It did not strike me but it should have served as a warning sign when I read this 2-pager on Jim O’ Neill in the FT in the flight from Zurich to Dubai on January 16th. The possibility of the magazine cover curse on either Jim O’ Neill or his ‘creation’ – the BRIC acronym [...]
Chairman Bernanke was confirmed for a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve with a vote of 70-30 in the Senate. It does not matter that, in standard democratic parlance, this was a comfortable victory. In the context of the post, 30 dissenting votes could be 30 too many. Chairman Bernanke’s speech at the [...]
The main problem with this story is that this does not confront the question of what would have happened to the financial system globally had Goldman Sachs been allowed to take its loses on the CDS it had bought from AIG, if all that they are trying to prove is that the AIG bailout was [...]
In the investment/analyst community, China has been in the news since Jim Chanos – famous for shorting Enron. It was quoted widely since he said that China was Dubai * 1000. You can see his comments here and here. I too think that was somewhat wild although one could understand the ‘sound byte’ angle to [...]
Two weeks away from Indian newspapers – I only managed to catch headlines on the IPL auctions. I thought Pakistan players did not automatically get selected. Seeing all the discussion on the role of government, I – as did most people – could not help thinking that it was a wonderful way to lose goodwill [...]
Sunanda Datta-Ray’s Op-Ed in BS focuses on the recent Regional Outlook Forum (ROF) hosted by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). It is an annual event and it is useful to get a perspective on some of the Southeast Asian economies. Usually, the proceedings are non-controversial.
The ‘private Indian’ that he refers to in his [...]
Hitting the first ball for six is a rarity in cricket matches. Guessing the Raaga correct based on the first sounds from the singer is equally pleasing. So is getting the message out in the first sentence of an article. MINT’ editorial on Microfinance manages that:
One puzzling paradox of microfinance is that lending to the [...]
If the People’s Bank of China surprised many with its early tightening move – it raised reserve requirements on banks by 0.5% - Google managed to kick it off front pages with its decision to reconsider all operations in China. You can see the whole thing here.
This is not very surprising. In the final analysis, [...]
Argentine government goes for the Central Bank’s Reserves and Iceland’s voters would decide if the country should repay its debt or not. The fat lady has not even come to the stage, yet. Oh, I forgot. Didn’t Venezuela devalue its currency by 50%, just the other day?
I have rarely used these pages to comment on contemporary data since I do that in my day-job. But, I have to flag a few things: my jaw dropped when I saw that, in just four months, the number of long-term unemployed in the US rose by a million from 5+ million to 6+ million [...]
Bare Talk at Mint
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