In an interesting article in the FT, Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out that while the rewards system on Wall Street incentivizes bankers who take risk, it does not have adequate disincentives to discourage a trader whose annual bonuses depends just on the returns he brought in during that period. So while the punt might prove [...]
Three days and 350+ casualties later, it is still hard to find an opinion piece in a major newspaper that is anything but praise for Israel’s pounding of Gaza.
But those selfsame media outlets employ selective (and grossly untrue) reporting when covering the India-Pakistan conflict; reports on India are about a bellicose nation that is mounting [...]
First a video clip from Times Now.
You know what irks me? It is not that she (whose only real calling card is that she is somewhat remotely related to Aishwarya Rai) is dating him or anything. But that this report calls her a “popular South Indian actress“.
Reminds me of Koundamani yet again: “மூணு வீலும் ஒரு [...]
Paul Krugman, who writes a bi-weekly column in The Hindu The New York Times, has won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Mr. Krugman is a Professor of Economics at Princeton University.
Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. In particular, the prize committee lauded his work for “having shown [...]
Yesterday, President Bush issued a statement that Congress should lift the ban on offshore oil drilling off the US coastline. The best reason he could think of for this was the 4-dollar-a-gallon gas. Immediately, Senator McCain, who is increasingly looking like George Dubya Bush the Third, concurred with the President and thought offshore drilling is [...]
… is a company sans pareil. (Here’s one reason why.)
The shocking nature of US foreign policy under George W. Bush has reached a new low with the Government’s decision to cancel Fulbright scholarships awarded to Palestinian scholars.
According to the report, the State Department reasons that Israel would not permit the grant awardees – seven of them – to leave Gaza. Ironically, Israeli officials contacted [...]
Jug Suraiya writes in The Times of India that it was the criminalization of drugs that killed British teenager Scarlett Keeling in Goa, and then puts forth an almost passionate plea to legalize drugs. He bases his arguments on two contentions (or facts). First, that drugs are less of a health hazard than cigarettes or [...]
Just as my Equities portfolio was about to get out the red comes a single-day 900-point fall that pegs it back into dark red territory. God have mercy on Dalal Street.
The republication this week by some European newspapers of the controversial cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist (that caused considerable trouble a couple of years ago) reeks of intolerance, disrespect and sheer contempt for the feelings of other people. And for these newspapers to hide behind the comfortable veil of “freedom of speech” is [...]
The Bush administration is intent on pushing the economic stimulus plan to provide Americans some relief from the credit crisis, and also wean the economy away from a probable recession. According to the plan, taxpayers will receive a check for $600, and those not paying taxes will receive a check for $300.
In the heat of [...]
CNN IBN reports that the Supreme Court of India has allowed women to ply the bartending profession. Shocking!
The “discerning reader” would be quick to label this writer as a male-chauvinist and someone mired in old, stupid ideas that stereotype the role of men and women in society. Welcome to the club!
As someone who looks down [...]
The Hindu has published a long-pending editorial on the ongoing credit crunch in the US which is a result of housing lenders competing against each other in the recent past to provide home loans to unqualified people without properly assessing the long-term risk of their actions. Promptly, the editorial cites the chances of a similar [...]
Will President Bush, Supreme Protector of democracy worldwide, announce an armed invasion of Pakistan, in order to restore democracy in that country?
Yesterday, Drexel played host to the first Democratic debate in Philadelphia in over 30 years. Which is a feat because Drexel is not the biggest, not even the second biggest, of the major universities in the city. UPenn, Temple and Villanova would have felt outwitted, outsmarted. But let’s not focus on that too much.
The debate [...]
… the latest debate is about a law that will enable schools to give birth control pills to 6th graders. What the hell! They are not even in their teens! To comment about it from a moral standpoint would be foolish, because the issue is beyond all that. But will not such a law encourage [...]
… the recently announced Formula One Indian Grand Prix of 2010 (New Delhi) is that it becomes instant fodder for all those buggers who will now protest “Millions of Indians don’t have proper roads. Should we spend money on building an F1 circuit?”
Legend has it that when the French complained to their queen Marie Antoinette that they didn’t have bread to eat, she asked them to eat cakes. The newly-built US Embassy building in Baghdad is a throwback to that age of simmering contempt and discontent which crescendoed with the French Revolution.
Martin Fletcher describes the shameless way [...]
In what is, in my opinion, a silly move, SUN Microsystems is changing it’s NASDAQ ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA. The reason?
The company said it’s making the change to capitalize on the brand-awareness of its Java software and to better reflect the company’s current strategy.
What happens, one wonders, to the company that had such [...]
Will the morons of Bollywood also start a signature campaign for Osama bin Laden?
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