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Showing posts from November, 2011

Ridicu'list' for the week

Biden in surprise visit to Iraq - Was he surprised that he was in Iraq? Or was it Eyeraaak? Man - all he was trying to do was to visit his nana in New Hampshire and the airforce probably got the flight plan mixed up. Or maybe he kept saying Turkey and they decided to fly to Turkey but got their flight plans mixed up and landed in what was once Iraq. Market Multiples out of whack - this in connection with the equities market. Frankly to me the whole idea of a P/E is out of whack. How can one company be judged to be a better or higher price multiple than another? Who decides? Then top it off with accounting policies that are best left to the one that interpreted them all manners of cooking of the books is possible leaving the P/E a useless barometer to gage the health of any enterprise. Book Value is the best of the worst metrics to tell if something is going to be 'going concern' or not. In fact 'going concern' itself sounds ominous. Where is it going? Under

Spain - Continued

When it comes to peoples of the Espanya - no i-device addiction here. They seem to be content walking around a lot accompanied by smoking and networking by actually talking with each other. Whether on a train or on the streets or by a pub outside a University the folk seemed to be engaged in intense conversations unlike the keyboard addicts stateside. Food as I may have mentioned earlier was not all that great shakes as it tends to be mildly flavored and not really warm either. Paella which is a traditional rice and meat or seafood dish was enjoyable in some instances but again felt lacking in spice. Nonetheless the mingling and wandering led us to understand that people actually do spend their time relaxing quite a bit true to the cliche of having siestas and easy lifestyle. Late night wandering on work days seemed common as witnessed from our hotel balcony (that overlooked a busy cafe), frequented by natives and tourists alike into the wee hours. No mall shopping mania eithe

Sensory Overload or Deprivation?

Concluded an eight day trip to Spain. Hit the three major metros and surrounds - starting in Barcelona to the southern city of Seville and then touching the capital Madrid on the way back. Phenomenally beautiful, modern and clean was my first impression compared to Paris, France. The 1992 Olympics did a lot to boost infrastructure development a benefit of which was the modern high speed rail system that we benefited from. Spotless, efficient, quiet and reaching speeds in excess of 300 km per hour this was very enjoyable travel from end to end. The local metro tubes also are fairly evolved - more in some cities than others and allow travelers to shunt between over ground and under ground options on a multi use pass. What was at times frustrating is to figure out if a multi use ticket would let us travel on another rail line going in some other direction out of the Centro Cuidad or city center. This all depends we learned on the rail company that operates a particular service. T

'Down'side of Start'Ups'

Looks like another bubble in the making. This one is called the Startup bubble. Every Joe or Jack or Rueben or Venu I run into these days is either trying to startup something (that which was not working or something that did not exist) or going to school to learn to be an entrepreneur. This tells me analogous to the paradigm that if everyone on the street is buying gold the story is probably over, that we may be in a world with too many engines trying to fire all at once. This makes for a lot of noise and lot of smoke (if you have ever tried to fire up an old 100 cc 2 stroke) with not much going. There are schools now offering BS and MS programs in business leadership as well as entreprenuership. It must be some magic potion since I do not see how one starts up just to get started up with no consequence. While it is healthy to see many young and old souls take it on themselves to be their own boss I am not entirely sure if the world can run on too many cooks in the proverbia

Resource Crunch

Earth population hit 7 Billion recently. Give or take a few million. The question then is will every one of these resource hungry people have enough of the basic necessities to survive. There will always be inequality of distribution of resources as long as capitalism thrives. That said it is crucial to ensure that every living being does get access to affordable air, water and food so that that individual has a chance to provide their fair share of Gross Output to the system that provides. Again it is not a guarantee that the process will work but an attempt has to be made to be morally right. Now how does one go about solving for this? First we need to understand how much of the aforementioned supplies we have and based on daily consumption levels by region predict our tipping point. Terminal velocity in some parlance where once we reach that level there is no escape. We will be doomed. We will consume faster than we will have the resource to sustain. Air quality acro

Makes one wonder

As in me (and by way of unnecessary explanation not to be interpreted as 'one wonder' since there are many listed here). 1. When you need an UPdate why DOWNload? Perhaps Downdate? Although that would resemble a date gone terribly bad. Not the one with a pitt (not Brad neither the edible kind). 2. How can loved Ones actually mean more than One? Also what is it with media's fascination with the term 'loved ones'? What exactly is that? In the spirit of liberty and equality for all - What about the semi hated ones? In reality one only yaks about the disgusting and semi hated ones as opposed to the loved ones isn't it? Must have something to do with another ridiculous romantic notion of loved ones. 3. Certain cultures 'bless' the sneezers. Reality check - run away from sneezers and bless yourself you dolts. Some go far enough to indicate that God is blessing the sneezer. Jeez /Allah/Buddha/Bhagwan that is presumptuous on many fronts. 4. W

What are you selling?

I was at a big brand advertising and marketing conference recently in the heart of the largest market in the world. Mid town Manhattan in New York city. Several prominent and established players in the world of marketing were rubbing shoulders with their peers trying to latch on to ideas of what makes a particular brand great. Coca Cola to Facebook to Google to Apple dominated the presentation landscape. While it turns out that these venues become a freebie opportunity to these already large brands to showcase their advertisements for a couple of hours in front of an audience already mesmerized by their success, they do little to actually teach the secret recipe of what truly drives that success for them. I suppose in hind sight there is no secret recipe as it is sheer luck that today's most powerful brands or entities have been able to attract and retain the right mix of people (I mean that is the Biggest Wildcard there is) to continuously grow and stay ahead of their compe

East vs. West

I think that is the wrong context to judge economic progress of a society. The world is more interconnected than ever before and gives an opportunity to those that did not know where Chennai or Columbus was on the map, to get a better understanding of the different societies that inhabit our planet. Yet individual nations should and are also becoming more self reliant on their respective organic growth to define currency of progress. To say that the US is a superpower and that India or China is amongst the emerging economies is to me a fallacy or skewed view of reality. The reality is that the people in each country have to deal with the hand they have been dealt with the croupier they got. In that sense while the US may have untold wealth and higher standards of living for its people crafted with its own struggle to build its infrastructures and fighting wars and shaping their government policy, it is not perfect. But decisions made since WW II have served the American publi

Airplane 'confessions'

I recently traveled across the continent - you know that dreaded 6 hour flight experience - it is all good if it ends in the promised 6 - from door to door so to speak; weather, man, machine and misc idiosyncrasies accounted for. Now when it comes to enjoying the 'already paid for' 6 hours, airlines are getting creative by wiring seats with personalized television - reality shows at 6,000 feet must feel different when you are under less pressure (< than atmospheric that is) - as well as food menu items that are priced higher (because you guessed it - you are high up) to charging for pillows and blankets and earpieces and extra legroom. Perhaps next will be rental dogs if you are really missing your pooch at your side. But not wanting to shell out any more per seat than I had to on one of my legs I most often try to spark a conversation with the human next to me assuming he or she has not already given up and spaced out. So it was this time when I encountered a young pe

And then there was Andy

Andy Rooney died at 92. He was funny. He seemed to be a practical dude that knew how to have fun and share it with those that wanted to listen. Some of his quotes that I really liked - Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong. He made some fine points over his lifetime like - Nothing in fine print is ever good news. He shared with us what he learned - I’ve learned…. That being kind is more important than being right. I’ve learned…. That you should never say no to a gift from a child. I’ve learned…. That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

ThanksWhining Again

Adult kids are moving back to their parents nest - for good! Latest headlines are another titillating saga of how the screwed up humans have found a new reason to whine instead of thanksgiving all over again. Before there was the anguish of the youth (kids and grand-kids) growing up and jumping on the capitalist bandwagon to explore borders beyond Columbus, Ohio or Manteca, California or Spokane, Washington. But now thanks to an unemployment picture resembling modern day depression there is no mountain to climb. So the gang that was expected to hike has instead pitched tents back in their own parent's yards. Damn it! Now the costs are soaring all over again from cable TV to phone bills to food to whatever (never mind the inflation) these weirdos need. They are also not available to explain some of the charges since they are busy social networking with some other mindless youth stuck in their own blackholes. You might think I am totally down on the current state of affa

Physiology of love

Humans have developed an ability to distinguish types of love. The way they might love an apple vs their spouse (unless the latter is the apple of their eye),or say their mother or their automobile varies. It does so betwixt the different items and also day by day for a specific item. Think the date night, then fast fwd 10 or more years and compare that to family dinners after work. Feel the love? Then there is aspirations differing from the longing about a thing or person or place different from the form of love expressed for tangible and intangibles in the persons immediate sphere of influence. What's going on I say? Surely makes for a wonderful profession to make some good moolah off of those that can't handle the truth and feel like they will lose it and can afford a few hours with the doc. A lot of industries including bollywood and Hollywood have minted fortunes catering to this ailment / human condition. At the physiological level it is a complex chemical reac

Occupy (What you can)

This will be my 150th blog on cyberspace as I continue to OCCUPY more byte sized spaces. Cloud based occupation is competing with land based esp stateside as lots of people with nothing (time, education, money, jobs and or all of the above) decide to camp out in the middle of urban centers all across the country. And if the media is to be believed now the contagion has spread to the continent down under. Hmm. The western media is making a big deal of the oppressed occupants who are fighting for a voice (their agenda is murky and no specific demands exist) but if the world simply turned their attention to the likes of India I think this reality show was on prime time all the time. Just take a look at any major metro in India and you will see the same hapless occupants (without tents since it costs too damn much to get one in India and would get stolen by some other occupant). Jobless, Hopeless, Bums and Beggars have continued to occupy the city scape that is modern India and have

Euro Scam

One thing I noticed happening with regular frequency during this whole Euro Zone crisis is how many times the leaders of the socialist nations have traveled back and forth across their borders. With no results to measure. It reminds me of the useless high end consulting crowd (stateside) that also does this same trick by traveling to and fro to their client sites each week and spin the same useless yarn again but with a new shirt and tie on. After all its perception in the eyes of the beholder. Cannot wear the same shirt or bra you see? As these clueless talking heads bob around the continent they get a chance to get away from their own manic or depressed or both populace - the Greeks are probably cheering and will continue to enjoy the entertainment they offer to the world as it yo yos out of control. Now what they could really do is book an oversize handicap toilet (the likes of which you see in any McDonalds in the US) where you could gather at least seven or eight people a