Jamaica - The Fastest Nation

Jamaica’s population of slightly less than 3million stands 1/5th of Mumbai population. Still this tiny island nation from the Caribbean has caught the attention of the entire globe by their stellar performance in this year’s Beijing Olympics.

By the time I am writing this, they have won 4 Golds and 3 Silvers (No bronze – either 1st or 2nd or move out of the business) and rank 13 in the medal tally. (India is ranked 42 with 2 medals)
But this blog is not a comparison of their performance with India. (I am sure there are enough nations above India like Mongolia, Estonia, Azerbaizan, Kazakhastan, Belarus and my favourite Zimbabwe which I would love to do the comparison with, but lets leave that for a later date).

What intrigued me to write this was: All the medals the Jamaican team won were in one game - Athletics and that too in the main races (100/200/400m)
For people whose curiosity can only be satisfied by facts and statistics:

• Gold Usain Bolt Men's 100 m
• Gold Usain Bolt Men's 200 m
• Gold Shelly-Ann Fraser Women's 100 m
• Gold Melaine Walker Women's 400 m hurdles
• Silver Sherone Simpson Women's 100 m
• Silver Kerron Stewart Women's 100 m
• Silver Shericka Williams Women's 400 m
  

Looks like a clean sweep right?

Not just that, out of the 4 golds, 3 were won by breaking records. (Usain Bolt who turned 22 today and nicknamed by the media quite rightfully “Lightning Bolt” is the first man to break both world records at one Olympics after Carl Lewis. But his lightning performance shadowed another Olympic record breaker Jamaican Melanie Walker in the 400 m hurdles.)
Equally interesting is to note their dominance on both men and women version of the races!

Now the experts for the next few months will keep debating as to what they eat and drink, where and how they train, where they work out, etc and etc but the bottomline is the end results. They didn’t participate in many games and hence by focusing on their core strengths, the Jamaicans stand so tall in the games. Simple: Focus, Focus and Win!
All I can say is they might be way behind in many other aspects but these performances have made them “The Fastest Nation” in the world.
Hats off to the Island Nation and now the Fastest Nation - Jamaica

Knock off the Zeroes

Technically speaking, this is not a blog, but an update on my previous blog (or keeping up with today’s terminology, it’s a sequel)

My last blog was on Zimbabwe people coping up with the practical issues of currency and inflation and how people can conveniently become billionares. The reason for me writing this sequel is to inform my readers that I have let them down. All the people who moved to Zimbabwe (based on my healthy advice); well your entire wealth has been wiped out by one simple decision.

Looks like Mr. Mugabe has paid heed to the bank’s problems of continuously printing higher denomination notes / system failures and bingo, he has a simple answer… knock off the Zeroes. Ten billion Zimbabwean dollars will be equated to one Zimbabwean dollar from today i.e. August 1. By knocking off the ten zeroes, (which was anyways worthless and couldn’t buy anything substantial), the problems of ever increasing zeroes has been solved. Well, isn’t it smart… what a solution… Just reset the counter when it reaches the limit and start again.

Not just that, to tackle the inflation problem, the government has decided to fix the prices of all goods (and I always thought the prices are governed by demand and supply)

The other problems are still existing including the paper on which the currency is printed which the supplier has stopped supplying to the Government. But I am sure they will get a solution for that as well.

Way to Go!...

Who wants to be a billionaire? Answer - Move to Zimbabwe

I never wanted to write a blog on politics but this subject was beyond that. The desolate state of Zimbabwean economy results in emotions which varies in extremes. It amuses you at one point, makes you laugh sometimes and sometimes you feel so sad and sorrowful that you really don’t know what can be done about it.

Zimbabwe became independent on Apr 18, 1980. At that time, the Zimbabwe dollar was more valuable than the USD (Can you imagine that?). Whats the exchange rate today?
While I am writing this, the official exchange rate hovers at: $1 = Z$30bn and this keeps changing every minute. And this minute by minute changes is not just with the exchange rates. The inflation rate is 2,200,000 and by the time I finish writing this blog, it will be much higher and by the time you read this, it can be anything around 3,000,000. The prices of goods goes up every minute
Imagine, you leave the house when the loaf of bread costs Z$50bn (yes you are right... its Z$50,000,000,000) and by the time you reach the shop, its already $100bn

The central bank in Zimbabwe have been printing currency notes in denominations never heard in any other country. Z$250,000, Z$750,000, and Z$1million bank note denominations were introduced in December 2007. This was followed by a Z$10 million note bank note in Jan '08 and by a Z$50 million note in April. Then there were bank notes in denominations of Z$100 million and Z$250 million to be released. Last I knew, the most valuable banknote available was for 100 billion Zimbabwean dollars (which ironically cant even buy you a proper meal or a bus fare)

My intention of writing this blog was not to cover the economics (there are enough intellectuals in the world debating about it), but to explore the practicalities of living in such an economy. The loaf of bread was just an example. As I said, the prices of goods change every minute. When you go to a restaurant and order something. By the time you finish your meal, the bill is based on what – on the price you ordered or the current quoting price?

How do people pay for their daily expenses. (Cash?...I am sure at some point of time, the paper on which the currency is printed will be more valuable than the denomination on the same; Credit Card... naaaa... forget it)
The coins are no longer available (No guesses! Metal can be melted and made more valuable)
So many arbitrage opportunities every hour
Wouldn’t it be better to go back to the old and traditional barter system (Instead of cash, I rather stock commodities… They may be more valuable to me)…
How does the central bank runs? What systems do they use? Can the systems even afford so many zeroes? How do they take care of minute by minute changes in the economy?
Do people keep their savings in banks? How do banks charge interest rates? How do they even calculate?
What about your cash withdrawl limits?

There are enough questions in my mind that I can go on.. and I am sure each one of you would have enough on your minds as well… so let me leave it at this

To end on the lighter side (yet highly ironic and satirical) … have you been dreaming for long to be a billionaire? Now is your chance…
In fact as someone said… the country can register itself with the Guiness book of world records for the highest number of billionaires

My visit to Tate Modern and the 'modern' arts

This weekend, I got a chance to visit Tate Modern in London. For those of you, who are not aware of as to what I am talking about, Tate is a family of four art galleries housing the UK's collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern art. The group is simply called Tate. The Tate Modern galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, situated on the banks of River Thames. It faces the spectacular St Paul’s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge (more famous for the many Bollywood shootings)

This has been in my ‘To visit’ list for quite some time as it features in the Top 10 London attractions and more so because the entry is free. (its quite strange here for tourist attractions in London, either the entry is absolutely free or its so high that you really need to scratch your wallet to visit them)

Anyways, this blog is not to describe the London attractions or even the architecture / heritage of Tate Modern. This blog is to describe the so called Modern Art and what it means. Everytime, I visit such modern art galleries and this time Tate Modern, the popularity of the same makes me curious. Is it only me who doesn’t understand them or my taste in art can never go beyond the classical sense?

The biggest difference is: In all classical arts, at least you can comprehend what you are seeing and the description is more to enhance the history in which it was created, life of the artist and in what circumstances he created the art; thus making it even more enjoyable and interesting.

Modern Art… first you cant understand what has been depicted unless you read the explanation; secondly even after reading it, you can create a thousand other interpretations of the same.

Let me take up two examples from the galleries of Tate Modern again.
First is a painting. The painting is complete dark blue except on the bottom edges, which is a bit of red and the top edge where it’s a bit of dark yellow. The description said something of contrast etc. etc. But would it be any different, if everything was red and edges were blue/yellow. Or may be just don’t paint it at all; leave it white and drop some black paint (can there be any more contrast than black or white)

Sometimes, I wonder how this would be different, if I asked a little kid to drop some colors on a wide canvas and let his imaginations go wild.

The second one was a movable art (or should I say running art): Martin Creed's Work No. 850 in which young runners, one at a time, will run every 30 seconds from one end of the gallery to another. And I always thought running was a sport (or at max, an exercise). But here I am watching people run in an art gallery as an art creation and we should not just watch them but also try to understand the meaning behind viz. vitality, physicality, movement, action (I can even say: preparing for 2012 Olympics, lack of open parks, concrete jogging tracks, etc.,)

I will not try to define the goals of such an exercise as the local newspaper covered it and debated it quite extensively (The Independent even said: Is art running out of ideas? Artists forced to explain modern art)

There are so many such arts depicted in modern art galleries worldwide, some priced beyond my decade earnings (or may be even more)

Ok, I don’t want to be harsh or rude; in no way I want to undermine the efforts of any of the artists. But, as I said earlier, its beyond my comprehension.

To think simply, shouldn’t art have a purpose, shouldn’t it interpret itself, shouldn’t it summarize the feelings, emotions, surroundings, climate, environment, human psyche, shouldnt it be pleasing to the eyes, and so on. It should at least achieve something. I leave it to your thoughts....

Prepone

Continuing my quest to dig deep into the nuances of English language, there is another word that amuses me – ‘Prepone’

For those who hail form the country of Her Majesty, they would say its not a word… They would have heard postpone and will frown on the usage / meaning of such a word. Not surprisingly, while I am writing this blog, Mr Bill Gates creation fails to recognize this word and the spell check keeps showing an error. I myself have gone through many debates on this topic. Because for us who come from India, prepone is a very common and natural word to use.

The first time I heard of this word, I did a research on the global search engine (Google… I would love to write a blog on this as well but lets leave it for sometime in future). I found it very interesting to see that such a word doesn’t exist in the English dictionary. However, there were various links which acknowledged that such a word is indeed spoken in India and is classified under ‘Indian English’. One such link even claimed that the ‘New Oxford Dictionary of English’ and ‘Random House Unabridged’ have included this word with the origination as Indian English just like many other words originating from India like yoga, mantra, guru, jungle, karma, etc. But, I am yet to get an official confirmation on this. (By the way: there are a total of 350,000 words in English dictionary, out of which 700 are classified to be of Indian origins).

So without going further into the facts and the various versions/dictionary of English, let me just put my views.

To put it simply, if you can postpone something, why cant you prepone?
Sometimes I laugh off by saying that may be we know how to do things faster and hence can understand the relevance of such a word whereas others go strict by the project planning and if there is a deadline, it can only be ‘postponed’.

English has been a very flexible language with words taken from almost every other language and has thus incorporated words as per convenience. And hence, instead of using the more complicated versions existing today (‘to bring forward’, to advance, ‘to move up’), why don’t we just welcome ‘prepone’ into the English vocabulary as well?

May be we might learn to prepone things more than postpone them

Cheers!

How are things otherwise?

Well I just couldn’t resist myself to write on this...

I am sure many of you would have heard this question or asked this to others: How are things otherwise?

The irony of this statement is: We speak it so casually and usually when we would have already completed half of our conversation.

Typically: we would start a conversation like this:


Hi, How are you? How are things?
Blah blah
Blah blah

now when we do not know what else to ask or are left with no other details to share or no other topic to discuss about… bang… here comes the ace question

"How are things otherwise"

The respondent would think well we have already discussed everything… father is ill, mother is on bed, sister last week ran away with our driver, I am suspicious of my wife these days, boss is not happy with my performance so I might get fired by the end of next week, mortgage is still an issue… but ya otherwise things are fine

Somehow, I have found this question common only in Indians.
May be we do not know how to end a conversation
May be we feel its impolite to end it and expect the other person to end it
Or may be we just have got addicted to this

So next time when you are left with nothing else to add and the question you have in mind is “how are things otherwise?”, Think again. Perhaps 'It was nice chatting up with you' and 'Goodbye' would be simpler and less cliche endings to the conversation ;-)


By the way how are things otherwise?


Cheers!

Media can make or break an institution

I didn’t know my second blog would be so soon given the time I took to write my first one!

But anyways, this time I have a topic to talk about, so I am sure some of you who read the first one and were quite disappointed might have something to read further

Just like me, I am sure most of the other small – time investors use simple tools like html alerts to brief them on the updates, trading results, quarterly performances of the companies of their interest.

Today, one of my favourite companies declared its results and I got multiple alerts on their performance. Let me list the top heading for all the alerts for your simple reference before I move on as to what I am trying to say here in this blog:

• XYZ Falls on Conservative Outlook
• XYZ falls 2%
• XYZ Maintaining Prudently Cautious Outlook
• XYZ posts strong Q1
• XYZ Net Profit Gained 21% in First Quarter
• XYZ surprises with 20.7 pct profit growth

Same company; same results; same quarter; same history; yet different way of projecting by different media sources;

I did a bit of further research on the same organization by the same media sources by looking at the last 4 quarter results and how the same media sources have been declaring it. Well the comparison for me was pretty astonishing to say the least!

The first three always presented a negative outlook on the company while the rest maintained a positive image.
If I did my own analysis of the financial results of XYZ, the results were pretty consistent every time; yet I was seeing different opinions and not just once or twice but pretty much everytime

And the measures for such different outlooks were quite simple. The financial results / ratios can always be presented the way you want. Just take the ones that appeal you and ones that do not. You can take the y-o-y, q-o-q, last 5 years, revenue comparison, stock performance, net profits, gross profits and if nothing else, compare it with market expectations (which I am sure is as varied as someone can imagine)

It is said that an average reader spends just 20 mins on a newspaper these days. Well I am sure in today’s busy climate and information overloads, it’s even lesser than that. We end up reading just the highlights or max the first 2-3 paragraphs of any news piece. And not just that, we all have one or max two favourite media source where we pick up all our daily dose….What happens if that 1 media source is biased towards someone.

And this is nothing new! I am sure everyone is aware of so many scandals where media stock columnists had their vested interests in certain stocks and hence their opinions were always biased. And why just companies, even at a political climate level, media sections are biased towards certain political parties

I am not going to write a full blown article or do a spoofy investigation on this but my main point through this blog is: Media can MAKE or BREAK an institution; Media should be unbiased but usually it is not; Think over it and do a bit of more research before trusting the source or making a decision

Cheers!