meek-investor

Just imagine this. You earn a salary of $ 25m a year. And then you go on strike demanding improved wages. Believable ?? You better believe it. Kobe Bryant (arguably the best basketball player in the world, for those readers not familiar with sport), earns that salary, but is on strike from tonight. Actually not just Kobe. Every basketball player who plays in the NBA ( unsporting types - that's the National Basketball Association, which runs the League in the US of A.) The NBA is a private league. Players have formed a union and there is a collective bargaining agreement every few years. The last agreement expires today. Negotiations with owners of the teams has broken down. No deal; so there is a lock out. The team owners are losing money. The players claim they aren't getting enough money. Despite the wild popularity of the game. Unlike other American sports such as Football (the American variety) and Baseball, which have limited appeal outside the country, basketball  is wild...

This blogger is not enamoured of traveling now, the consequence of over exposure to this activity over many years.   In this forum, there has been many a rant against airlines, fellow fliers, roads, and even cows. But I discover that there hasn’t been a full throated rant against an important abomination that is an inevitable component of the aforesaid activity – the hotel. This post rectifies the imbalance. Does anywhere else in the world, the day start at 12.00 noon, I ask you. I can understand that the lazy Senior Division Clerk at Chennai Telephones believes that day starts at 11.00 AM. But 12.00 noon ? or 2.00 PM ? or even at one place 4.00 PM ?   You arrive at a new city after some 12 hours of being frozen in a Nataraja pose (after extensive research, airlines have learnt that it is the best “seating” arrangement in which you can squash the maximum number of people). The blasted flight has landed at 5.00 AM. You leg it to the hotel, to be told that the day starts at...

Is Gils living in Angola or Mongolia ?? He isn't, but he very well could be. He is in the state of Tamil Nadu in India, but in terms of GDP he would be no different to living in Angola and in terms of per capita GDP, he would be the same as a Mongolian. This, according to a lovely chart by the Economist, which you can see here . They say a picture is worth a thousand words (something this blogger evidently doesn't believe because he regularly inflicts 1000 words on the reader, without a photo in sight). Surely a chart like this is worth 10,000 words. Brilliant, as the Economist usually is. Vishal can chose between Turkmenistan and Latvia. Sandhya can opt for Croatia or the Philippines. When she goes home, Reflections , who is now wonderfully active in the blogosphere after extensive bouts of laziness, can chose to be a Tunisian or a Papua New Guinean. Wow. All of a sudden, India doesn't seem to be that great an economic powerhouse, does it ? Each state by itself seems f...

Journalists and others concerned about the status of the news industry in North America and Europe keep arguing that we are getting poorer journalism because of the economic state of the industry. But when you ask them “what makes good journalism?” they find it nearly impossible to articulate the concept. Those trying to articulate the elements good journalism tend to use comforting and immeasurable platitudes and to describe it through attributes based on professional practices: pursuit of truth, fairness, completeness, accuracy, verification, and coherence. These are not a definition of quality, but a listing of contributors to or elements of quality practices. Each attribute alone is not sufficient for good journalism and degree to which each contributes is unclear. In practice, most of us settle on identifying journalistic quality by its absence or by its comparison to poor or average quality journalism. Thus we know it when we don’t see it or we describe by...

On June 16th, IBM turned 100. Yes, 100 years old. That is a colossal achievement by any standards. As with living beings, so with corporations - the primary motive, and a great achievement,  is survival. Time to bring out the cake and sing Happy Birthday. The company started life in 1911 as Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, formed by a merger of three small companies. A decade or so later it changed its name to a more catchy International Business Machines, the name by which it is still known. And over the decades it has weathered many a storm, made many a significant achievement and today, even at a ripe old age, is strong, robust and dancing. That is has done so in the field of information technology, where the pace of change is far more rapid than in other sectors, adds a special gloss to the achievement. Look at the inventions it has to its credit. The punch clock to record time, the electric tabulating machine, the ATM, the floppy disk, the hard disk, the magnetic st...

Indian roads are hell; right ? Well, Yes and No. This blogger has characterised them as the most dangerous place on earth, even more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan here . But that's only part of the story. They can also be delightfully brilliant. Really ? Yes. Some years ago, a wise old man , who was the then Prime Minister of India, conceptualised the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) . The cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai would be linked by world class highways. This is now a reality. Driving on them can be a breeze. Even 5 years ago you could not have dreamt that the words driving, breeze and Indian road could feature in the same sentence. These four lane highways are truly world class. Not a pot hole in sight. No speed breaker too. Its actually a greater pleasure to drive on them than say in Europe or China, simply because the roads are often empty. These are toll roads, a concept still new to India and trucks haven't got used to the idea that they have t...

On a walk the other day, I spied a shop that was a "fair price shop". There are many of them dotted around cities and towns in India. They are usually shut with a "No stock" board hanging in front. They are part of government initiatives to sell foodgrains and vegetables at "fair prices". They are not ration shops, mind you, which are designed to sell subsidised grains to the poor. These are shops where you and I can buy as well. At "fair prices". Begs the question, fair to whom ? Here's Economics 101 for the economically challenged. Prices are fixed by supply and demand. A willing seller and a willing buyer together fix the price. As long as there are many sellers and buyers and as long as there is information on what everybody is buying and selling at, the price that is so determined freely is what is a "fair" price. But to Rajalakshmi, a fair price is a low price. Nothing wrong with buyers wanting the lowest possible price, but t...