'.
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GM Falls to Lowest Since 1974 on Goldman Rating Cut : Interesting point would be to note how Hindustan Motors (HM) performed over this period...I believe not so badly. So with so many management gurus and stories on GM and so much bad publicity (normally) against HM, I wonder who sustains, finally.
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Warren Buffett Says Sell to Me, Not `Porn Shop,' as Growth Dips : A must read for people in M&A space. Though I am, like millions others, is a Buffet fan; I wonder whether the Halo created around his personality is vulnerable. History says yes. Question is - for him, or for his firm?
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Hong Kong to Start Commodities Exchange to Trade Oil : Interesting part is, it will be all in dollar. I suspect, too early for any such conjecture so early, that going down, few years (2013 or even early based on geopolitics and global economy), they may shift to Euro or even their own currency (or as OPEC favors).
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I liked http://theinvestingspeculator.com/ (June 2008 posts), the BP chart of A dance to the music of time, energy sources by category and comparison of oil prices with other useful liquids.
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'Markets funny, fed prints money
Says it sunny, lies like honey, too sweet for me'... from IMF: Fed Should Leave Rates Steady
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Two Sides to Story Define Wall Street in Cioffi's Tale at Bear
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Weary Americans can't fight global inflation: 'Stephen Jen of Morgan Stanley estimates that at $120 a barrel, oil exporters are getting $6.8 billion a day. At $135 per barrel the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries have proven reserves worth about $65 trillion, as compared with global stock market capitalization of about $50 trillion.'.
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Why Paul Miller in Virginia Is Wall Street's Best Stock Picker .
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Fed's Bear Stearns Books Look Prime for Cooking
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Mostly irregular these days...
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Sometime back I stated that the world loves American people and values, but its policies (foreign policies). Here is the best example of that, not in the article, but in the 1st comment as posted by WillH. The article is one in which I took interest sometime back, Supreme Court maintains post-9/11 course on Gitmo. And here is the jewel of a comment, on America really is (on which I was confused like many): 'It's truly saddening to see posters using the American flag as an avatar making comments to the effect that constitutional rights ought to be suspended for security interests. I say you are no Americans at all, you do not share American values, you disrespect that flag and all that it stands for. Shame on you. This is the land of the free, we do not sacrifice our God given rights for fear, hate, or foreign policy. The moment we sacrifice our core values for security we've sacrificed the one thing that's truly worth protecting. The terrorists hate us and everything we stand for, when we give up these precious freedoms we're doing their work for them.
Many of these detainees are scumbags, I have no doubt. But they have rights and *because they have rights I know that I have rights.* If they are guilty then bring them before a jury and let them receive the punishment they deserve. If anything, this business of detainees only hurts our cause. It shows that we are hypocrites - claiming that we support freedom, equality, and justice (e.g. the after-the-fact justification for the Iraq war) but we deny those same values when it is expedient for us to do so. Gitmo is destructive to our values and our foreign policy interests.
I find these comments truly disappointing and would encourage those of you who disagree with the Court's ruling to go to Cuba or China, do us all a favor and take your fear mongering elsewhere. Your rhetoric smacks of totalitarianism, its un-American, and un-welcome in this country that I love.'
Thanks WillH, That should not be American value, but the global human value (borrowed from America! or there historically were other instances of such values elsewhere?)
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Google Diplomats Bend Free Expression to Preserve Global Power
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Mobile Phone Is Best Way to Provide Bank Access: The role of Central Banking itself should change...
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World Bank `Destroyed Basic Grains' in Honduras, Fueling Hunger : I don't remember exactly, however following another research report, in one of my article, I did talk about either same Honduras or another similar nation's plight under the WB advice.
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Argentine Farmers Block Grain Trucks, Withhold Crops to End Tax : The food shock of which I was comprehensive was for a long time is finally here, and I believe it's likely to last longer and be short of permamnent phenomena with temporary blips. Yesterday, one TV channel showed that local (Indian) prices of rice and wheat to be around 35-40% cheaper than global prices - and here is the big dilemma. In one way, govt writes off farmers' loans and subsidizes them (how much of it actually reaches them remains a question mark), it again exploits them by 'forcing' them to sell it at 35-40% cheaper! And imagine the import-price based formula that Indian industry adopts for almost everything from cement to steel to Aluminium to plastics (barring mobile call rates!). So we encourage the rich to exploit us, and the exploit the poor to help the rich (there is also significant number of poors and non-farmers, true). And in Argentina, the farmers are protesting. I suspect similar developments in India unless our policies become fare to the farmers.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Best coverage of global news - March-April: 2008
Wall Street Grain Hoarding Brings Farmers, Consumers Near Ruin : When 50% or more of agri-outputs are speculated by the Wall St., many elite Indians say that futures don't affect grain prices. Remember Schumpeter again on the future of capitalism...and Fed. prints more easy money for the Wall St. to hoard even more!
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Phillips Slams Wall Street, Feckless Politicians in `Bad Money' : This only validates the many posts I have written on GDP, economic growth and productivity growths. If financial services contribute 20% and manufacturing 12%, it merely means a country of traders with borrowed money where agri+ manu contributes only 15% or even less of GDP. And I have often doubted these GDP measures with very high services components, more so from financials.
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Due to following, I have been and probably would stay away from posting articles for few more days to months...
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There's been again some challenging times in my life where the challenges essentially drags one down. My son (6+ years) has been diagonised with Gall Stone and report for Hepatitis is due. This is on top of the benign mesothelioma cyst with which my wife's been suffering. I have rarely talked about my mother, and how little to nothing I could do for her. And now there's another challenge which like the others have also been talked about in my book (Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d). I really don't know what to do...am I not following what I preach or talk about or write on? Yes...at times I feel I am fighting a losing battle. However then comes some optimist driven by our strong believe in God and the way my father acted against all adversaries. I am sure this cloudy phase would also pass and brighter days would emerge soon.
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Behind the Deal, the Hand of the Fed : Add to that the fact J P Morgan happens to be a shareholder of the Fed. (true?) as we found already in one post. And should one say anything more? And here is the BusineeWeek photo of Bernanke as a communist.
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Forbidden fields: Oil groups circle the prize of Iraq’s vast reserves: In line with one of my earlier posts. Would the big US gamble on Iraq war after five years pay-off? Depends on Iraqis...but interesting to see the gambling point here: 'Although no decision has yet been made in Baghdad over the nature of the development or the eventual exploration contracts that will be on offer, Iraq could prove one of the rare countries in the region where companies will be allowed to claim reserves as their own. “This is the big frontier,” says Raad Alkadiri, a senior director at Washington-based PFC Energy.' At what price...what would the Iraqis gain if companies (that too primarily US, UK and at times from France-based) claim the reserves to be their own. We know how good American back door policies are - however Iran, Russia, China or even India must also get close with Iraq and ensure that Iraq's oils are most used for Iraqis first, and then for the rest of the world, equally.
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Bear Economists Snipe at Bernanke: Can this comment be indeed true - 'The Federal Reserve is there to protect them. What is so well forgotten is that the Federal Reserve is not a part of our Government. Need further insight? JP Morgan is a shareholder in the Federal Reserve, you and I are not. Who benefited from the Bear Stearns bailout?'
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Somewhere else I read that Bear Stearns had derivative position of $13.4 trillion, and its money of $17 billion ran out in 2-days. God save this system. Sooner Fed bail-outs than the 1930s revisited : 'It has $13,400 billion of derivative positions, and has underwritten $491 billion in options contracts. Topple this domino at your peril. It risks a chain of cross-defaults through the entire "shadow banking system", that vast untested nexus of paper commitments.
Bear Stearns had a liquidity cushion of $17 billion early last week. It vanished in two days.' . Also by reading so many comments online, it's clear that 90% or even so people in the US or Europe isn't happy about the practice of this form of capitalism. However the question comes - where are these voices in mainstream media - in CNBC? Probably mainstream business media still favor a lot to the immoral side because of obvious business gains, though these comments would be an indicator that they better change. Otherwise it will be fools (who will burn their fingers at some point of time in future) and immoral investors alone would subscribe to these mainstream business media!
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The Fed Is Too Easy on Wall Street: If these numbers are true, we get around $140 billion of the already booked losses...'Here's a staggering figure to contemplate: New York City securities industry firms paid out a total of $137 billion in employee bonuses from 2002 to 2007, according to figures compiled by the New York State Office of the Comptroller. Let's break that down: Wall Street honchos earned a bonus of $9.8 billion in 2002, $15.8 billion in 2003, $18.6 billion in 2004, $25.7 billion in 2005, $33.9 billion in 2006, and $33.2 billion in 2007.'
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JPMorgan to buy Bear as Fed opens lending to Wall St: At $2 a share, less than its $80 a share book value and much less than its holding of land and buildings? As reported by Bloomberg also, I wonder whether shareholders would approve this deal. Had I been a shareholder of Bear Sterns (and only of Bear Sterns, which traditionally is my style against port-folio investments, and know it's fundamentally wrong), I would have forgone this $2 also and firmly would have said no. Dimon and J P Morgan gains...what a pity!
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Behind the Fed’s Bear Loan: Systemic Risk Fear: The desperation in getting the four votes and the manner in which it was done kills all the faith in Central Banks.
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Bear Stearns Bailout Was `Finger in the Dike,' Historians Say : 'Ever since Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo shut the New York Stock Exchange for four months in 1914, to prevent foreign investors from cashing out and throwing the U.S. into financial chaos at the outset of World War I, American policy makers routinely have suspended their support for free markets when confronted by economic peril.' History is so important, however unfortunately rest of the world which sort of preaches free market economy never learns from history. 'Morgan, 70 and semi-retired, obtained an emergency pledge of $25 million from the U.S. Treasury. He persuaded New York's leading bankers and trust executives to put up another $25 million, after locking them in his library all night, according to ``The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and The Rise of Modern Finance,'' by Ron Chernow (Atlantic Monthly Press, 812 pages, $45.95)...Congress authorized $250 million in loan guarantees to rescue Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in August 1971, over the objections of the late Democratic Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin. By today's standard, the stakes were small: about $1 billion in potential losses and 60,000 jobs.' The scale just gets bigger. 'Representative Ron Paul, a Texas Republican who ran for president this year, told the House Financial Services Committee in February that financial services bailouts would reward bad behavior. Paul doubts the Bear Stearns rescue will prop up the economy, he said March 14. ``It won't work,'' Paul said. ``It's like drug addiction. You feel withdrawal pains, but you save the patient.'' This is the man of whom gold bugs speak highly about...
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The Twittering of Ben Bernanke: I liked this part very much...'But Fake Steve Jobs (aka Forbes editor Daniel Lyons) maintains a blog. That is so old media. This is Twitter, an attention-deficit-disorder medium for an attention-deficit-disordered age.'...I am very much in old media
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Dollar's plunge pushes eurozone past US, Goldman Sachs says: I expected this long back though my fundamental doubt on currency-related fluctuations in GDP is still not answered.
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Bernanke Discards Monetary History With Bear Stearns Bailout : I can be reasonably certain that no one could think about it as forthcoming, that too almost a year back. Now here you have it: Fed. to bail out failed hedge funds of Bear Sterns. The article was written as a spoof (all my spoof articles are like that only!), and true, one needs to go beyond the hedge funds to Bear Sterns itself now.
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‘India has conducive environment for gold mining’ : I don't know on what facts this story is made. China, S. Africa and the US are the three largest producer (I am not very sure...) whereas India is the largest consumer. The only commercial gold mine in India was closed years ago (somewhere in the south). However this must be explored (along with Uranium and other radio-active materials and technologies) as policy-matters.
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LS dismisses US govt’s observations on Nandigram: I saw the news in TV this morning, and thought...here we are...Indians (and many other nationalities are no different!). What are we first, what values do we stand for - no one is perfect. But do we value human rights and dignity first, or do we take empty pride in 'India' sort of being perfect, which all knows no nation is. I don't agree with many US policies, decisions, their double standards (middle-east, Palestine, Lebanon) but in this case, I will appreciate US decision. Yes, there was human rights violation...now whether US government says that or Pakistan or Indian political parties...that's immaterial. What rather is needed (and knowing India well, which is unlikely to happen for sure) is what learning did we have from it...none. Rather the ruling government learned that they can crush any opposition any time whereas Indian democracy would watch it as another piece of fun, and comment as we do on while watching violence on movies, rather than acting meaningfully on it. Shame on you - Indian parliamentarians, once again. '"Anything happening in India is a concern of the people of this country" and the US should have nothing to do with it.' What a joke...I am worried at unnecessary deaths in the Middle-East, and I am even more worried at Nandigram violence also. Being a human being matters first, then comes nationality. These guys can change their colors...and sad thing is 'Anything happening in India is a concern of the people of this country', but the people of the country just saw another violent act whereas the guilty proudly roamed about, even in the same parliament.
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Sab Maya Hai: Mukesh Ambani on Forbes' billionaires list: I like it Mukesh-bhai. You indeed are a genius...lekin desh or dus keliye bhi kuch karo (SEZ serf profit keliye mat karo...)
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Dollar's Clout Sinks Worldwide: 'And in neighboring Brazil, the Confidence Cambio money-changing service was the first to start offering yuan so travelers to China no longer have to change the money into dollars first. The service is already a hit because Brazil does big business with China, and lots of Brazilians are heading to the Olympics this summer.' Makes good sense...
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Iraq, the US trump to avoid a dollar collapse: This is the 1st time I accesses this site from GNews, this stats are intteresting at this hour of global economy: 'Referring to the weakness of the dollar, Ching Siwei, Vice-President of the Permanent Committee of the People's National Congress said last November that China "is going to readjust and diversify its monetary policy in financial and economic transactions around the world because we prefer strong currencies".(2) Putting deeds to words, China is already buying oil in Euros from Iran, which provides 13% of China's energy requirements...Maintaning the alliance with the US is ever more costly in political and economic terms. In Saudi Arabia current inflation rates are the highest since 1980, running currently at 7%. In the United Arab Emirates, inflation is even higher at 9.3%. (3) The reason is none other than the weakness of the dollar in economies completely dollarized as those countries' are. That is what has led the Saudis finally to let their arm get twisted and to accept now a discussion about the dollar in the terms proposed by Venezuela and Iran...And that is what the US is trying to stop, come what may. First, it is bolstering the presence of Iraq's collaborationist Oil Minister, Hussein al-Sharistani, in each and every one of the preparatory meetings for the next OPEC summit meeting. Secondly, it is pressing for final approval of the Iraqi oil law, which would leave that strategic sector in the hands of the US oil multinationals. Thirdly, Bush carried out his recent regional tour - not for peace, as the mass opinion forming media broadcast - to directly threaten the Gulf countries against changing their reserve currency. Fourthly, the US is pressuring these countries not to establish trade links with Iran at a time when that country has just set up its oil exchange to operate in Euros rather than dollars...Despite the fact that the US has literally bought off a large part of the Iraqi insurgency with the creation of the "Awakening" militia - which serves to confront insurgents and as a buffer for the occupying soldiers - it has not managed to pacify the sector controlled by Muqtada al Sadr despite the Mahdi Army's ceasefire holding firm and the one controlled by Sunni guerrillas, who carry on their struggle against collaborationists and occupiers. After almost a year of "normalization" armed attacks still occur throughout almost the whole country, not just against the occupying troops but against mercenaries - those "private security companies" - and collaborators...Nonetheless, if one has to note a credit side to the US strategy, the attacks against oil pipelines have certainly dropped noticeably in the last few months and that has made Iraqi oil production rise to 2.4 million barrels a day, the highest level since the country was invaded five years ago. The US has come very close to completing its energy strategy. It had reckoned on ending 2007 with production at 2.8 million barrels a day in Iraq (4) and made it to 2.4 million. Now it is being more modest and reckons on 2.6 million barrels a day for 2008, although the ultimate target is to reach no less than 6 million barrels a day within the next four years according to what the Iraqi Oil Minister has said in an interview to the British Times newspaper. (5) That would permit the US to break up OPEC from the inside, considerably increasing the number of barrels on the market and bringing down the price of oil to the amount the US considers "fair" : US$30. A figure that leaves out one important fact, namely, that it does not cost the same to extract a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia or Iraq, to name the cheapest places, as in Venezuela or Iran, to name the dearest places. In Iran, it costs US$15 to extract a barrel of oil. So the proportionate profit of 1 to 6 in the Saudi case (a high quality oil which, from extraction to sale, is easy to find and cheap to produce) drops to 1 to 2 in the Iranian case since its oil is not good, sweet and cheap like that of the Saudis and the Iraqis...On January 24th this year, al-Sharistani met in Amman, Jordan with the leading oil multinationals to discuss "technical assistance contracts", or in other words to share out the oil fields, pending approval of the Iraqi oil law by the Iraqi parliament. Guess who was the first company he met with? Exxon-Mobil, the very same company that is in litigation against Venezuela for the nationalization in 2007 of wells in the Orinoco oil belt. If one believes the newspaper reporting the event, a contract will be signed during this current month of March. And so that the contracts will be profitable and operational the US has to keep a large contingent of troops in Iraq permanently...Even according to polls by the collaborationist local media, 70% of Iraqis are against what they consider the "handover of national sovereignty"...But the country is more divided than ever and that leaves the imperialist strategy a free hand. ' It gave references, which I am not quoting/checking. Indeed, a very interesting story.
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'Helicopter Ben' Bernanke and the 'Bankers' Bailout': So many suspect that beyond what's already overt, a covert bail out plan may already be operational...nothing new. 'Since there is so much opposition here to the idea of using taxpayer money to bail out borrowers and lenders who made bad choices, it's worth facing the facts: a stealth government bailout of the mortgage industry is well underway, and a bigger, more ambitious rescue plan appears more likely every day...Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's latest dollar-dumping mission (they don't call him "Helicopter Ben" for nothing) is the latest chapter in what Cassidy calls "The Bankers' Bailout." It's too late to write your congressman to protest -- the bailout began last summer: "'It is no exaggeration to say that the mortgage market was effectively nationalized" in the third quarter, BNP Paribas economist Richard Iley wrote.' Watch this comment as people get disillusioned by this capitalism: '...and all of this from a government who decries socialized medicine!!!
We have socialized corporate welfare in this country. We taxpayers get nothing, except rising costs for everything.' or this one: 'This is the American way:
"Privatize the profits, socialize the losses."
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Gold Trades at $1,000 an Ounce in New York on Demand for Haven : As I was reading last article, I myself saw Gold at 997.7, but in between sometime it happened. Sad...this gold bug has no gold!
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Meltdown Looms Larger as Credit Markets Freeze: Watch this here: 'So, why is the Fed issuing loans to foreign banks? Isn't that a tacit admission of its guilt in the trillion dollar subprime swindle? Or is it simply a way of warding off litigation from angry foreign investors who know they were cheated with worthless toxic bonds? In any event, the Fed's largess proves that the G-10 operates as de facto cartel determining monetary policy for much of the world. (The G-10 represents roughly 85% of global GDP)...Wonderful. So now the Fed is planning to expand its mandate and bail out investment banks, hedge funds, brokerage houses and probably every other brandy-swilling Harvard grad who got caught-short in the subprime mousetrap. Ain't the “free market” great?' Echoes what I said in Wondering Man Money & Go(l)d...America is going broke and the rest of the world knows it...UBS puts the banks’ total losses from the subprime fiasco at $600 billion. If that's true, (and we expect it is) then the Fed is out of luck because, at some point, Bernanke will have to throw in the towel and let some of the bigger banks fail. And when that happens, the stock market will start lurching downward in 400 and 500 point increments. But what else can be done? Solvency can only be feigned for so long. Eventually, losses have to be accounted for and businesses have to fail. It's that simple. Looks scary because I still have some small money (whatever I am left with after the riot I had in May'06. Thanks to my wife, she has again doubled that in less than 2 years in-spite of the ongoing turmoil). Excellent article.
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India's Rupee Declines as Asian Stocks Fall, Crude Oil Advances : I am really concerned about this, with existing trade deficits high, exports down and now oil prices shooting new high, dollar rising against rupee but falling against most other currencies (includes BRC of BRIC), and stocks falling - India has all the ingredients right. It will be sell India sell story - FIIs know they can sell India and get it much cheaper later. And oil subsidy never help the needy...
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I also liked this one: On Helicopter Ben becoming Air Marshall from being the Fed. Chairman. Poor guy...I have full empathy for the bookish academician! "The risk of losses on U.S. Treasury notes exceeded German bunds for the first time ever amid investor concern the subprime mortgage crisis is sapping government reserves, credit-default swaps prices show," reports Abigail Moss at Bloomberg.' And I talked about it just minutes ago below: 'U.S Vice President Dick Cheney has been dispatched to the Middle East to try and talk down oil prices from $108. Good luck with that Mr. Cheney. Gulf States are importing inflation through their dollar pegs. Keeping oil prices high by refusing to increase supply may be the Saudi's way of getting back at Bernanke for gutting the dollar.' Even CNN sounded like conspiracy school: '"The Fed's actions are keeping banks from having to write down large losses and quite likely go into bankruptcy," he writes on his blog at the American Prospect. "The result is that the bank executives, whose inept management pushed them into bankruptcy, get to keep their jobs and their salaries, which run into the tens of millions a year." Meanwhile, homeowners facing foreclosure - not to mention ordinary savers who are watching inflation erode the value of their nest eggs - remain quite unbailed-out.'.
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Increasing Systematic Risk Portends Cartel ‘End Game’ Attempt: Reading conspiracy school theories help at times...I also believe that economists not having monetary fundamentals linked with gold as an absolute basis is bound to err. Surprisingly this article of 6th March or so sort of predicted what the Fed. did on 11th March. Would Bernanke succeed in bringing down the dollar, capitalism? I doubt that. Would he succeed in bringing up China, Russia...I would agree more here. 'Not only does the sacrifice of the U.S. Dollar penalize savers, as pointed out in the interview, it also hurts the purchasing power of all Americans and, particularly the middle-class and working poor. Indeed the purchasing power of the Dollar has declined over one-third in the past five years, vis-à-vis other major currencies. That is one reason why everything costs so much more.' . Who will explain that to Bernanke who is hell bent on svaing the Wall Street. 'What was all but explicit was the fact that the dramatic increases in money supply debase the currency. The logical conclusion is that the Fed is knowingly destroying the U.S. Dollar. This conscious destruction of the U.S. Dollar and its systemic implications are key components of the Cartel End Game (which Deepcaster first described in its 8/13/06 Alert, and then elaborated on in its June, 2007 Letter “Profiting From the Push to Denationalize Currencies and Deconstruct Nations” and most recently in its January, 2008 Letter).' True the words of strong dollar policy and bailing out in different forms contradicts...so is it a deliberate ploy to destroy dollar as they succeeded in destroying the gold window? 'Thus it is understandable that one (of several) key components of The Cartel’s End Game (clear even to some members of Congress) is to eventually replace the U.S. Dollar with the Amero (see Deepcaster’s June, 2007 Letter for details). Needless to say, the Amero would be another Fiat Currency whose issuance is planned to be controlled by the same Central Bank Cartel which now controls the fate of the U.S. Dollar.' Interesting theory...what happens to emerging countries forex reserves? All paper to be thrown to the sea?
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Bernanke Playbook Gives Hints on Fed's Next Moves: Why Bernanke's policy may not work, in the strictest economic sense (and not that the US uses its influence on OPEC or Saudi Arabia to increase production or similarly manipulates gold prices) is Bernanke remains a pure academician. Keynes himself I believe was a trader, and if Bernanke would have traded even for months in equities to the various derivatives of derivatives with leveraged positions, he would have realized the hollowness of the system. Capital (ponzy money) can't create capital by itself, it rather is a tool. And the tool was overly misused. US sort of provided money to all over the world, and capital markets globally are tanking to protect the US economy. Too much of anything is bad...remember Schumpeter...'So what other unconventional measures might we expect from Bernanke's Fed in the coming months, based on the speech that tagged him as ``Helicopter Ben'' because of its reference to Milton Friedman's phrase about helicopters dropping money into the economy?'. I am afraid that the Fed. do not enjoy the luxury of all the policies of his academic paper when the Fed. lives on borrowed money from other nations. 'So, brace yourself for a Fed funds rate close to zero, interest-rate-free loans in exchange for a much wider range of debt collateral, and further dollar weakness. And, if Helicopter Ben sticks to the script, the Fed might even guarantee the value of two-year Treasury notes. Strange days indeed.' I agree.
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Bernanke Seeks to Avert Deeper Slump by Accepting Mortgage Debt : My bias on this matter is clear. Let me see what happens, in a similar case, where you and I have bought some financial assets at price P1, and now it's down by significant amount, P2. If I need liquidity, I will have to accept the market price, which at no point no one says is the best judge of valuation, at times being even extreme and book losses. So can you and I also go to the Fed., pledge our assets and get value closed to P1 (keep aside AAA rating as yesterday it said S & P & Moody's have made fun of it as it didn't downgrade many yet!). So banks can take risk to maximize their profits and find lender of last resort at fair value, not you and I. Why?
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Bernanke Policy to `Destroy' U.S. Dollar, Faber Says : Faber said so before also, when Fed had its 1st interest rate cut in recent times. I absolutely agree with his statement that the ``In the U.S., they pursue essentially economic policies that target consumption, which in my opinion is misguided,'' Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television from Chicago. ``They should pursue economic policies that stimulate capital investment and capital formation.'' ...He predicted shares in India and China could lose 30 to 40 percent of their value as markets decline worldwide. '.
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Would-Be Borrowers Still Go Begging as Fed Cuts: I expressed my concern about this many times...reaching out to the people who need something most isn't easy.
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Government: U.S. needs foreign cash: 'A majority of American voters think these foreign infusions harm both the national security and the economy of the United States, according to a recent survey by Public Strategies Inc.' Quite expected, but that goes true for other countries also when mostly US-based FIIs poured money in other countries financial markets to create bubble and exited by creating a mess. Although I understand the vast difference between SWF and FIIs, however foreign funds of FIIs has historically not been responsible market participant, as such and SWFs are too new an entity to have much of any record on their responsible behaviour.
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Stiglitz the Nobelist Gets Math Wrong on Iraq War: A non-issue as $3 or 1.7 or whatever trillions is all based on your assumptions. US defense spends stats are only good.
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India Mustn't Kill Loan Sharks to Help Farmers: 'According to a 2003 assessment of farmer indebtedness conducted by the government, eight out of 10 farming households in India have 2 hectares (4.9 acres) of land or less; slightly more than half of them have no debt. As for the rest, half of each household's average 9,000 rupee debt is to ``non-institutional agencies,'' which is the government's euphemism for moneylenders. The smaller a farmer's land holding is, the more indebted he becomes to the loan sharks. This is not by accident. Banks Don't Lend - The formal credit-delivery system, which in villages consists of government-owned and cooperative banks, lends hardly any money to marginal farmers. The latter have no alternative except to agree to pay usurious interest rates -- often 100 percent a year -- to individual lenders. And farmers aren't alone.
Jena, the failed Orissa shopkeeper, was fortunate to have obtained cheap funds under a special government plan that seeks to promote self-employment among educated jobless youth. Not everyone is so lucky. Almost every small-business owner in the fast-growing economy is hungry for credit. Effective interest rates of 50 percent a year and more are quite common even as the State Bank of India's published prime-lending rate, the one at which the bank lends to its best customers, is 12.25 percent.'
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Trade Case Takes Aim at China on Financial Data : At times, decisions like this by Chinese policy-makers (to whom I have probably overpaid my respects repeatedly) act funny. One can surely gauge their deep suspicion and concern in case a financial catastrophe takes place, however market rumours anyway spread. Authentic news can alsways help, and these news-organizations, in-spite of their obvious bias, can't do any more damage than unfounded market rumors at time of disasters.
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Bovespa Beats Biggest Stock Markets on Brazil Consumers, Steel : Here's B of BRIC and some comarison with China. However I doubt the statement that said Chinese m-cap is less than $500 billion. And Brazil again here: Brazil Sends in Police, Sacrifices Jobs to Protect Rainforest
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Buffett says U.S. in recession, stocks not cheap: So the million dollar question finally gets answered from the Omaha...and I believe him more than the Fed or other Federal reporting agencies. And here's another on same topic: Warren Buffett withdraws bond re-insurance plan
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News from the schools, February 2008: ICFAI was in the process of getting accredition from AASCB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). Though I looked at the Economist just to see how it's been doing lately, I found this interesting piece here: Business schools and research, Practically irrelevant?. The article I wrote long back (and now many uses) on Web 2.0 and Academic Publishing is getting more elite recognition. Here is the final report of AASCB on Impact of Research.
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Peloton runs out of road: Being a victim of leveraged positions myself, I wonder why such products got created in the name of hedging and liquidity. All leveraged products should have a statutory warning. This is where I see Economist also coming out with Readers' comments. I also saw What's in the journals, February 2008 which led to Roll up your sleeves—midlife is your best and last chance to become the real you. and thereby following for other journal articles. I am not sure whether this is the vindication that contents (whatever sources, if meant for people at large) must be free, or similar practices have been there for long.
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The Reckoning : A different type of article from Bloomberg, and with lot of insightful numbers, as usual. '"A year ago, everyone thought trees were going to grow to the moon," Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in an interview on Jan. 27 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Obviously, 2007 was a much tougher year than expected, and 2008 is probably going to be the same."'.
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M&A Drop Presages Lean Year for Leaders Goldman, Morgan Stanley : '...investment banks raked in a record $42.4 billion in M&A advisory fees for 2007 for their work on $4.05 trillion in announced acquisitions'. SPeaks for itself...'By year-end, $865 billion in deals had been canceled, more than in any previous year...On Feb. 6, Rio Tinto rejected an all-stock offer from Melbourne-based BHP that would have been worth about $147.1 billion. A deal at that price would trail only the $186 billion sale of Time Warner Inc. to America Online Inc. in 2000 and Vodafone Group Plc's $185 billion takeover of Mannesmann AG in 1999.'
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UBS Faces Dearth of IPOs After Vaulting to Top in Stock Sales : 'The cut bankers got on U.S. IPOs last year averaged 6 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. European initial share offerings generated an average fee of 2 percent.' I assumed these numbers to be much less...surprisingly high if equity is to be used as a low cost financing means of productive assets.
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Rupee weakens to 5-½ mth low as equities weigh: I am really concerned about the fall in Indian Rupee. Out of currencies of all major economies, it may be the worst performing globally. When US$ is in sort of a free-fall, INR still falls against US$ meaning the fall must be higher against other leading currencies. What a pity...the cries for subsidizing the exporters still abound everywhere in the lobby circles.
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Derivative Trades Fell Most in 14 Years in Money Market Freeze : The world trades nearly 10-15% of its annual GDP in derivatives trading everyday. Amazing.
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Venezuela, Ecuador send troops to Colombian borders : I saw the death of Raul Reyes in BBC as well, however as my funda of Latin American geo-politics is not as strong (Kumar has some knowledge of it, like Che Guevara and contemporaries like that). Understand that this is a significant news, but not sure of the implications much (nor know well the relationships the latin American leaders share amongst them).
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The Fall of the Dollar Empire : Came across this article with one of mine on crude, gold and inflation: I often wondered about the currency depreciation (the race to the bottom for export competitiveness and US being a late comer in that club though so long it was the founder and beneficiary of it) impact in US, and saw this: There are two views about the impact of the dollar decline on the US economy: one holds that it would eventually benefit the US economy through boosting exports while others believe that it damage the US economy. What is your opinion?
A.The export view is sheer unadulterated nonsense. The Dollar has been in fundamental decline since the end of WWII, as has its trade deficit!!! A weak currency is not a panacea for economic health. It merely delays the inevitable drive to increase competitiveness, as demonstrated by Germany which has again become the world's No. 1 exporter despite an 80 % appreciation in the Euro since 2001! The drop in the Dollar has, on the contrary, caused only a minimal reduction of its annual $ 750 billion trade deficit, which proves that US lack of competitiveness is truly endemic and not a function of exchange rates. A weak currency also boosts inflation as imports become more expensive. In America's case it represents a 'double whammy' because, while imports become more expensive they are unavoidable since the US doesn't produce many of the consumer goods it needs...The US is totally dependent on China's goodwill. If the US were to ban all imports from China tomorrow morning the US economy would suffer a heart attack as it would have to import those same goods more expensively from elsewhere. In retaliation, the Chinese would sell their surplus Dollar mountain and precipitate a global economic depression. The emerging economies would be better able to withstand such an Armageddon scenario because they are accustomed to hardship, while decadent US consumers are already bankrupt despite an environment of extended global economic growth. It went on to paint gloomier picture...
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Auction Supply `Tsunami' Foreshadows Deeper Municipal Losses : It's the chain reaction triggered by sub-prime to housing to CDOs to Muni-bonds and underwriters to student loan organizations ...to God knows what. A society running on insulins of credit is bound to face the squeeze at any place as the squeeze intensifies. All important question is, would it have a short-term impact or long term one. And even in long term or short term, how short and long they can potentially be? As I see it now, $: Yen stands at 102.88, I myself was bearish on Yen, and if this carnage continues, Yen can be at less than 100 a dollar within weeks. That still will not undo even half of all the carry trades, and I still keep my stand to be bearish over yen over the longer term (I am actually bearish on both dollar and yen, relatively more on yen). And on 3/3/08, as the world's financial markets bleed again from 29/2 losses of the NYSE/Nasdaq, China again shows that it has decoupled from the US markets.
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Gaza Pitfalls in Every Path : A solution must be found and this massacre must be stopped. Many say that's easier said than done, however I still believe it's difficult but possible. Abbas must ensure Palestine is united, and just for the sake of some useless power, he should not be a puppet of Israel/US. Neither the Hamas should run terrorist campaigns against Israel (though out of the two sides, which side is a worse terrorist is open to debate).
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami.
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Phillips Slams Wall Street, Feckless Politicians in `Bad Money' : This only validates the many posts I have written on GDP, economic growth and productivity growths. If financial services contribute 20% and manufacturing 12%, it merely means a country of traders with borrowed money where agri+ manu contributes only 15% or even less of GDP. And I have often doubted these GDP measures with very high services components, more so from financials.
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Due to following, I have been and probably would stay away from posting articles for few more days to months...
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There's been again some challenging times in my life where the challenges essentially drags one down. My son (6+ years) has been diagonised with Gall Stone and report for Hepatitis is due. This is on top of the benign mesothelioma cyst with which my wife's been suffering. I have rarely talked about my mother, and how little to nothing I could do for her. And now there's another challenge which like the others have also been talked about in my book (Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d). I really don't know what to do...am I not following what I preach or talk about or write on? Yes...at times I feel I am fighting a losing battle. However then comes some optimist driven by our strong believe in God and the way my father acted against all adversaries. I am sure this cloudy phase would also pass and brighter days would emerge soon.
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Behind the Deal, the Hand of the Fed : Add to that the fact J P Morgan happens to be a shareholder of the Fed. (true?) as we found already in one post. And should one say anything more? And here is the BusineeWeek photo of Bernanke as a communist.
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Forbidden fields: Oil groups circle the prize of Iraq’s vast reserves: In line with one of my earlier posts. Would the big US gamble on Iraq war after five years pay-off? Depends on Iraqis...but interesting to see the gambling point here: 'Although no decision has yet been made in Baghdad over the nature of the development or the eventual exploration contracts that will be on offer, Iraq could prove one of the rare countries in the region where companies will be allowed to claim reserves as their own. “This is the big frontier,” says Raad Alkadiri, a senior director at Washington-based PFC Energy.' At what price...what would the Iraqis gain if companies (that too primarily US, UK and at times from France-based) claim the reserves to be their own. We know how good American back door policies are - however Iran, Russia, China or even India must also get close with Iraq and ensure that Iraq's oils are most used for Iraqis first, and then for the rest of the world, equally.
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Bear Economists Snipe at Bernanke: Can this comment be indeed true - 'The Federal Reserve is there to protect them. What is so well forgotten is that the Federal Reserve is not a part of our Government. Need further insight? JP Morgan is a shareholder in the Federal Reserve, you and I are not. Who benefited from the Bear Stearns bailout?'
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Somewhere else I read that Bear Stearns had derivative position of $13.4 trillion, and its money of $17 billion ran out in 2-days. God save this system. Sooner Fed bail-outs than the 1930s revisited : 'It has $13,400 billion of derivative positions, and has underwritten $491 billion in options contracts. Topple this domino at your peril. It risks a chain of cross-defaults through the entire "shadow banking system", that vast untested nexus of paper commitments.
Bear Stearns had a liquidity cushion of $17 billion early last week. It vanished in two days.' . Also by reading so many comments online, it's clear that 90% or even so people in the US or Europe isn't happy about the practice of this form of capitalism. However the question comes - where are these voices in mainstream media - in CNBC? Probably mainstream business media still favor a lot to the immoral side because of obvious business gains, though these comments would be an indicator that they better change. Otherwise it will be fools (who will burn their fingers at some point of time in future) and immoral investors alone would subscribe to these mainstream business media!
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The Fed Is Too Easy on Wall Street: If these numbers are true, we get around $140 billion of the already booked losses...'Here's a staggering figure to contemplate: New York City securities industry firms paid out a total of $137 billion in employee bonuses from 2002 to 2007, according to figures compiled by the New York State Office of the Comptroller. Let's break that down: Wall Street honchos earned a bonus of $9.8 billion in 2002, $15.8 billion in 2003, $18.6 billion in 2004, $25.7 billion in 2005, $33.9 billion in 2006, and $33.2 billion in 2007.'
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JPMorgan to buy Bear as Fed opens lending to Wall St: At $2 a share, less than its $80 a share book value and much less than its holding of land and buildings? As reported by Bloomberg also, I wonder whether shareholders would approve this deal. Had I been a shareholder of Bear Sterns (and only of Bear Sterns, which traditionally is my style against port-folio investments, and know it's fundamentally wrong), I would have forgone this $2 also and firmly would have said no. Dimon and J P Morgan gains...what a pity!
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Behind the Fed’s Bear Loan: Systemic Risk Fear: The desperation in getting the four votes and the manner in which it was done kills all the faith in Central Banks.
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Bear Stearns Bailout Was `Finger in the Dike,' Historians Say : 'Ever since Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo shut the New York Stock Exchange for four months in 1914, to prevent foreign investors from cashing out and throwing the U.S. into financial chaos at the outset of World War I, American policy makers routinely have suspended their support for free markets when confronted by economic peril.' History is so important, however unfortunately rest of the world which sort of preaches free market economy never learns from history. 'Morgan, 70 and semi-retired, obtained an emergency pledge of $25 million from the U.S. Treasury. He persuaded New York's leading bankers and trust executives to put up another $25 million, after locking them in his library all night, according to ``The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and The Rise of Modern Finance,'' by Ron Chernow (Atlantic Monthly Press, 812 pages, $45.95)...Congress authorized $250 million in loan guarantees to rescue Lockheed Aircraft Corp. in August 1971, over the objections of the late Democratic Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin. By today's standard, the stakes were small: about $1 billion in potential losses and 60,000 jobs.' The scale just gets bigger. 'Representative Ron Paul, a Texas Republican who ran for president this year, told the House Financial Services Committee in February that financial services bailouts would reward bad behavior. Paul doubts the Bear Stearns rescue will prop up the economy, he said March 14. ``It won't work,'' Paul said. ``It's like drug addiction. You feel withdrawal pains, but you save the patient.'' This is the man of whom gold bugs speak highly about...
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The Twittering of Ben Bernanke: I liked this part very much...'But Fake Steve Jobs (aka Forbes editor Daniel Lyons) maintains a blog. That is so old media. This is Twitter, an attention-deficit-disorder medium for an attention-deficit-disordered age.'...I am very much in old media
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Dollar's plunge pushes eurozone past US, Goldman Sachs says: I expected this long back though my fundamental doubt on currency-related fluctuations in GDP is still not answered.
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Bernanke Discards Monetary History With Bear Stearns Bailout : I can be reasonably certain that no one could think about it as forthcoming, that too almost a year back. Now here you have it: Fed. to bail out failed hedge funds of Bear Sterns. The article was written as a spoof (all my spoof articles are like that only!), and true, one needs to go beyond the hedge funds to Bear Sterns itself now.
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‘India has conducive environment for gold mining’ : I don't know on what facts this story is made. China, S. Africa and the US are the three largest producer (I am not very sure...) whereas India is the largest consumer. The only commercial gold mine in India was closed years ago (somewhere in the south). However this must be explored (along with Uranium and other radio-active materials and technologies) as policy-matters.
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LS dismisses US govt’s observations on Nandigram: I saw the news in TV this morning, and thought...here we are...Indians (and many other nationalities are no different!). What are we first, what values do we stand for - no one is perfect. But do we value human rights and dignity first, or do we take empty pride in 'India' sort of being perfect, which all knows no nation is. I don't agree with many US policies, decisions, their double standards (middle-east, Palestine, Lebanon) but in this case, I will appreciate US decision. Yes, there was human rights violation...now whether US government says that or Pakistan or Indian political parties...that's immaterial. What rather is needed (and knowing India well, which is unlikely to happen for sure) is what learning did we have from it...none. Rather the ruling government learned that they can crush any opposition any time whereas Indian democracy would watch it as another piece of fun, and comment as we do on while watching violence on movies, rather than acting meaningfully on it. Shame on you - Indian parliamentarians, once again. '"Anything happening in India is a concern of the people of this country" and the US should have nothing to do with it.' What a joke...I am worried at unnecessary deaths in the Middle-East, and I am even more worried at Nandigram violence also. Being a human being matters first, then comes nationality. These guys can change their colors...and sad thing is 'Anything happening in India is a concern of the people of this country', but the people of the country just saw another violent act whereas the guilty proudly roamed about, even in the same parliament.
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Sab Maya Hai: Mukesh Ambani on Forbes' billionaires list: I like it Mukesh-bhai. You indeed are a genius...lekin desh or dus keliye bhi kuch karo (SEZ serf profit keliye mat karo...)
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Dollar's Clout Sinks Worldwide: 'And in neighboring Brazil, the Confidence Cambio money-changing service was the first to start offering yuan so travelers to China no longer have to change the money into dollars first. The service is already a hit because Brazil does big business with China, and lots of Brazilians are heading to the Olympics this summer.' Makes good sense...
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Iraq, the US trump to avoid a dollar collapse: This is the 1st time I accesses this site from GNews, this stats are intteresting at this hour of global economy: 'Referring to the weakness of the dollar, Ching Siwei, Vice-President of the Permanent Committee of the People's National Congress said last November that China "is going to readjust and diversify its monetary policy in financial and economic transactions around the world because we prefer strong currencies".(2) Putting deeds to words, China is already buying oil in Euros from Iran, which provides 13% of China's energy requirements...Maintaning the alliance with the US is ever more costly in political and economic terms. In Saudi Arabia current inflation rates are the highest since 1980, running currently at 7%. In the United Arab Emirates, inflation is even higher at 9.3%. (3) The reason is none other than the weakness of the dollar in economies completely dollarized as those countries' are. That is what has led the Saudis finally to let their arm get twisted and to accept now a discussion about the dollar in the terms proposed by Venezuela and Iran...And that is what the US is trying to stop, come what may. First, it is bolstering the presence of Iraq's collaborationist Oil Minister, Hussein al-Sharistani, in each and every one of the preparatory meetings for the next OPEC summit meeting. Secondly, it is pressing for final approval of the Iraqi oil law, which would leave that strategic sector in the hands of the US oil multinationals. Thirdly, Bush carried out his recent regional tour - not for peace, as the mass opinion forming media broadcast - to directly threaten the Gulf countries against changing their reserve currency. Fourthly, the US is pressuring these countries not to establish trade links with Iran at a time when that country has just set up its oil exchange to operate in Euros rather than dollars...Despite the fact that the US has literally bought off a large part of the Iraqi insurgency with the creation of the "Awakening" militia - which serves to confront insurgents and as a buffer for the occupying soldiers - it has not managed to pacify the sector controlled by Muqtada al Sadr despite the Mahdi Army's ceasefire holding firm and the one controlled by Sunni guerrillas, who carry on their struggle against collaborationists and occupiers. After almost a year of "normalization" armed attacks still occur throughout almost the whole country, not just against the occupying troops but against mercenaries - those "private security companies" - and collaborators...Nonetheless, if one has to note a credit side to the US strategy, the attacks against oil pipelines have certainly dropped noticeably in the last few months and that has made Iraqi oil production rise to 2.4 million barrels a day, the highest level since the country was invaded five years ago. The US has come very close to completing its energy strategy. It had reckoned on ending 2007 with production at 2.8 million barrels a day in Iraq (4) and made it to 2.4 million. Now it is being more modest and reckons on 2.6 million barrels a day for 2008, although the ultimate target is to reach no less than 6 million barrels a day within the next four years according to what the Iraqi Oil Minister has said in an interview to the British Times newspaper. (5) That would permit the US to break up OPEC from the inside, considerably increasing the number of barrels on the market and bringing down the price of oil to the amount the US considers "fair" : US$30. A figure that leaves out one important fact, namely, that it does not cost the same to extract a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia or Iraq, to name the cheapest places, as in Venezuela or Iran, to name the dearest places. In Iran, it costs US$15 to extract a barrel of oil. So the proportionate profit of 1 to 6 in the Saudi case (a high quality oil which, from extraction to sale, is easy to find and cheap to produce) drops to 1 to 2 in the Iranian case since its oil is not good, sweet and cheap like that of the Saudis and the Iraqis...On January 24th this year, al-Sharistani met in Amman, Jordan with the leading oil multinationals to discuss "technical assistance contracts", or in other words to share out the oil fields, pending approval of the Iraqi oil law by the Iraqi parliament. Guess who was the first company he met with? Exxon-Mobil, the very same company that is in litigation against Venezuela for the nationalization in 2007 of wells in the Orinoco oil belt. If one believes the newspaper reporting the event, a contract will be signed during this current month of March. And so that the contracts will be profitable and operational the US has to keep a large contingent of troops in Iraq permanently...Even according to polls by the collaborationist local media, 70% of Iraqis are against what they consider the "handover of national sovereignty"...But the country is more divided than ever and that leaves the imperialist strategy a free hand. ' It gave references, which I am not quoting/checking. Indeed, a very interesting story.
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'Helicopter Ben' Bernanke and the 'Bankers' Bailout': So many suspect that beyond what's already overt, a covert bail out plan may already be operational...nothing new. 'Since there is so much opposition here to the idea of using taxpayer money to bail out borrowers and lenders who made bad choices, it's worth facing the facts: a stealth government bailout of the mortgage industry is well underway, and a bigger, more ambitious rescue plan appears more likely every day...Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's latest dollar-dumping mission (they don't call him "Helicopter Ben" for nothing) is the latest chapter in what Cassidy calls "The Bankers' Bailout." It's too late to write your congressman to protest -- the bailout began last summer: "'It is no exaggeration to say that the mortgage market was effectively nationalized" in the third quarter, BNP Paribas economist Richard Iley wrote.' Watch this comment as people get disillusioned by this capitalism: '...and all of this from a government who decries socialized medicine!!!
We have socialized corporate welfare in this country. We taxpayers get nothing, except rising costs for everything.' or this one: 'This is the American way:
"Privatize the profits, socialize the losses."
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Gold Trades at $1,000 an Ounce in New York on Demand for Haven : As I was reading last article, I myself saw Gold at 997.7, but in between sometime it happened. Sad...this gold bug has no gold!
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Meltdown Looms Larger as Credit Markets Freeze: Watch this here: 'So, why is the Fed issuing loans to foreign banks? Isn't that a tacit admission of its guilt in the trillion dollar subprime swindle? Or is it simply a way of warding off litigation from angry foreign investors who know they were cheated with worthless toxic bonds? In any event, the Fed's largess proves that the G-10 operates as de facto cartel determining monetary policy for much of the world. (The G-10 represents roughly 85% of global GDP)...Wonderful. So now the Fed is planning to expand its mandate and bail out investment banks, hedge funds, brokerage houses and probably every other brandy-swilling Harvard grad who got caught-short in the subprime mousetrap. Ain't the “free market” great?' Echoes what I said in Wondering Man Money & Go(l)d...America is going broke and the rest of the world knows it...UBS puts the banks’ total losses from the subprime fiasco at $600 billion. If that's true, (and we expect it is) then the Fed is out of luck because, at some point, Bernanke will have to throw in the towel and let some of the bigger banks fail. And when that happens, the stock market will start lurching downward in 400 and 500 point increments. But what else can be done? Solvency can only be feigned for so long. Eventually, losses have to be accounted for and businesses have to fail. It's that simple. Looks scary because I still have some small money (whatever I am left with after the riot I had in May'06. Thanks to my wife, she has again doubled that in less than 2 years in-spite of the ongoing turmoil). Excellent article.
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India's Rupee Declines as Asian Stocks Fall, Crude Oil Advances : I am really concerned about this, with existing trade deficits high, exports down and now oil prices shooting new high, dollar rising against rupee but falling against most other currencies (includes BRC of BRIC), and stocks falling - India has all the ingredients right. It will be sell India sell story - FIIs know they can sell India and get it much cheaper later. And oil subsidy never help the needy...
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I also liked this one: On Helicopter Ben becoming Air Marshall from being the Fed. Chairman. Poor guy...I have full empathy for the bookish academician! "The risk of losses on U.S. Treasury notes exceeded German bunds for the first time ever amid investor concern the subprime mortgage crisis is sapping government reserves, credit-default swaps prices show," reports Abigail Moss at Bloomberg.' And I talked about it just minutes ago below: 'U.S Vice President Dick Cheney has been dispatched to the Middle East to try and talk down oil prices from $108. Good luck with that Mr. Cheney. Gulf States are importing inflation through their dollar pegs. Keeping oil prices high by refusing to increase supply may be the Saudi's way of getting back at Bernanke for gutting the dollar.' Even CNN sounded like conspiracy school: '"The Fed's actions are keeping banks from having to write down large losses and quite likely go into bankruptcy," he writes on his blog at the American Prospect. "The result is that the bank executives, whose inept management pushed them into bankruptcy, get to keep their jobs and their salaries, which run into the tens of millions a year." Meanwhile, homeowners facing foreclosure - not to mention ordinary savers who are watching inflation erode the value of their nest eggs - remain quite unbailed-out.'.
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Increasing Systematic Risk Portends Cartel ‘End Game’ Attempt: Reading conspiracy school theories help at times...I also believe that economists not having monetary fundamentals linked with gold as an absolute basis is bound to err. Surprisingly this article of 6th March or so sort of predicted what the Fed. did on 11th March. Would Bernanke succeed in bringing down the dollar, capitalism? I doubt that. Would he succeed in bringing up China, Russia...I would agree more here. 'Not only does the sacrifice of the U.S. Dollar penalize savers, as pointed out in the interview, it also hurts the purchasing power of all Americans and, particularly the middle-class and working poor. Indeed the purchasing power of the Dollar has declined over one-third in the past five years, vis-à-vis other major currencies. That is one reason why everything costs so much more.' . Who will explain that to Bernanke who is hell bent on svaing the Wall Street. 'What was all but explicit was the fact that the dramatic increases in money supply debase the currency. The logical conclusion is that the Fed is knowingly destroying the U.S. Dollar. This conscious destruction of the U.S. Dollar and its systemic implications are key components of the Cartel End Game (which Deepcaster first described in its 8/13/06 Alert, and then elaborated on in its June, 2007 Letter “Profiting From the Push to Denationalize Currencies and Deconstruct Nations” and most recently in its January, 2008 Letter).' True the words of strong dollar policy and bailing out in different forms contradicts...so is it a deliberate ploy to destroy dollar as they succeeded in destroying the gold window? 'Thus it is understandable that one (of several) key components of The Cartel’s End Game (clear even to some members of Congress) is to eventually replace the U.S. Dollar with the Amero (see Deepcaster’s June, 2007 Letter for details). Needless to say, the Amero would be another Fiat Currency whose issuance is planned to be controlled by the same Central Bank Cartel which now controls the fate of the U.S. Dollar.' Interesting theory...what happens to emerging countries forex reserves? All paper to be thrown to the sea?
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Bernanke Playbook Gives Hints on Fed's Next Moves: Why Bernanke's policy may not work, in the strictest economic sense (and not that the US uses its influence on OPEC or Saudi Arabia to increase production or similarly manipulates gold prices) is Bernanke remains a pure academician. Keynes himself I believe was a trader, and if Bernanke would have traded even for months in equities to the various derivatives of derivatives with leveraged positions, he would have realized the hollowness of the system. Capital (ponzy money) can't create capital by itself, it rather is a tool. And the tool was overly misused. US sort of provided money to all over the world, and capital markets globally are tanking to protect the US economy. Too much of anything is bad...remember Schumpeter...'So what other unconventional measures might we expect from Bernanke's Fed in the coming months, based on the speech that tagged him as ``Helicopter Ben'' because of its reference to Milton Friedman's phrase about helicopters dropping money into the economy?'. I am afraid that the Fed. do not enjoy the luxury of all the policies of his academic paper when the Fed. lives on borrowed money from other nations. 'So, brace yourself for a Fed funds rate close to zero, interest-rate-free loans in exchange for a much wider range of debt collateral, and further dollar weakness. And, if Helicopter Ben sticks to the script, the Fed might even guarantee the value of two-year Treasury notes. Strange days indeed.' I agree.
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Bernanke Seeks to Avert Deeper Slump by Accepting Mortgage Debt : My bias on this matter is clear. Let me see what happens, in a similar case, where you and I have bought some financial assets at price P1, and now it's down by significant amount, P2. If I need liquidity, I will have to accept the market price, which at no point no one says is the best judge of valuation, at times being even extreme and book losses. So can you and I also go to the Fed., pledge our assets and get value closed to P1 (keep aside AAA rating as yesterday it said S & P & Moody's have made fun of it as it didn't downgrade many yet!). So banks can take risk to maximize their profits and find lender of last resort at fair value, not you and I. Why?
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Bernanke Policy to `Destroy' U.S. Dollar, Faber Says : Faber said so before also, when Fed had its 1st interest rate cut in recent times. I absolutely agree with his statement that the ``In the U.S., they pursue essentially economic policies that target consumption, which in my opinion is misguided,'' Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television from Chicago. ``They should pursue economic policies that stimulate capital investment and capital formation.'' ...He predicted shares in India and China could lose 30 to 40 percent of their value as markets decline worldwide. '.
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Would-Be Borrowers Still Go Begging as Fed Cuts: I expressed my concern about this many times...reaching out to the people who need something most isn't easy.
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Government: U.S. needs foreign cash: 'A majority of American voters think these foreign infusions harm both the national security and the economy of the United States, according to a recent survey by Public Strategies Inc.' Quite expected, but that goes true for other countries also when mostly US-based FIIs poured money in other countries financial markets to create bubble and exited by creating a mess. Although I understand the vast difference between SWF and FIIs, however foreign funds of FIIs has historically not been responsible market participant, as such and SWFs are too new an entity to have much of any record on their responsible behaviour.
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Stiglitz the Nobelist Gets Math Wrong on Iraq War: A non-issue as $3 or 1.7 or whatever trillions is all based on your assumptions. US defense spends stats are only good.
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India Mustn't Kill Loan Sharks to Help Farmers: 'According to a 2003 assessment of farmer indebtedness conducted by the government, eight out of 10 farming households in India have 2 hectares (4.9 acres) of land or less; slightly more than half of them have no debt. As for the rest, half of each household's average 9,000 rupee debt is to ``non-institutional agencies,'' which is the government's euphemism for moneylenders. The smaller a farmer's land holding is, the more indebted he becomes to the loan sharks. This is not by accident. Banks Don't Lend - The formal credit-delivery system, which in villages consists of government-owned and cooperative banks, lends hardly any money to marginal farmers. The latter have no alternative except to agree to pay usurious interest rates -- often 100 percent a year -- to individual lenders. And farmers aren't alone.
Jena, the failed Orissa shopkeeper, was fortunate to have obtained cheap funds under a special government plan that seeks to promote self-employment among educated jobless youth. Not everyone is so lucky. Almost every small-business owner in the fast-growing economy is hungry for credit. Effective interest rates of 50 percent a year and more are quite common even as the State Bank of India's published prime-lending rate, the one at which the bank lends to its best customers, is 12.25 percent.'
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Trade Case Takes Aim at China on Financial Data : At times, decisions like this by Chinese policy-makers (to whom I have probably overpaid my respects repeatedly) act funny. One can surely gauge their deep suspicion and concern in case a financial catastrophe takes place, however market rumours anyway spread. Authentic news can alsways help, and these news-organizations, in-spite of their obvious bias, can't do any more damage than unfounded market rumors at time of disasters.
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Bovespa Beats Biggest Stock Markets on Brazil Consumers, Steel : Here's B of BRIC and some comarison with China. However I doubt the statement that said Chinese m-cap is less than $500 billion. And Brazil again here: Brazil Sends in Police, Sacrifices Jobs to Protect Rainforest
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Buffett says U.S. in recession, stocks not cheap: So the million dollar question finally gets answered from the Omaha...and I believe him more than the Fed or other Federal reporting agencies. And here's another on same topic: Warren Buffett withdraws bond re-insurance plan
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News from the schools, February 2008: ICFAI was in the process of getting accredition from AASCB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). Though I looked at the Economist just to see how it's been doing lately, I found this interesting piece here: Business schools and research, Practically irrelevant?. The article I wrote long back (and now many uses) on Web 2.0 and Academic Publishing is getting more elite recognition. Here is the final report of AASCB on Impact of Research.
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Peloton runs out of road: Being a victim of leveraged positions myself, I wonder why such products got created in the name of hedging and liquidity. All leveraged products should have a statutory warning. This is where I see Economist also coming out with Readers' comments. I also saw What's in the journals, February 2008 which led to Roll up your sleeves—midlife is your best and last chance to become the real you. and thereby following for other journal articles. I am not sure whether this is the vindication that contents (whatever sources, if meant for people at large) must be free, or similar practices have been there for long.
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The Reckoning : A different type of article from Bloomberg, and with lot of insightful numbers, as usual. '"A year ago, everyone thought trees were going to grow to the moon," Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in an interview on Jan. 27 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Obviously, 2007 was a much tougher year than expected, and 2008 is probably going to be the same."'.
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M&A Drop Presages Lean Year for Leaders Goldman, Morgan Stanley : '...investment banks raked in a record $42.4 billion in M&A advisory fees for 2007 for their work on $4.05 trillion in announced acquisitions'. SPeaks for itself...'By year-end, $865 billion in deals had been canceled, more than in any previous year...On Feb. 6, Rio Tinto rejected an all-stock offer from Melbourne-based BHP that would have been worth about $147.1 billion. A deal at that price would trail only the $186 billion sale of Time Warner Inc. to America Online Inc. in 2000 and Vodafone Group Plc's $185 billion takeover of Mannesmann AG in 1999.'
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UBS Faces Dearth of IPOs After Vaulting to Top in Stock Sales : 'The cut bankers got on U.S. IPOs last year averaged 6 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. European initial share offerings generated an average fee of 2 percent.' I assumed these numbers to be much less...surprisingly high if equity is to be used as a low cost financing means of productive assets.
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Rupee weakens to 5-½ mth low as equities weigh: I am really concerned about the fall in Indian Rupee. Out of currencies of all major economies, it may be the worst performing globally. When US$ is in sort of a free-fall, INR still falls against US$ meaning the fall must be higher against other leading currencies. What a pity...the cries for subsidizing the exporters still abound everywhere in the lobby circles.
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Derivative Trades Fell Most in 14 Years in Money Market Freeze : The world trades nearly 10-15% of its annual GDP in derivatives trading everyday. Amazing.
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Venezuela, Ecuador send troops to Colombian borders : I saw the death of Raul Reyes in BBC as well, however as my funda of Latin American geo-politics is not as strong (Kumar has some knowledge of it, like Che Guevara and contemporaries like that). Understand that this is a significant news, but not sure of the implications much (nor know well the relationships the latin American leaders share amongst them).
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The Fall of the Dollar Empire : Came across this article with one of mine on crude, gold and inflation: I often wondered about the currency depreciation (the race to the bottom for export competitiveness and US being a late comer in that club though so long it was the founder and beneficiary of it) impact in US, and saw this: There are two views about the impact of the dollar decline on the US economy: one holds that it would eventually benefit the US economy through boosting exports while others believe that it damage the US economy. What is your opinion?
A.The export view is sheer unadulterated nonsense. The Dollar has been in fundamental decline since the end of WWII, as has its trade deficit!!! A weak currency is not a panacea for economic health. It merely delays the inevitable drive to increase competitiveness, as demonstrated by Germany which has again become the world's No. 1 exporter despite an 80 % appreciation in the Euro since 2001! The drop in the Dollar has, on the contrary, caused only a minimal reduction of its annual $ 750 billion trade deficit, which proves that US lack of competitiveness is truly endemic and not a function of exchange rates. A weak currency also boosts inflation as imports become more expensive. In America's case it represents a 'double whammy' because, while imports become more expensive they are unavoidable since the US doesn't produce many of the consumer goods it needs...The US is totally dependent on China's goodwill. If the US were to ban all imports from China tomorrow morning the US economy would suffer a heart attack as it would have to import those same goods more expensively from elsewhere. In retaliation, the Chinese would sell their surplus Dollar mountain and precipitate a global economic depression. The emerging economies would be better able to withstand such an Armageddon scenario because they are accustomed to hardship, while decadent US consumers are already bankrupt despite an environment of extended global economic growth. It went on to paint gloomier picture...
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Auction Supply `Tsunami' Foreshadows Deeper Municipal Losses : It's the chain reaction triggered by sub-prime to housing to CDOs to Muni-bonds and underwriters to student loan organizations ...to God knows what. A society running on insulins of credit is bound to face the squeeze at any place as the squeeze intensifies. All important question is, would it have a short-term impact or long term one. And even in long term or short term, how short and long they can potentially be? As I see it now, $: Yen stands at 102.88, I myself was bearish on Yen, and if this carnage continues, Yen can be at less than 100 a dollar within weeks. That still will not undo even half of all the carry trades, and I still keep my stand to be bearish over yen over the longer term (I am actually bearish on both dollar and yen, relatively more on yen). And on 3/3/08, as the world's financial markets bleed again from 29/2 losses of the NYSE/Nasdaq, China again shows that it has decoupled from the US markets.
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Gaza Pitfalls in Every Path : A solution must be found and this massacre must be stopped. Many say that's easier said than done, however I still believe it's difficult but possible. Abbas must ensure Palestine is united, and just for the sake of some useless power, he should not be a puppet of Israel/US. Neither the Hamas should run terrorist campaigns against Israel (though out of the two sides, which side is a worse terrorist is open to debate).
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Best of the Web: February 2008: Geopolitics & Economics (With China Focus)
Subprime Mess Highlights Need for Tough Rules: 'A modest proposal: Force banks to redesign bonus structures to reflect long-term results and avoid such risky practices.' I must than Sesit for this great proposal. It's not modest one, it's rather the most appropriate one.
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Yen Rises to Highest in Almost Three Years on U.S. Bank Concern : Not the smaller, but the excessive risk-taking banks should fail. Fed. should not only bail out the large ones, which if fail, may do long term good to the economy. US economy needs major operation, not small tumor removals.
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Central Banks and Gold: Manipulation or Money Management?: Another balanced article as Gold continues its journey to $1000. Can this comment be true: 'Think about it? There is more shorts than all silver on earth.' I doubt...and here is another: The Current State of the Gold Market (though actually it dated back to 2002, like many Gold related or classic articles in this blog)
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Microsoft Fined Record EU899 Million by EU Regulator : Whoa...what a piece of news for open-source supporters and Windows haters! '``Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,'' European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement today in Brussels. ``I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance.''' . No doubt a slap in the face...
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The gold standard: A precious metal that's not just an investment but a worldview too: And I may be the only (or rarest) goldbug who never bought any gold other than gifting my sweet wife couple of bracelets (that too only once in our ten years of married life). Yes, I take a philosophical view of being a gold bug. 'All of the dates Blumert brings up are occasions when the federal government took actions to divorce currency from its precious-metal backing.' . The comments lead me to this article: New York Merchants Embrace Euro. Amazing...yesterday I was reading the 100000% inflation and currency depreciation in Zimbabwe; who can ever think even a microscopic fraction of that hitting the veru USA. I liked this comment as well: 'Anyone who thinks that diamonds and gold are stored up so that they don't flood the market doesn't understand economics, or has bought the lie." I suggest you Google "diamond" + "stockpile", and read about the $1.5 billion diamond hoard in vaults in Israel, the $2.7 billion stockpile in de Beers' vaults or the $5 billion in vaults in Russia. If even a portion of these tens of millions of carats were dumped on the market, the price for the standard -- a 1ct. D-grade flawless diamond would drop from the artificially propped-up $15,000 to a fraction of that. It's all a monopoly -- the DTC -- a cartel run by the Oppenheimer family. Look 'em up on Wikipedia. This stuff is all common knowledge with unimpeachable documentation.'
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Commodity boom means double whammy for food groups: Yesterday we saw the FT. multimedia, and this today: 'food products account for only 9 percent of UK consumer's wallets compared to 12 percent in the last UK recession in 1991.' What worries me is the same figure may be 50% or even more for 70-80% of people in developing nations (or true for 5 billion people of our world). Even if I think about my family, it would be closed to 50%, if not more.
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ANALYSIS - Google winner as Microsoft and Yahoo face off: I also believe so, however without putting too much on the ComScore search-ad findings; I believe Google would also face challenges eventually if they don't own content eventually. 'Mountain View, California-based Google could also see its R&D advantage shrink with a combined Yahoo-Microsoft. According to Wolk, Google spends about the same amount of money on Web R&D as Microsoft and Yahoo combined, but as separate entities, there is a lot of overlap in that investment.' That was surprising...I thought Google spent less and was more efficient.
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Help hard to get for troubled U.S. home owners: I must say that I was taken aback by this line '"They're lying bastards," said Mark Seifert, executive director of East Side Organizing Project (ESOP) in Cleveland, on a tour of the city's ravaged Slavic Village district. On some blocks here almost every last home is boarded up.' but then...that's how many sees.
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Doomsday vault for world’s seeds is opened under Arctic mountain: Great idea, strategic move and that's what I call 'fail-safe' planning and implementation. 'Many varieties of seed kept in the vault are no longer used commercially but it is possible that they will prove invaluable as world conditions change.' As I was reading the comments (the one on McDonald and Obesity was great!), the NASA Saturn probe did raise some doubts. Never heards of it...can it be so devastating as some felt? Most, most probably no...still...however...
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TVS Motor — learning a key lesson : I did cover the story between Bajaj and TVS spark-plug patent case which Bajaj won, and I said them these are (were) early days for India. Without having the technical knowledge, and therefore not buying fully the TVS side of the story; I believe the learning should be fast; otherwise it will be another area of failed democracy and judiciary as visible in many aspects in India.
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McCain, Obama Remind Asia It Needs to Decouple: The columnist apparently has done great analysis and still got the wrong conclusions. He seems to have forgotten that financial markets rely on money chasing assets. And due to the financial integration and easy credit policy and lack of credit in Asia (can someone tell me what's the credit money/person in US against that in India or China? I believe it would be much higher even when one factors in real size of economy/person in these areas), it's FII's easy money that drives Asian markets significantly. And these FIIs know that there is Fed. to bail them out anyway, so why not own/grab/speculate cheaper Asian assets with borrowed money from the Fed.?
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Dollar Falls to Record Low of $1.50 per Euro on Rate Outlook : I can't help but get a feeling that my forecast (how stupid it is for any to forecast anything in financial markets!) is coming true when global media was agaog with Yen appreciation and possibility of dollar rising against Euro. Why yen can't appreciate is simple: that would lead to another round of financial shocks as carry trades get fully trapped, and it soaks up the already scarce liquidity. On top of that I have fundamental doubts regarding strength of Japanese economy in-spite of its latest 3%+ growth rate as stated. It will be up for Euro, however it's already reaching unsustainable level here too. Long term up is Yuan only...
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I must also state that all the Indian hollah-bollah regarding exporters loss and Rs. rise is also falling apart. Since last couple of months, although dollar has stedily weakened against Yuan and other emerging leading currencies, it did remain steady or even appreciated again INR. And if more shocks (bound to be at some point) hit global financial markets, I am deeply worried with $100+ crude and Indian huge trade deficit (20-25%% of its trade). No doubt, much of the global financial problems are attributed due to uncontrolled rise in M3 in Yen and Dollar.
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Google Falls as Fewer Search Users Click on Text Ads : Expected as we get bombed by ads everywhere. The success would depend only on the exact positioning. 'Clicks on Google's sponsored links -- text ads that run alongside search results -- fell 7.5 percent in January from a month earlier to 532 million, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc. said late yesterday in a report. Sponsored search links accounted for most of Google's $16.6 billion in 2007 sales...Billions Erased: Google fell $22.25, or 4.6 percent, to $464.19 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the lowest since May. The stock has tumbled 37 percent from its high on Nov. 6, wiping out about $17 billion in combined wealth for co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. ' . That's awesome as it touched $700 as well if I am not wrong.
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Goldman, Lehman May Not Have Dodged Credit Crisis : If both the facts of Citi having $320 bn in VIEs and VIEs being worth 27 cents to a dollar are true, Citi is sitting over $250-odd bn of losses. That, again if true, and allowed to be operated with market forces, should be the death knell of Citi. So something is amiss somewhere, or as expected, market forces will be tethered again.
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Lou Suffers Blackstone's 'Fat Rabbits' in China Fund : It's too soon to judge Lou on his investment decisions, and all said and done, SWF, more so from China, would look at strategic interests more than investment returns. The article again shows how China develops professional policy-researchers and makers.
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We must curb international flows of capital: Excellent...I need to visit FT more often.
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Why are food prices rising?: The price rises, starting with inputs to agri-commodities, many by almose 7-10 times in last as many years, are phenomenal
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Yang: Microsoft Bid Was a “Galvanizing Event” for Yahoo: Insightful, philosophical statement; however time may be running out. The comments are also interesting.
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Wheat Breaches $12 for First Time After Biggest Gain Since 2002 : EVery alternate day I see wheat prices closing at upper circuit and something inside me tells me: it's an awful sign. Like Indian peeny stocks, but happening with the most used food item globally. Something fundamentally wrong. And inflation is contained...wonder how.
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Pearson Isn't Making Web Trade Better Than Newspapers : It may still be the trailer, the actual movie, when begins, will be fast and bloody. Text book publishers (and authors too) still make a lot of money in India, China and other populous emerging nations where books are comparatively cheap and online access is less (also awareness amongst faculty is less, the biggest reason). 'U.S. college students using Pearson's online learning programs jumped 44 percent to 1.3 million this school year.' .
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Google, Gates, Indian Diaspora Bet on Children: '...at 30 U.S. cents per child per year, the basic math, reading and writing skills required to help young learners retain their interest in education and keep them from dropping out of school are ridiculously cheap...Together, the two charities offered to help 10 million students for three years by pledging $9 million last year to Read India, an initiative of Pratham, a Mumbai-based not-for- profit organization for which Patel is a fund-raiser. Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google Inc., chipped in last month with a $2 million grant to help fund Pratham's annual survey of the qualitative aspects of primary education in India. ' I also had a look at their (Pratham) site, and they deserve credit (it's being operational for long...)...'The remedial Read India program will have been administered to every child who needs it by 2010. But that, as Patel says, is just a ``one-time antibiotic shot.'' ' That's right. Education and information gathering is a continuous process.
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FCC Head Says Action Possible on Web Limits: As a researcher, I have been following network neutrality (and unlimited tariff plans mostly in place in the US). The future would have challenges as no firm directions emerge. 'Industry watchers said the chairman's comments were his strongest yet against the carriers. The prospect of punishment for those who violate the FCC's 2005 policy statement safeguarding net neutrality could pave the way for legislative action, some analysts said. With the backing of Martin, a Republican, the FCC's two Democratic commissioners -- both supporters of net neutrality -- would have the majority. "Martin has never had a clearly elucidated position on this, but we're seeing what Martin thinks now and he has the swing vote on this," said Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University, following his testimony at the hearing. "He thinks that it's a consumer rights issue; whether that is a principle for the ages or principle for the case we don't know, but he certainly sent a message."' It also is covered well here: Comcast, net neutrality advocates clash at FCC hearing
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Bill Keller: "I'm proud to stand by this story." Times Public Editor: You Were Wrong To Run It: NYT seems to have lost this case...though (again not knowing much), I was for the NYT. Does it speak about my bias, my stupidity or my dislikings of the Republicans (as seen by the Cheney lot).
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I also saw certain articles in the Asia Times Online and from there went to the daily reckoning. I heard about it many times before, but visited it (probably, and consciously) for the 1st time. 'Until now, central banks could get away with soft money policies, because the Chinese offset increases to the supply of money with massive increases to the supply of labor. Millions of Chinese moved from the farms to the factories - lowering the price of labor worldwide…and with it, prices of consumer products.But there are many things cheap labor can't produce - oil, for example. And gold. And copper. And food. Copper is up 22% so far this year. Gold is up 11%. Wheat is off the charts. And oil broke through the $100 barrier just this week...Everybody loved inflation when it pushed up their stocks and house prices. But they hate it when it boosts the cost of their bread and taxi fares. Only gold investors like consumer price inflation. Hence, the smart money is wagering that the price of gold will go up…and so is our money!..These fellows (read central banks, Fed.) challenged the gods - pretending that they could control the markets and the business cycle. Of course, they couldn't. All they could do was to use the old familiar Keynesian flimflam…print a little extra money so as to trick people into thinking they were wealthier than they really were...And when you add in the states and local governments also borrowing and spending, borrowing and spending, borrowing and spending, too, you are suddenly talking about 75% of GDP being government spending! ' Can the last part be correct (when consumer spending is also 70% of GDP, true both can overlap). As I read, I understand inflation in Zimbabwe is more than 100000% (annual)...my stand is same here: 'All we know is that, now, the Gods are having their revenge. And while it may be painful to investors, homeowners, workers, and just about everyone else, it is nevertheless instructive. And for a mischievous economist - still fun to watch.' As I read this (I thought the US exports weapons and food and Boeing) '*** The United States is now a net importer of food, we read recently. If we understand that correctly, there is no longer enough food Made in the USA to feed Americans' appetites. Colleague Dan Denning began a nervous discussion on the topic when he sent this article from the Financial Times, with its headline reading: "The next crisis will be over food"'; I am deeply worried about India and all the middle-class and poor people in the developing world (South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa particularly). One can look at Goldman Sachs foresight in Housing, now they are bullish on agri-commodities. '"But outsourcing your supply of food and water…depending on unfriendly or unreliable trading partners to keep sending fresh fruit and poultry…or thinking the global system of trade will forever expand and never again contract…these are all dangerous assumptions that could leave you with an empty national stomach at night."' '"In 1908, good farmland in England was worth about 45 pounds per acre. Similar land would now be worth about 4,500 pounds an acre…On that basis, land has risen by about 100 times…over the last century. "We can be more precise about gold. In 1908, an ounce of gold was worth four sovereign coins. At the current dollar price of $900, an ounce of gold is worth about 450 pounds, or about 110 times what it was worth a century ago."...Barclays Equity Gilt study, which the bank has been publishing for the last 53 years, takes a long view of the performance of British stocks and finds that for nearly 100 years - from 1899 to 1985 - U.K. stocks actually lost investors money. Compared to retail prices, the real return on equities over that entire period was negative. But in the 20 years following, share prices - in real terms - more than doubled. In America, the capitalists' stock rose even more. The Dow index went up more than 1,000% from '82 to 2000. Nor was this boom confined to the Anglo-Saxon economies. The Russians wised up fast, knocked down the wall, renounced communism and cut tax rates down to a third of the level in Britain. The Chinese kept their government but changed their creed: 'To get rich is glorious,' said Deng Shao Ping. The Indians dropped the "license raj" and got down to business. The whole world bustled and boomed. ' And still we don't learn...''Capitalism doesn't work,' said the sore losers and whiners. 'It favors the rich,' said the envious. "It needs to be controlled," said those who wanted their own fat fingers on the knobs and levers.' Very true...'The baker, for example, wants his own costs controlled and the bakery across the street put out of business. The factory owner wants the borders sealed against foreign imports. And the working man thinks he should have his job as a matter of right. What they all want is protection from capitalism…from the future…and from the unknown. Everyone wants a softer cushion under his derriere and he'll vote for the politician who offers it to him most convincingly. And almost every voter wants to stop free markets from doing what they do best'
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Internet & the US election: I took a look at both Obama for America and also at Hillary for President. Both look good with points that I didn't like also, however Obama apparently had an unconventional approach.
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Bernanke, Bush Fail to Build Better Economy With Cuts, Stimulus : Though my opinion on this issue had primarily been same (or even more severe), I also acknowledge that it's too early to make any comment on the impact of those decisions. Interesting to note this point: 'Households reduced their savings rate to virtually nil in December from close to 10 percent of disposable income 15 years earlier. That trend may reverse as credit becomes scarcer and home prices fall...Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics in New York, calls the pullback by consumers ``a seismic shift. For several years, the growth of consumer spending is going to be significantly below its long-run average of 3.5 percent.''
' . Meaning around 2.8% of growth came only from consumer spending (at the cost of savings or even by borrowings?). 'The increase is stoking fears of more to come. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which acts as a benchmark for mortgage rates, rose to 3.80 percent on Feb. 22 from 3.44 percent a month earlier, even though the Fed reduced its overnight lending rate by 1.25 percentage points during the period...Robert Gordon, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, says the surge in productivity that began around 1995 was a one-time event sparked by the advent of the Internet. He pegs the underlying growth rate of productivity at about 1.8 percent, down from a high of 2.9 percent earlier this decade. Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps says there's little the Fed can do when faced with such a structural change. ``We've had a series of booms, and it seems to me they are now over,'' says Phelps, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York. ``As a result, we're going to see a period of slower growth than in the past.'' '.
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Hong Kong Stuck Between a Peg and a Hard Place: No doubt a well-written and researched article from this veteran. However all said and done, the need of this comes only due to misuse of its superpower status as often followed by the US (abd thereby status of $ in global currency market).
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Banks Lose to Deadbeat Homeowners as Loans Sold in Bonds Vanish : Sounds ludicrous, but that's how corporate world works. Rules are meant for end-consumers, rarely for the corporates and implemented that way only.
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Nader Says He's Running for U.S. Presidency Again : Although I don't know anything about Nadar (and my knowledge about other candidates again being poor and superficial to a certain extent), what I appreciate is this reckoning: '``When you see the paralysis of the government, when you see Washington, D.C., be corporate-occupied territory, every department and agency controlled by overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people, one feels an obligation to try and open the doorways,'' he said'.
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Investor group ready for New York Times proxy fight: Again on NYT...
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McCain story proves incendiary among journalists, conservatives: I saw the original story in NYT, and we also had Bill Keller's article on quality some time back. This article now shows how much research and investment these guys make for one story...any single example from India (I know there are few, but those also focus more on creating a hype rather than the issue). And on 23rd came 2nd NYT on this...one can be sure that NYT was not shooting in the air
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Microsoft targets sizeable online ad market: Interesting keeping my research interests and domestic market. $130 million and 50% or so growth rate isn't bad keeping in mind some 50-100 million (and all the figures in India vary) users. So roughly $2-3/user whereas total comes to $5/user. 'Bahat na insaafi hain' if one had to use the words of immortal Gabbar of Sholay.
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Conservation ‘halts cross-species plagues’: Good reading in a new area...never thought as such about it! The 1st comment was wrong about India.
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Magazines Up for Sale, Including Variety : It happened with Life, and more of it will happen as the evolution of content takes place. I was wondering whether Reed-Elsevier and Elsevier are part of same firm or parent-child. Probably. What would be interesting to observe is how academic publishers would get over the tide.
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Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic: Though I was expecting something different (How internet can help in diagonosis of rare medical cases)...however this gives me an idea that just like one stores photos, why not have a site to store the scanned copies of all your health records (till automatic updating takes place).
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'Benefit everyone, not just people like ourselves,' Gates tells Stanford students: I am a fan of this gentleman, and have great respect for him. '"People shouldn't graduate without having an understanding of the average living conditions of the poor," said Gates, pacing the stage at Memorial Auditorium. It is a "focus, a value system, that will drive more rapid change. "If you look at medical research - consider how much money is spent on (preventing) baldness compared with malaria," he said. "It's 50-to-1 for baldness. Malaria kills a million people a year."' And we want free capital market economy in India too!
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Yuan Climbs After China Pledges New Policies to Curb Inflation : For long I have been an admirer of Chinese policies, more so on monetary, financial and globalization related (with geopolitics too). What I would like to stress is the word 'Innovate' and searching for new policies continuously. What US Fed. and Govt. has done lately is nothing but innovating policies to help US economy (though I doubt its sustainability over the longer run); and by doing that they again try to pass the inflation to the rest of the world as they have done many times before. Developed world produces paper money, developing world produces goods...now it has gone too far as developed world borrow from poorer developing world to consume more! And traditional tools may not be much effective with free flow of capitals, people of developing countries not having credit access and assets being comparatively cheaper again. So one needs to always ensure that the real asset of people of developing world does not get transfered to the developed world for credit money alone. This is a complex thing...however China has so far been able to manage it excellently. Can it do it again as inflation shoots? They may but again without allowing Yuan to appreciate faster (mid-term measure) and finally by not allowing free credit to US (long term measure), they can do it; but both would have counter-effect as productive capacities would go down as demand falls.
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India struggles to tame its heart of darkness: Good article, however the question is not about 10% of Bihar's population alone. It rather is about anywhere between 50% (to 70 or as high as 85%) of people getting marginalized. 'Bihar's economy failed to register any growth in the first half of the 1990s, and has grown at just under four percent since, less than half the current national growth rate and barely one percent in per capita terms...Criminal convictions were almost unheard of in the reign of Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi. A new system of speedy trials helped secure nearly 10,000 convictions in 2007. Kidnapping for ransom, Bihar's biggest industry in Laloo's days, has fallen four-fold. In the past two years, more than 200 cases have been registered against corrupt government officials.' And then some faculties of IIMs or HBS think that the same man who ruined Bihar for a such long time is revamping Indian Railways...to get merely some political mileage. 'But the problem of Bihar -- and by extension the problem of India's widening inequality -- has even broader implications.'
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Wheat Shreds Goldman, USDA Forecasts Belied by Gains : Can be much more disastrous for a large number of people, more so in India, China, SOuth Asia, Africa than the impact of crude on economy.
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Equity Trades Defy Economy as Wall Street Transformers Abound : I am indeed surprised to see the volume (and thereby depth) of the NYSE. Almost all the m-cap got traded already...whereas in India (and not including derivatives, and also NYSE does not have derivatives), yearly turnover would be around m-cap. Another difference is, volatility (with a downward bias) increased trading there whereas it reduced trading in India. Speaks for itself on how Indian markets are susceptible (and therefore can be manipulated) easily by large players, primarily large FIIs.
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Alibaba has say in Yahoo, Microsoft talks & Alibaba, Beijing Fear Microsoft's Business Tactics: The earlier Bloomberg article raised few of these concerns which now are growing. I didn't know Yahoo! stake in Alibaba is as high as 39% (whereas Google apparently did sale its stake in Baidu).
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Looming end to DVD war cheers consumers: I followed this story for almost last 4-5 years (?), and Chinmoy did a case on that (like many of his works, he gave me credit for that too although other than the topic, I didn't even add a single word to it. I miss this great young guy (he helped me with lot many things, now even with this blog); and I have probably seldom seen such great character, honesty, sincerety, simplicity, modesty. Back to Ranchi now to look after his family.
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HC restrains TVS from launching Flame motorcycle : Interesting case for Indian patent office and judiciary...hope they are doing a good Job.
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Bernanke's Rate Cuts Force Asia Back to Price Limits, Subsidies : I can't help but state - 'Look. Who's preaching...and to whom?'
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Preparing For The Aluminium Boom: At times, I find the best analysis in many of this gold, commdities or off-main-stream media (which aren't strictly speaking alternate media as well). I read about Chalco & Alcoa picking up Rio shares, but until now no one talked much on the Aluminium side. Real good indeapth article
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Yahoo's Chinese Math Proves Miller Is Right at $40: Good and timely article...should have been there even before
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Hong Kong shares end morning sharply higher on Wall Street lead: I fail to get this again...the cheer in global equity market on 13-14/2, all led by o.7% change, upside one, in the US retail spend. That means US consumers did spend roughly $7 billion more in January (month on month or whatever these 0.4% drop and o.3% increase mean). And global financial markets, more so equity one, went up by a cool couple of trillion of dollars. Rather than focusing on fundamentals, savings, productivity, real economic growth and not on credit-driven economic growth; I don't understand on what we have been focusing. US economy is in a mess...irrespective of whether consumer spending reduces by few points or goes up by that. Tightening of consumer spend is quite good on the long run (only negative can be jobloss). So here you have someone, if someone has that interest, spend $7 billion more to get couple of trillion dollar of return within month in global equity markets. And credibility of Fed. to treasury to banks to governments is right that they cal easily manipulate that.
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Africa bright spot in Bush foreign policy legacy: Is it clearly so? I was getting the picture from global media that it is China who build its influence the most in Africa over last few years. True, many of the ruling regime in Africa may be having their loyalty to US (and President Bush), however on ground the alienation is more as more and more terrorist/violence acts get reported (in few cases with increased activities of Al Qaeda also).
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Japan Economy Grows 3.7%, Twice as Fast as Expected : I really really fail to understand this...after months of speculations on low growth rate, the sudden rate jumps to 3.57%. And Inflation, though lately on the rise, but still probably in 1-3% (or whatever) again defies logic when foodgrain prices globally are up by close to 100% in last couple of years, and so for oil, metals, shipping freight, one does not understand what inflation indeed measure (excluding energy and foodgrain, talk about services, real estate, rent...anything). Probably the inflation they measure follows Moore's law as applicable for electronics sector...a lot of hogwash indeed. However sometime back we saw a report that showed China to have replaced US in term of largest trading partner (both import and export even, if I remember right), and that again explains how Japan is more insulated now from a US recession than in earlier times. 'Rising oil prices may have boosted growth in real terms. The GDP deflator, a broad measure of prices used to calculate real growth from nominal, fell 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the biggest drop since the first quarter of 2006. The deflator is adjusted downwards when oil prices rise. In nominal terms the economy grew an annual 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter.
The GDP figures are preliminary and will be revised on March 12.' Amusing, indeed...
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Americans Selling Homes See Prices Go Below Mortgage : Nothing new as such, barring few more stats and numbers (like the wealth of an Average American is around $200,000 of which 33% is in real estate...I wondered what may be the debt/American again... at most a fifth of that?)
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Comcast Investors Seek Buyback, Payout as Shares Drop : We are yet to see similar investor activism in India, say against the Government for killing MTNL slowly (or the oil maretsing firms), against ABG for not rewarding anything in Hindalco and going through massive expansions and acquisitions. Cases are many, many more involve corrupt businessmen (Essar, Videocon...lot more as few are not corrupt).
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Developing Countries Grew More Biotech Crops in ’07 : The dimension of sustainability often gets linked with this (at least many believe, I am still confused about it). 'In 2007, 282.3 million acres of the world’s cropland were planted with soybeans, corn, cotton and other crops genetically altered to resist pests and herbicides, an increase of about 12 percent from the previous year, according to the report. The report drew criticism from advocates of traditional agriculture, who warned that adopting genetically engineered crops could trap poor farmers in a cycle of debt to the multinational companies that own patents on the seeds. Clive James, the report’s primary author, said reduced pesticide spraying and increased yields had brought down the price of production in “a very significant way and a sustainable way.” American farms continued to dominate biotech agriculture, devoting more than 142 million acres to engineered crops, led by soy. The planting of biotech corn rose 40 percent in 2007 from 2006, to nearly 20 million acres, driven mainly by the demand for ethanol. Argentina led developing countries with 47.2 million acres in biotech corn, soy and cotton. Brazil was second with just over 37 million acres of biotech cotton and soy. India grew 15.3 million acres of genetically engineered cotton in 2007, its only biotech crop. Spain ranked highest among European countries with about 173,000 acres of genetically engineered corn but was 12th over all. European countries have been among the most resistant to genetically engineered crops because of health and environmental concerns. According to the report, 8 of 27 European countries planted biotech crops in 2007, up from 6 the previous year, totaling about 260,000 acres.' Cotton farmers in India pais dearly, many even with their lives...
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From a Bloomberg article, came to know about Kishore Mahbubani, and his book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Power to the East. 'Will the West resist the rise of Asia? The good news is that Asia wants to replicate, not dominate, the West. For a happy outcome to emerge, the West must gracefully give up its domination of global institutions, from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council. History teaches that tensions and conflicts are more likely when new powers emerge. This, too, may happen. But they can be avoided if the world accepts the key principles for a new global partnership spelled out in The New Asian Hemisphere.' STated often, but true...'alternative weltanschauung'...new concept but no doubt needed now.
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Asians Shouldn't Have to Be Reborn to Get Rich: Though the findings are good, I won't agree with many of the interpretations. Take for example Reliance Power IPO debacle, the failure lies more in fundamentals than a global market meltdown. The whole issue was a hype and fooling people, true in case equity market remained high, selling a hype is easy. However one can fool others quite a few times, but not always. Or even 'The poorest 5 percent of Germans are, as a group, at the 73rd percentile of the world income distribution, which makes them more affluent per capita than the richest 5 percent of Indians' has any meaning on per capita income basis. However I agree with this, again on a per capita basis or even more holistically: 'If each nation's population is divided into 20 income classes, then climbing nine rungs from the bottom -- a tough task in societies where vested interests allow only limited social mobility -- will take a person the same distance as can be more easily traveled by being born in a country twice as rich.'
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U.S. Payrolls Decline for First Time in Four Years : Many times they come up with revised data later on...however this is in expected line.
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Exxon Profit Rises as Oil Surges Toward $100 a Barrel : Quarterly profit of $11.7 billion and yearly $40.6. I am not sure what's the highest quarterly or yearly profit recorded by firm...number are mind-boggling (they can buy ONGC with one year's profit!). BP reported around $27 billion (annual) profit...'Profit for all of 2007 was $40.6 billion, topping Exxon Mobil's own record for full-year earnings by a U.S. company. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 30 percent to $116.6 billion.'
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Here's the big news of 2008: Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo and Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion : BW did have an article on that long back (where I had a comment, and I have been proven wrong now). 'Google, based in Mountain View, California, captured 56 percent of U.S. Web queries in December, almost double the combined share for Yahoo and Microsoft, which attracted 18 percent and 13 percent. Searches will account for 37 percent of the $27.5 billion U.S. online advertising market in 2008, estimates research firm EMarketer Inc.' By 2010 online ad market expected to be $80 billion...'The purchase would be the largest acquisition ever in the technology industry, surpassing Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s $26 billion acquisition of First Data Corp. last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.' . Here's another article on it (Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion) and the 4th one (INSTANT VIEW: Microsoft bids for Yahoo). 'Internet audience researcher comScore estimates Google's share of the worldwide Web search market has reached 77 percent, while Yahoo is second with 16 percent and Microsoft was a distant third with 3.7 percent...Microsoft said the online advertising market is growing rapidly and expected to reach nearly $80 billion by 2010 from over $40 billion in 2007. It added it is "increasingly dominated by one player," referring to Google..."I would not be surprised to see this bid have to be raised over time," he said. "I think there are companies out there like Comcast (Corp) and Viacom (Inc) and others that still need to address the emergence of online media and haven't. So there are clearly other strategic companies out there."...The Microsoft-Yahoo deal would be the largest in the Internet market since the $182 billion purchase of Time Warner Inc by AOL in 2001, which was seen as the worst merger in recent corporate history, with clashing corporate cultures and many of the promised synergies never materializing. ' The other stated: '"It's about time. Great for Microsoft. Great for Yahoo shareholders. These Internet markets are winner-take-all markets and they cannot be built. Time is too valuable. Yahoo has one of the best positions on the Internet because it's integrated brand (advertising) with search..."They're in a pole position in several major industries. I expect News (Corp), Comcast, and GE will look at it. But Microsoft is paying a lot because they're trying to scare away other bidders..."Shocking! To me, the premium seems exorbitant, for what is a dwindling business. I personally don't see how the synergies of Microsoft-Yahoo is going to take on Google."It will obviously help the stock market immensely -- the overall market loves a big deal, here you go, and the futures are screaming.
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My views were similar...
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China Tries to Reassure U.S. About Its Investing Plans : '“We are like farmers — we want to farm our land well,” said Lou Jiwei, chairman of the China Investment Corporation, a so-called sovereign wealth fund established last year to invest some of China’s foreign exchange reserves...Referring to the $5 billion stake in Morgan Stanley that the fund purchased in December, Mr. Lou added: “Of course when there is good market opportunity, we can also make some direct investment, such as the Morgan Stanley deal.” Mr. Lou said Morgan Stanley had approached the Chinese fund rather than the other way around and that “after analysis we realized that this was a good opportunity.” He added: “If there is a big fat rabbit we will also shoot it. Some people may say we were shot by Morgan Stanley. But who knows?” China made headlines last May when it announced it would purchase a $3 billion stake in the Blackstone Group, a private equity fund. But Mr. Lou said only a third of the fund’s $200 billion in assets would be used to buy foreign assets. The other two-thirds are to be used to shore up three Chinese commercial banks, he said...Echoing what he said was a pledge by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Mr. Lou said that the Chinese government would not interfere in the operations of the Chinese fund or dictate its investment decisions, and that the fund would have its own corporate governance structure.'. Looks like the gentleman is answering various concerns of SWF raised in Davos recently.
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Sprint Plans Big Write-Off Of Assets: $31 billion write-off...I wonder any large scale telecom acquisition (where parties both not present in market) did pay off. 'Thomas Watts, an analyst who follows Sprint for the New York investment bank Cowen and Co., said the announced write-off was characteristic of a regime change. "Frankly, it is a fairly classic move by a new CEO," Watts said. "I come in, and I take a lot of charges. I write things off, and I blame it on the previous management." A $31 billion write-off would likely result in a big fourth-quarter loss. In the corresponding quarter of 2006, the company reported a profit of $261 million...The failure has led to deteriorating service and an exodus of customers. "They are at a big competitive disadvantage," said Bruce Greenwald, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University. "They don't have a dominant share in any market that they compete in." ' Yes, many times to create competitive advantages, we rather do the opposite.
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China advises millions to abandon travel plans: 'The trip is often the only bright spot for workers who toil all year long in factories far from home. For an estimated 178 million people -- the size of the combined population of Italy, France and Britain -- the annual trek is sometimes the only opportunity to see family that they leave behind. This year, the holiday begins February 6.'
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Budget Hits $3 Trillion As Debt Marks Bush Legacy: 'The longer-term picture is darker. Despite his efforts, Mr. Bush failed to work out a deal with Congress to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs. The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917.' Many never thought about it...we assumed that US Government by default enjoys triple-A credit rating. Great to see these institutes that capitalism has created, however behind the veil, there is a different game. As bond insurers cry for more money now as losses mount, and municipal bonds count losses from their sub-prime buying and other credit businesses; I would still like to keep my fingers crossed (although stocks responded quite well to the rate cut). 'The president's critics say his failings are twofold: He has squandered surpluses that could have helped pay down the $5 trillion federal debt. And he has let two terms pass without persuading Congress to take action that would preserve the government's social programs. According to the Concord Coalition, a fiscal watchdog group, the shortfall in Social Security and Medicare through 2080 will total $72.3 trillion, a number that dwarfs the impact of Mr. Bush's spending and tax cuts.' Good that someone studies that far (given a choice, I may at best do some ball park calculations, but not study or research); wonder if anyone in India ever bothers! 'In 1999, Moody's started a series of five downgrades of Japanese government debt after the debt reached 90% of the entire economy. "That could happen in the United States if these programs aren't reformed" as 2020 nears, says Moody's Vice President Steven Hess.'
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Yen Rises to Highest in Almost Three Years on U.S. Bank Concern : Not the smaller, but the excessive risk-taking banks should fail. Fed. should not only bail out the large ones, which if fail, may do long term good to the economy. US economy needs major operation, not small tumor removals.
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Central Banks and Gold: Manipulation or Money Management?: Another balanced article as Gold continues its journey to $1000. Can this comment be true: 'Think about it? There is more shorts than all silver on earth.' I doubt...and here is another: The Current State of the Gold Market (though actually it dated back to 2002, like many Gold related or classic articles in this blog)
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Microsoft Fined Record EU899 Million by EU Regulator : Whoa...what a piece of news for open-source supporters and Windows haters! '``Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,'' European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement today in Brussels. ``I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance.''' . No doubt a slap in the face...
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The gold standard: A precious metal that's not just an investment but a worldview too: And I may be the only (or rarest) goldbug who never bought any gold other than gifting my sweet wife couple of bracelets (that too only once in our ten years of married life). Yes, I take a philosophical view of being a gold bug. 'All of the dates Blumert brings up are occasions when the federal government took actions to divorce currency from its precious-metal backing.' . The comments lead me to this article: New York Merchants Embrace Euro. Amazing...yesterday I was reading the 100000% inflation and currency depreciation in Zimbabwe; who can ever think even a microscopic fraction of that hitting the veru USA. I liked this comment as well: 'Anyone who thinks that diamonds and gold are stored up so that they don't flood the market doesn't understand economics, or has bought the lie." I suggest you Google "diamond" + "stockpile", and read about the $1.5 billion diamond hoard in vaults in Israel, the $2.7 billion stockpile in de Beers' vaults or the $5 billion in vaults in Russia. If even a portion of these tens of millions of carats were dumped on the market, the price for the standard -- a 1ct. D-grade flawless diamond would drop from the artificially propped-up $15,000 to a fraction of that. It's all a monopoly -- the DTC -- a cartel run by the Oppenheimer family. Look 'em up on Wikipedia. This stuff is all common knowledge with unimpeachable documentation.'
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Commodity boom means double whammy for food groups: Yesterday we saw the FT. multimedia, and this today: 'food products account for only 9 percent of UK consumer's wallets compared to 12 percent in the last UK recession in 1991.' What worries me is the same figure may be 50% or even more for 70-80% of people in developing nations (or true for 5 billion people of our world). Even if I think about my family, it would be closed to 50%, if not more.
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ANALYSIS - Google winner as Microsoft and Yahoo face off: I also believe so, however without putting too much on the ComScore search-ad findings; I believe Google would also face challenges eventually if they don't own content eventually. 'Mountain View, California-based Google could also see its R&D advantage shrink with a combined Yahoo-Microsoft. According to Wolk, Google spends about the same amount of money on Web R&D as Microsoft and Yahoo combined, but as separate entities, there is a lot of overlap in that investment.' That was surprising...I thought Google spent less and was more efficient.
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Help hard to get for troubled U.S. home owners: I must say that I was taken aback by this line '"They're lying bastards," said Mark Seifert, executive director of East Side Organizing Project (ESOP) in Cleveland, on a tour of the city's ravaged Slavic Village district. On some blocks here almost every last home is boarded up.' but then...that's how many sees.
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Doomsday vault for world’s seeds is opened under Arctic mountain: Great idea, strategic move and that's what I call 'fail-safe' planning and implementation. 'Many varieties of seed kept in the vault are no longer used commercially but it is possible that they will prove invaluable as world conditions change.' As I was reading the comments (the one on McDonald and Obesity was great!), the NASA Saturn probe did raise some doubts. Never heards of it...can it be so devastating as some felt? Most, most probably no...still...however...
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TVS Motor — learning a key lesson : I did cover the story between Bajaj and TVS spark-plug patent case which Bajaj won, and I said them these are (were) early days for India. Without having the technical knowledge, and therefore not buying fully the TVS side of the story; I believe the learning should be fast; otherwise it will be another area of failed democracy and judiciary as visible in many aspects in India.
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McCain, Obama Remind Asia It Needs to Decouple: The columnist apparently has done great analysis and still got the wrong conclusions. He seems to have forgotten that financial markets rely on money chasing assets. And due to the financial integration and easy credit policy and lack of credit in Asia (can someone tell me what's the credit money/person in US against that in India or China? I believe it would be much higher even when one factors in real size of economy/person in these areas), it's FII's easy money that drives Asian markets significantly. And these FIIs know that there is Fed. to bail them out anyway, so why not own/grab/speculate cheaper Asian assets with borrowed money from the Fed.?
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Dollar Falls to Record Low of $1.50 per Euro on Rate Outlook : I can't help but get a feeling that my forecast (how stupid it is for any to forecast anything in financial markets!) is coming true when global media was agaog with Yen appreciation and possibility of dollar rising against Euro. Why yen can't appreciate is simple: that would lead to another round of financial shocks as carry trades get fully trapped, and it soaks up the already scarce liquidity. On top of that I have fundamental doubts regarding strength of Japanese economy in-spite of its latest 3%+ growth rate as stated. It will be up for Euro, however it's already reaching unsustainable level here too. Long term up is Yuan only...
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I must also state that all the Indian hollah-bollah regarding exporters loss and Rs. rise is also falling apart. Since last couple of months, although dollar has stedily weakened against Yuan and other emerging leading currencies, it did remain steady or even appreciated again INR. And if more shocks (bound to be at some point) hit global financial markets, I am deeply worried with $100+ crude and Indian huge trade deficit (20-25%% of its trade). No doubt, much of the global financial problems are attributed due to uncontrolled rise in M3 in Yen and Dollar.
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Google Falls as Fewer Search Users Click on Text Ads : Expected as we get bombed by ads everywhere. The success would depend only on the exact positioning. 'Clicks on Google's sponsored links -- text ads that run alongside search results -- fell 7.5 percent in January from a month earlier to 532 million, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc. said late yesterday in a report. Sponsored search links accounted for most of Google's $16.6 billion in 2007 sales...Billions Erased: Google fell $22.25, or 4.6 percent, to $464.19 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the lowest since May. The stock has tumbled 37 percent from its high on Nov. 6, wiping out about $17 billion in combined wealth for co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. ' . That's awesome as it touched $700 as well if I am not wrong.
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Goldman, Lehman May Not Have Dodged Credit Crisis : If both the facts of Citi having $320 bn in VIEs and VIEs being worth 27 cents to a dollar are true, Citi is sitting over $250-odd bn of losses. That, again if true, and allowed to be operated with market forces, should be the death knell of Citi. So something is amiss somewhere, or as expected, market forces will be tethered again.
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Lou Suffers Blackstone's 'Fat Rabbits' in China Fund : It's too soon to judge Lou on his investment decisions, and all said and done, SWF, more so from China, would look at strategic interests more than investment returns. The article again shows how China develops professional policy-researchers and makers.
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We must curb international flows of capital: Excellent...I need to visit FT more often.
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Why are food prices rising?: The price rises, starting with inputs to agri-commodities, many by almose 7-10 times in last as many years, are phenomenal
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Yang: Microsoft Bid Was a “Galvanizing Event” for Yahoo: Insightful, philosophical statement; however time may be running out. The comments are also interesting.
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Wheat Breaches $12 for First Time After Biggest Gain Since 2002 : EVery alternate day I see wheat prices closing at upper circuit and something inside me tells me: it's an awful sign. Like Indian peeny stocks, but happening with the most used food item globally. Something fundamentally wrong. And inflation is contained...wonder how.
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Pearson Isn't Making Web Trade Better Than Newspapers : It may still be the trailer, the actual movie, when begins, will be fast and bloody. Text book publishers (and authors too) still make a lot of money in India, China and other populous emerging nations where books are comparatively cheap and online access is less (also awareness amongst faculty is less, the biggest reason). 'U.S. college students using Pearson's online learning programs jumped 44 percent to 1.3 million this school year.' .
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Google, Gates, Indian Diaspora Bet on Children: '...at 30 U.S. cents per child per year, the basic math, reading and writing skills required to help young learners retain their interest in education and keep them from dropping out of school are ridiculously cheap...Together, the two charities offered to help 10 million students for three years by pledging $9 million last year to Read India, an initiative of Pratham, a Mumbai-based not-for- profit organization for which Patel is a fund-raiser. Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google Inc., chipped in last month with a $2 million grant to help fund Pratham's annual survey of the qualitative aspects of primary education in India. ' I also had a look at their (Pratham) site, and they deserve credit (it's being operational for long...)...'The remedial Read India program will have been administered to every child who needs it by 2010. But that, as Patel says, is just a ``one-time antibiotic shot.'' ' That's right. Education and information gathering is a continuous process.
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FCC Head Says Action Possible on Web Limits: As a researcher, I have been following network neutrality (and unlimited tariff plans mostly in place in the US). The future would have challenges as no firm directions emerge. 'Industry watchers said the chairman's comments were his strongest yet against the carriers. The prospect of punishment for those who violate the FCC's 2005 policy statement safeguarding net neutrality could pave the way for legislative action, some analysts said. With the backing of Martin, a Republican, the FCC's two Democratic commissioners -- both supporters of net neutrality -- would have the majority. "Martin has never had a clearly elucidated position on this, but we're seeing what Martin thinks now and he has the swing vote on this," said Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University, following his testimony at the hearing. "He thinks that it's a consumer rights issue; whether that is a principle for the ages or principle for the case we don't know, but he certainly sent a message."' It also is covered well here: Comcast, net neutrality advocates clash at FCC hearing
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Bill Keller: "I'm proud to stand by this story." Times Public Editor: You Were Wrong To Run It: NYT seems to have lost this case...though (again not knowing much), I was for the NYT. Does it speak about my bias, my stupidity or my dislikings of the Republicans (as seen by the Cheney lot).
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I also saw certain articles in the Asia Times Online and from there went to the daily reckoning. I heard about it many times before, but visited it (probably, and consciously) for the 1st time. 'Until now, central banks could get away with soft money policies, because the Chinese offset increases to the supply of money with massive increases to the supply of labor. Millions of Chinese moved from the farms to the factories - lowering the price of labor worldwide…and with it, prices of consumer products.But there are many things cheap labor can't produce - oil, for example. And gold. And copper. And food. Copper is up 22% so far this year. Gold is up 11%. Wheat is off the charts. And oil broke through the $100 barrier just this week...Everybody loved inflation when it pushed up their stocks and house prices. But they hate it when it boosts the cost of their bread and taxi fares. Only gold investors like consumer price inflation. Hence, the smart money is wagering that the price of gold will go up…and so is our money!..These fellows (read central banks, Fed.) challenged the gods - pretending that they could control the markets and the business cycle. Of course, they couldn't. All they could do was to use the old familiar Keynesian flimflam…print a little extra money so as to trick people into thinking they were wealthier than they really were...And when you add in the states and local governments also borrowing and spending, borrowing and spending, borrowing and spending, too, you are suddenly talking about 75% of GDP being government spending! ' Can the last part be correct (when consumer spending is also 70% of GDP, true both can overlap). As I read, I understand inflation in Zimbabwe is more than 100000% (annual)...my stand is same here: 'All we know is that, now, the Gods are having their revenge. And while it may be painful to investors, homeowners, workers, and just about everyone else, it is nevertheless instructive. And for a mischievous economist - still fun to watch.' As I read this (I thought the US exports weapons and food and Boeing) '*** The United States is now a net importer of food, we read recently. If we understand that correctly, there is no longer enough food Made in the USA to feed Americans' appetites. Colleague Dan Denning began a nervous discussion on the topic when he sent this article from the Financial Times, with its headline reading: "The next crisis will be over food"'; I am deeply worried about India and all the middle-class and poor people in the developing world (South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa particularly). One can look at Goldman Sachs foresight in Housing, now they are bullish on agri-commodities. '"But outsourcing your supply of food and water…depending on unfriendly or unreliable trading partners to keep sending fresh fruit and poultry…or thinking the global system of trade will forever expand and never again contract…these are all dangerous assumptions that could leave you with an empty national stomach at night."' '"In 1908, good farmland in England was worth about 45 pounds per acre. Similar land would now be worth about 4,500 pounds an acre…On that basis, land has risen by about 100 times…over the last century. "We can be more precise about gold. In 1908, an ounce of gold was worth four sovereign coins. At the current dollar price of $900, an ounce of gold is worth about 450 pounds, or about 110 times what it was worth a century ago."...Barclays Equity Gilt study, which the bank has been publishing for the last 53 years, takes a long view of the performance of British stocks and finds that for nearly 100 years - from 1899 to 1985 - U.K. stocks actually lost investors money. Compared to retail prices, the real return on equities over that entire period was negative. But in the 20 years following, share prices - in real terms - more than doubled. In America, the capitalists' stock rose even more. The Dow index went up more than 1,000% from '82 to 2000. Nor was this boom confined to the Anglo-Saxon economies. The Russians wised up fast, knocked down the wall, renounced communism and cut tax rates down to a third of the level in Britain. The Chinese kept their government but changed their creed: 'To get rich is glorious,' said Deng Shao Ping. The Indians dropped the "license raj" and got down to business. The whole world bustled and boomed. ' And still we don't learn...''Capitalism doesn't work,' said the sore losers and whiners. 'It favors the rich,' said the envious. "It needs to be controlled," said those who wanted their own fat fingers on the knobs and levers.' Very true...'The baker, for example, wants his own costs controlled and the bakery across the street put out of business. The factory owner wants the borders sealed against foreign imports. And the working man thinks he should have his job as a matter of right. What they all want is protection from capitalism…from the future…and from the unknown. Everyone wants a softer cushion under his derriere and he'll vote for the politician who offers it to him most convincingly. And almost every voter wants to stop free markets from doing what they do best'
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Internet & the US election: I took a look at both Obama for America and also at Hillary for President. Both look good with points that I didn't like also, however Obama apparently had an unconventional approach.
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Bernanke, Bush Fail to Build Better Economy With Cuts, Stimulus : Though my opinion on this issue had primarily been same (or even more severe), I also acknowledge that it's too early to make any comment on the impact of those decisions. Interesting to note this point: 'Households reduced their savings rate to virtually nil in December from close to 10 percent of disposable income 15 years earlier. That trend may reverse as credit becomes scarcer and home prices fall...Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics in New York, calls the pullback by consumers ``a seismic shift. For several years, the growth of consumer spending is going to be significantly below its long-run average of 3.5 percent.''
' . Meaning around 2.8% of growth came only from consumer spending (at the cost of savings or even by borrowings?). 'The increase is stoking fears of more to come. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which acts as a benchmark for mortgage rates, rose to 3.80 percent on Feb. 22 from 3.44 percent a month earlier, even though the Fed reduced its overnight lending rate by 1.25 percentage points during the period...Robert Gordon, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, says the surge in productivity that began around 1995 was a one-time event sparked by the advent of the Internet. He pegs the underlying growth rate of productivity at about 1.8 percent, down from a high of 2.9 percent earlier this decade. Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps says there's little the Fed can do when faced with such a structural change. ``We've had a series of booms, and it seems to me they are now over,'' says Phelps, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York. ``As a result, we're going to see a period of slower growth than in the past.'' '.
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Hong Kong Stuck Between a Peg and a Hard Place: No doubt a well-written and researched article from this veteran. However all said and done, the need of this comes only due to misuse of its superpower status as often followed by the US (abd thereby status of $ in global currency market).
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Banks Lose to Deadbeat Homeowners as Loans Sold in Bonds Vanish : Sounds ludicrous, but that's how corporate world works. Rules are meant for end-consumers, rarely for the corporates and implemented that way only.
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Nader Says He's Running for U.S. Presidency Again : Although I don't know anything about Nadar (and my knowledge about other candidates again being poor and superficial to a certain extent), what I appreciate is this reckoning: '``When you see the paralysis of the government, when you see Washington, D.C., be corporate-occupied territory, every department and agency controlled by overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people, one feels an obligation to try and open the doorways,'' he said'.
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Investor group ready for New York Times proxy fight: Again on NYT...
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McCain story proves incendiary among journalists, conservatives: I saw the original story in NYT, and we also had Bill Keller's article on quality some time back. This article now shows how much research and investment these guys make for one story...any single example from India (I know there are few, but those also focus more on creating a hype rather than the issue). And on 23rd came 2nd NYT on this...one can be sure that NYT was not shooting in the air
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Microsoft targets sizeable online ad market: Interesting keeping my research interests and domestic market. $130 million and 50% or so growth rate isn't bad keeping in mind some 50-100 million (and all the figures in India vary) users. So roughly $2-3/user whereas total comes to $5/user. 'Bahat na insaafi hain' if one had to use the words of immortal Gabbar of Sholay.
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Conservation ‘halts cross-species plagues’: Good reading in a new area...never thought as such about it! The 1st comment was wrong about India.
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Magazines Up for Sale, Including Variety : It happened with Life, and more of it will happen as the evolution of content takes place. I was wondering whether Reed-Elsevier and Elsevier are part of same firm or parent-child. Probably. What would be interesting to observe is how academic publishers would get over the tide.
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Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic: Though I was expecting something different (How internet can help in diagonosis of rare medical cases)...however this gives me an idea that just like one stores photos, why not have a site to store the scanned copies of all your health records (till automatic updating takes place).
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'Benefit everyone, not just people like ourselves,' Gates tells Stanford students: I am a fan of this gentleman, and have great respect for him. '"People shouldn't graduate without having an understanding of the average living conditions of the poor," said Gates, pacing the stage at Memorial Auditorium. It is a "focus, a value system, that will drive more rapid change. "If you look at medical research - consider how much money is spent on (preventing) baldness compared with malaria," he said. "It's 50-to-1 for baldness. Malaria kills a million people a year."' And we want free capital market economy in India too!
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Yuan Climbs After China Pledges New Policies to Curb Inflation : For long I have been an admirer of Chinese policies, more so on monetary, financial and globalization related (with geopolitics too). What I would like to stress is the word 'Innovate' and searching for new policies continuously. What US Fed. and Govt. has done lately is nothing but innovating policies to help US economy (though I doubt its sustainability over the longer run); and by doing that they again try to pass the inflation to the rest of the world as they have done many times before. Developed world produces paper money, developing world produces goods...now it has gone too far as developed world borrow from poorer developing world to consume more! And traditional tools may not be much effective with free flow of capitals, people of developing countries not having credit access and assets being comparatively cheaper again. So one needs to always ensure that the real asset of people of developing world does not get transfered to the developed world for credit money alone. This is a complex thing...however China has so far been able to manage it excellently. Can it do it again as inflation shoots? They may but again without allowing Yuan to appreciate faster (mid-term measure) and finally by not allowing free credit to US (long term measure), they can do it; but both would have counter-effect as productive capacities would go down as demand falls.
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India struggles to tame its heart of darkness: Good article, however the question is not about 10% of Bihar's population alone. It rather is about anywhere between 50% (to 70 or as high as 85%) of people getting marginalized. 'Bihar's economy failed to register any growth in the first half of the 1990s, and has grown at just under four percent since, less than half the current national growth rate and barely one percent in per capita terms...Criminal convictions were almost unheard of in the reign of Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi. A new system of speedy trials helped secure nearly 10,000 convictions in 2007. Kidnapping for ransom, Bihar's biggest industry in Laloo's days, has fallen four-fold. In the past two years, more than 200 cases have been registered against corrupt government officials.' And then some faculties of IIMs or HBS think that the same man who ruined Bihar for a such long time is revamping Indian Railways...to get merely some political mileage. 'But the problem of Bihar -- and by extension the problem of India's widening inequality -- has even broader implications.'
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Wheat Shreds Goldman, USDA Forecasts Belied by Gains : Can be much more disastrous for a large number of people, more so in India, China, SOuth Asia, Africa than the impact of crude on economy.
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Equity Trades Defy Economy as Wall Street Transformers Abound : I am indeed surprised to see the volume (and thereby depth) of the NYSE. Almost all the m-cap got traded already...whereas in India (and not including derivatives, and also NYSE does not have derivatives), yearly turnover would be around m-cap. Another difference is, volatility (with a downward bias) increased trading there whereas it reduced trading in India. Speaks for itself on how Indian markets are susceptible (and therefore can be manipulated) easily by large players, primarily large FIIs.
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Alibaba has say in Yahoo, Microsoft talks & Alibaba, Beijing Fear Microsoft's Business Tactics: The earlier Bloomberg article raised few of these concerns which now are growing. I didn't know Yahoo! stake in Alibaba is as high as 39% (whereas Google apparently did sale its stake in Baidu).
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Looming end to DVD war cheers consumers: I followed this story for almost last 4-5 years (?), and Chinmoy did a case on that (like many of his works, he gave me credit for that too although other than the topic, I didn't even add a single word to it. I miss this great young guy (he helped me with lot many things, now even with this blog); and I have probably seldom seen such great character, honesty, sincerety, simplicity, modesty. Back to Ranchi now to look after his family.
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HC restrains TVS from launching Flame motorcycle : Interesting case for Indian patent office and judiciary...hope they are doing a good Job.
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Bernanke's Rate Cuts Force Asia Back to Price Limits, Subsidies : I can't help but state - 'Look. Who's preaching...and to whom?'
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Preparing For The Aluminium Boom: At times, I find the best analysis in many of this gold, commdities or off-main-stream media (which aren't strictly speaking alternate media as well). I read about Chalco & Alcoa picking up Rio shares, but until now no one talked much on the Aluminium side. Real good indeapth article
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Yahoo's Chinese Math Proves Miller Is Right at $40: Good and timely article...should have been there even before
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Hong Kong shares end morning sharply higher on Wall Street lead: I fail to get this again...the cheer in global equity market on 13-14/2, all led by o.7% change, upside one, in the US retail spend. That means US consumers did spend roughly $7 billion more in January (month on month or whatever these 0.4% drop and o.3% increase mean). And global financial markets, more so equity one, went up by a cool couple of trillion of dollars. Rather than focusing on fundamentals, savings, productivity, real economic growth and not on credit-driven economic growth; I don't understand on what we have been focusing. US economy is in a mess...irrespective of whether consumer spending reduces by few points or goes up by that. Tightening of consumer spend is quite good on the long run (only negative can be jobloss). So here you have someone, if someone has that interest, spend $7 billion more to get couple of trillion dollar of return within month in global equity markets. And credibility of Fed. to treasury to banks to governments is right that they cal easily manipulate that.
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Africa bright spot in Bush foreign policy legacy: Is it clearly so? I was getting the picture from global media that it is China who build its influence the most in Africa over last few years. True, many of the ruling regime in Africa may be having their loyalty to US (and President Bush), however on ground the alienation is more as more and more terrorist/violence acts get reported (in few cases with increased activities of Al Qaeda also).
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Japan Economy Grows 3.7%, Twice as Fast as Expected : I really really fail to understand this...after months of speculations on low growth rate, the sudden rate jumps to 3.57%. And Inflation, though lately on the rise, but still probably in 1-3% (or whatever) again defies logic when foodgrain prices globally are up by close to 100% in last couple of years, and so for oil, metals, shipping freight, one does not understand what inflation indeed measure (excluding energy and foodgrain, talk about services, real estate, rent...anything). Probably the inflation they measure follows Moore's law as applicable for electronics sector...a lot of hogwash indeed. However sometime back we saw a report that showed China to have replaced US in term of largest trading partner (both import and export even, if I remember right), and that again explains how Japan is more insulated now from a US recession than in earlier times. 'Rising oil prices may have boosted growth in real terms. The GDP deflator, a broad measure of prices used to calculate real growth from nominal, fell 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the biggest drop since the first quarter of 2006. The deflator is adjusted downwards when oil prices rise. In nominal terms the economy grew an annual 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter.
The GDP figures are preliminary and will be revised on March 12.' Amusing, indeed...
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Americans Selling Homes See Prices Go Below Mortgage : Nothing new as such, barring few more stats and numbers (like the wealth of an Average American is around $200,000 of which 33% is in real estate...I wondered what may be the debt/American again... at most a fifth of that?)
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Comcast Investors Seek Buyback, Payout as Shares Drop : We are yet to see similar investor activism in India, say against the Government for killing MTNL slowly (or the oil maretsing firms), against ABG for not rewarding anything in Hindalco and going through massive expansions and acquisitions. Cases are many, many more involve corrupt businessmen (Essar, Videocon...lot more as few are not corrupt).
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Developing Countries Grew More Biotech Crops in ’07 : The dimension of sustainability often gets linked with this (at least many believe, I am still confused about it). 'In 2007, 282.3 million acres of the world’s cropland were planted with soybeans, corn, cotton and other crops genetically altered to resist pests and herbicides, an increase of about 12 percent from the previous year, according to the report. The report drew criticism from advocates of traditional agriculture, who warned that adopting genetically engineered crops could trap poor farmers in a cycle of debt to the multinational companies that own patents on the seeds. Clive James, the report’s primary author, said reduced pesticide spraying and increased yields had brought down the price of production in “a very significant way and a sustainable way.” American farms continued to dominate biotech agriculture, devoting more than 142 million acres to engineered crops, led by soy. The planting of biotech corn rose 40 percent in 2007 from 2006, to nearly 20 million acres, driven mainly by the demand for ethanol. Argentina led developing countries with 47.2 million acres in biotech corn, soy and cotton. Brazil was second with just over 37 million acres of biotech cotton and soy. India grew 15.3 million acres of genetically engineered cotton in 2007, its only biotech crop. Spain ranked highest among European countries with about 173,000 acres of genetically engineered corn but was 12th over all. European countries have been among the most resistant to genetically engineered crops because of health and environmental concerns. According to the report, 8 of 27 European countries planted biotech crops in 2007, up from 6 the previous year, totaling about 260,000 acres.' Cotton farmers in India pais dearly, many even with their lives...
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From a Bloomberg article, came to know about Kishore Mahbubani, and his book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Power to the East. 'Will the West resist the rise of Asia? The good news is that Asia wants to replicate, not dominate, the West. For a happy outcome to emerge, the West must gracefully give up its domination of global institutions, from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council. History teaches that tensions and conflicts are more likely when new powers emerge. This, too, may happen. But they can be avoided if the world accepts the key principles for a new global partnership spelled out in The New Asian Hemisphere.' STated often, but true...'alternative weltanschauung'...new concept but no doubt needed now.
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Asians Shouldn't Have to Be Reborn to Get Rich: Though the findings are good, I won't agree with many of the interpretations. Take for example Reliance Power IPO debacle, the failure lies more in fundamentals than a global market meltdown. The whole issue was a hype and fooling people, true in case equity market remained high, selling a hype is easy. However one can fool others quite a few times, but not always. Or even 'The poorest 5 percent of Germans are, as a group, at the 73rd percentile of the world income distribution, which makes them more affluent per capita than the richest 5 percent of Indians' has any meaning on per capita income basis. However I agree with this, again on a per capita basis or even more holistically: 'If each nation's population is divided into 20 income classes, then climbing nine rungs from the bottom -- a tough task in societies where vested interests allow only limited social mobility -- will take a person the same distance as can be more easily traveled by being born in a country twice as rich.'
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U.S. Payrolls Decline for First Time in Four Years : Many times they come up with revised data later on...however this is in expected line.
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Exxon Profit Rises as Oil Surges Toward $100 a Barrel : Quarterly profit of $11.7 billion and yearly $40.6. I am not sure what's the highest quarterly or yearly profit recorded by firm...number are mind-boggling (they can buy ONGC with one year's profit!). BP reported around $27 billion (annual) profit...'Profit for all of 2007 was $40.6 billion, topping Exxon Mobil's own record for full-year earnings by a U.S. company. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 30 percent to $116.6 billion.'
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Here's the big news of 2008: Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo and Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion : BW did have an article on that long back (where I had a comment, and I have been proven wrong now). 'Google, based in Mountain View, California, captured 56 percent of U.S. Web queries in December, almost double the combined share for Yahoo and Microsoft, which attracted 18 percent and 13 percent. Searches will account for 37 percent of the $27.5 billion U.S. online advertising market in 2008, estimates research firm EMarketer Inc.' By 2010 online ad market expected to be $80 billion...'The purchase would be the largest acquisition ever in the technology industry, surpassing Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s $26 billion acquisition of First Data Corp. last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.' . Here's another article on it (Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion) and the 4th one (INSTANT VIEW: Microsoft bids for Yahoo). 'Internet audience researcher comScore estimates Google's share of the worldwide Web search market has reached 77 percent, while Yahoo is second with 16 percent and Microsoft was a distant third with 3.7 percent...Microsoft said the online advertising market is growing rapidly and expected to reach nearly $80 billion by 2010 from over $40 billion in 2007. It added it is "increasingly dominated by one player," referring to Google..."I would not be surprised to see this bid have to be raised over time," he said. "I think there are companies out there like Comcast (Corp) and Viacom (Inc) and others that still need to address the emergence of online media and haven't. So there are clearly other strategic companies out there."...The Microsoft-Yahoo deal would be the largest in the Internet market since the $182 billion purchase of Time Warner Inc by AOL in 2001, which was seen as the worst merger in recent corporate history, with clashing corporate cultures and many of the promised synergies never materializing. ' The other stated: '"It's about time. Great for Microsoft. Great for Yahoo shareholders. These Internet markets are winner-take-all markets and they cannot be built. Time is too valuable. Yahoo has one of the best positions on the Internet because it's integrated brand (advertising) with search..."They're in a pole position in several major industries. I expect News (Corp), Comcast, and GE will look at it. But Microsoft is paying a lot because they're trying to scare away other bidders..."Shocking! To me, the premium seems exorbitant, for what is a dwindling business. I personally don't see how the synergies of Microsoft-Yahoo is going to take on Google."It will obviously help the stock market immensely -- the overall market loves a big deal, here you go, and the futures are screaming.
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My views were similar...
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China Tries to Reassure U.S. About Its Investing Plans : '“We are like farmers — we want to farm our land well,” said Lou Jiwei, chairman of the China Investment Corporation, a so-called sovereign wealth fund established last year to invest some of China’s foreign exchange reserves...Referring to the $5 billion stake in Morgan Stanley that the fund purchased in December, Mr. Lou added: “Of course when there is good market opportunity, we can also make some direct investment, such as the Morgan Stanley deal.” Mr. Lou said Morgan Stanley had approached the Chinese fund rather than the other way around and that “after analysis we realized that this was a good opportunity.” He added: “If there is a big fat rabbit we will also shoot it. Some people may say we were shot by Morgan Stanley. But who knows?” China made headlines last May when it announced it would purchase a $3 billion stake in the Blackstone Group, a private equity fund. But Mr. Lou said only a third of the fund’s $200 billion in assets would be used to buy foreign assets. The other two-thirds are to be used to shore up three Chinese commercial banks, he said...Echoing what he said was a pledge by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Mr. Lou said that the Chinese government would not interfere in the operations of the Chinese fund or dictate its investment decisions, and that the fund would have its own corporate governance structure.'. Looks like the gentleman is answering various concerns of SWF raised in Davos recently.
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Sprint Plans Big Write-Off Of Assets: $31 billion write-off...I wonder any large scale telecom acquisition (where parties both not present in market) did pay off. 'Thomas Watts, an analyst who follows Sprint for the New York investment bank Cowen and Co., said the announced write-off was characteristic of a regime change. "Frankly, it is a fairly classic move by a new CEO," Watts said. "I come in, and I take a lot of charges. I write things off, and I blame it on the previous management." A $31 billion write-off would likely result in a big fourth-quarter loss. In the corresponding quarter of 2006, the company reported a profit of $261 million...The failure has led to deteriorating service and an exodus of customers. "They are at a big competitive disadvantage," said Bruce Greenwald, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University. "They don't have a dominant share in any market that they compete in." ' Yes, many times to create competitive advantages, we rather do the opposite.
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China advises millions to abandon travel plans: 'The trip is often the only bright spot for workers who toil all year long in factories far from home. For an estimated 178 million people -- the size of the combined population of Italy, France and Britain -- the annual trek is sometimes the only opportunity to see family that they leave behind. This year, the holiday begins February 6.'
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Budget Hits $3 Trillion As Debt Marks Bush Legacy: 'The longer-term picture is darker. Despite his efforts, Mr. Bush failed to work out a deal with Congress to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs. The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917.' Many never thought about it...we assumed that US Government by default enjoys triple-A credit rating. Great to see these institutes that capitalism has created, however behind the veil, there is a different game. As bond insurers cry for more money now as losses mount, and municipal bonds count losses from their sub-prime buying and other credit businesses; I would still like to keep my fingers crossed (although stocks responded quite well to the rate cut). 'The president's critics say his failings are twofold: He has squandered surpluses that could have helped pay down the $5 trillion federal debt. And he has let two terms pass without persuading Congress to take action that would preserve the government's social programs. According to the Concord Coalition, a fiscal watchdog group, the shortfall in Social Security and Medicare through 2080 will total $72.3 trillion, a number that dwarfs the impact of Mr. Bush's spending and tax cuts.' Good that someone studies that far (given a choice, I may at best do some ball park calculations, but not study or research); wonder if anyone in India ever bothers! 'In 1999, Moody's started a series of five downgrades of Japanese government debt after the debt reached 90% of the entire economy. "That could happen in the United States if these programs aren't reformed" as 2020 nears, says Moody's Vice President Steven Hess.'
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