The Small Voice

It takes no genius to see that US is in very bad shape and it has been brought on by BAD policies and BAD economics. A corrective phase should see a voluntary slowdown and cleansing of the system of the toxic assets. Unless the Congress DECIDES that they are better off with a year of slower or negative growth and refuses to fall into the Paulson trap which in effect will only bail out the fat cats with Tax payers money, they will be digging a hole so deep that it will take a couple of generations of Americans to get out of. However, if the Paulson ploy succeeds and the congress agrees to the idea, US is in a bigger stink hole than it is in now. Crude will start its up journey and God knows what limits it will touch this time hurting both the American and the global economy. Only bright spot, buy Gold. I believe, come what may, investment in Gold is going to give u returns safer and better that any other asset class as of this point of time. Let the fools get themselves stu...

The following is an excerpt. The ensuing speech is the most wonderful piece of analysis i have read in recent times. Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing 17th Annual Graham & Dodd Breakfast David Einhorn’s Prepared Remarks October 19, 2007 What strikes me the most about the recent credit market crisis is how fast the world is trying to go hack to business as usual. In my view, the crisis wasn’t an accident. We didn’t get unlucky. The crisis came because there have been a lot of bad practices and a lot of bad ideas. Securitization is a mediocre idea. Re-securitization of already securitized assets into a CDO is a bad idea. Re-securitization of CDOs into CDO-squared is a really bad idea. So is funding a pool of long-term illiquid assets with very short-term funding in the so called asset backed commercial paper market. And as I will get to in a moment, it is a horrendous idea to delegate most of the responsibility for assessing credit risk to a group of cred...

The corporate investor will punish Tata Motors shares after the Singur debacle. They should, I guess. Its their job to reward profits and punish losses. It is after all their money and they are in the market to make sure they earn optimum returns. But I cringe when the same wise guys denounce the Singur decision as a biased one and one which was based to take undue advantage of “poor farmers of West Bengal”. In my opinion, Tata’s decision to go to the back of beyond village of Singur was too idealistic for the cynical world of RoI and profits to understand and appreciate. The group was taking a bold decision to do their bit in igniting industrialization in a primarily agriculture dominated village. In return, the villagers would have had more employment opportunity, access to roads, healthcare, schools, power and most importantly, Education. Sadly, some vested interests are going to put paid to all those benefits that could have happened to the area by ensuring that the plant nev...

Boy when you see Arjun Rampal towering over the audience with loooong hair flowing wildly and wielding his guitar like a toy you know you are in the right concert. India’s answer to Clint Eastwood is finally in a movie role you can watch and enjoy. His other movie capers are, well the less said of the better. Rock on may be clichéd or predictable at times. But heck, for about a mere 150 bucks you are getting the best seats in one of the most memorable rock concerts you will ever attend. Total paisa vasool! What rocks…. Like I said, BEST Rock concert you will attend in the cool confines of an AC (provided your multiplex has one and it works. Ours, for some reason kept going off and on). The story and the treatment though does remind of the “Dil Chahta hai” but the element of Arjun Rampal’s character adds a dash of reality that really adds to the magik of the movie. I liked the idea that though for all the band members, music was very important; they were so...

The new version of Mahabharat seems to substitute weak direction and unimpressive acting skills by eye-pleasing actors, fancy camera work and background score. In the BR Chopra version, the dialogues, the script and the acting (in most parts) was superb and very meaningful. Just get the DVD and listen to Vidur or Krishna ’s dialogues and you will see the point. You will discover them a lot more philosophical, realistic and meaningful than what you did when you watched them as a kid. Full marks to Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza (the scriptwriter of the BR Chopra’s Mahabharat) who did a awesome work. Mahabharata, The Epic's story is awesome The script of the original epic Mahabharat is very solid and like all good scripts its characters and storyline is so rich and well-fleshed out that they are open to different interpretations and viewpoints even today and are not just cardboard characters with black/white personalities and happenings. More importantly, its message is relevant ...

Today is 1 st may. Labor day. It also happens to be Maharsahtra day. Maharashtra has been the torch bearer for this country for long. Today too, it is bringing to attention, a different kind of issue. The issue of rampant regionalism which has the power to undo whatever India has achieved in the last 60 years. An issue which has and already is making the “aam aadmi” lose focus from the more critical and important issues. Today, I am sure, if people like Tilak, Sardar Patel etc. would have witnessed the state of affairs, they would have been more than worried. We have people spreading hate in this country against our own countrymen. We all know that such ideas are being used to get political mileage. But sadly, neither the common man on the streets, nor any public representative (read politicians) is able to rise out of the petty mentality to lead the people to rubbish such sentiments and instead focus on the bigger and core issues. There are BIGGER Issues facing us, ...

Climate is changing for the worse Climate change is there for all to see. Wherever you are placed on the globe, please jig your memory and you will realise seeing weather phenomena getting weirder every year. Climate changes are happening NOW as we speak and dither on what to do or not do. Sweaters in Mumbai, blizzard in China: indicate terrifying change happening For example, record low temperatures across globe, resulting in galloping food prieces in China and world over. In Mumbai, we had 9 degrees temperature (coldest day for the last 10 years) which is a surprise as this seaside city usually is warm or hot round the year. People wearing sweaters in Mumbai, is the weirdest that can be. Various news article and reports claim that within 10 years the global warming will be irreversible. I feel that we may not have even that long. Forget politicos: Let see what we can do As concerned and free individuals, it will be great if we all could have found a way to contribute to lessen the ir...