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The Sandra Bullock Trade – Relationship between money and happiness
The relationship between money, personal relationships and happiness is at the center of our society. The story of Sandra Bullock is a recent example. As our income starts growing the marginal gain in happiness from money tends to decrease. It is no flimsy or philosophical argument but is proved by research. There may be some…
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Doing business in China (comes with a price tag)
The recent incidents involving multinationals in China are a reminder to other companies about the risks in doing business there. Google Vs China is the first and the most prominent one. Google probably has a short-term lose but China will have even more to lose in the long-term. Their credibility and moral authority to deny…
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Personal animosity in business – good, bad and the ugly
Economist has an excellent article on the personal animosity in Silicon Valley and how it is shaping the technology industry. The article brings up the point that the people with outsized commercial acumen and success tend to have outsize personalities. The same passion that drives them to create something from nothing drives them to crush…
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Playing hardball with China
Krugman, in his Op-Ed column in NYTimes, wanted the US government to impose 25% duties on Chinese imports. That opinion may sound as protectionism, but something drastic will happen soon with international trade. China is known to keep its Renminbi artificially low and make the exports competitive. Now the matter has come to a head.…
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Imagining India : The idea of a renewed nation (by Nandan Nilekani)
This is one of the most well researched books written about India and about our success and failures since independence in economic and social spheres. While India could be proud of our democracy, science and technological advances, innovations at the bottom of the pyramid and our outsourcing success – a lot is desired on all…
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SEC on Dark Pools
It looks imminent that SEC will clamp down on the dark part of the of dark pools. As of 2009 there are more than 30 dark pools operating in US markets. Together they add up to 7.2% of trading volume. The concern that SEC has is that actionable IOIs (indication of interest) are not in…
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Equity allocation in US household wealth
It is interesting to track how the equity allocation trend is changing in US with the underlying changes in demographics. Although last year’s economic crisis (It feels nice to say that in retrospection!) would have pushed households to move away from equities the longer term demographic trends will have even bigger impact. The charts show…
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Carbon Management Software – Next big wave
The next big wave in software products seem to be in developing carbon management software. With the increase in energy costs, environmental regulations and green branding the business is forced to track energy consumption to the last light bulb. This requires a huge amount of effort to collect, audit and analyze data on energy consumption.…