Friday, August 24, 2007

Blog roundup



US households now have company in the UK

According to some, the major problem in today's global financial system is that the rest of the world's households don't spend enough and the American consumers don't save enough. The Alliance of the Willing comes to the rescue. Seems like the first half of the problem is about to be solved... The Brits have got into the act:
Britons have racked up so much debt on loans and credit cards that the total borrowed now exceeds the entire value of the economy, new research shows today. The financial consultant Grant Thornton is forecasting that gross domestic product (GDP) will hit £1.33 trillion this year, less than the £1.35trn which was outstanding on mortgages, credit cards and personal loans in June.

Link

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Google Phone coming out next month

Rediff reports that Google has been in talks with carriers in US, Europe and India for a simultaneous launch of its phone next month.

Link

Half-hour time-zones

Gail Collins has written a funny OpEd piece in the NY Times today about Hugo Chávez's announcement to move Venezuela’s clocks ahead by half an hour.

The list of countries who use the half-hour system does not inspire much confidence. There’s Burma. And Afghanistan. And then there’s Nepal. When the countries around it are at 3 p.m., Nepal believes it to be 3:45. This may have something to do with the altitude.

Newfoundland is on the half-hour system, defying the rest of Canada to do anything about it. ... They like the fact that the national broadcasters always have to say: “Stay tuned for the news on the hour. On the half-hour in Newfoundland.”


Gail forgot to add India to her list...

Link

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Lots of desi product managers at Google

It seems many of the product managers at Google are desi (or have desi names at least). Some examples:


A lot of these people will be the leaders of the next generation of software companies (as Apple and Netscape product managers have been in the last 10-15 years).

Link

Subprime mess, explained: Guy walks into a lending institution and says, "I'd like to buy a house..."

Hilarious explication of a dead-serious topic: the subprime mess.

Link

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Why the hostility to the new India Cricket League?

The India Cricket League (ICL) with a billion rupees corpus gives cricket-lovers around the world a reason to rejoice. Here, finally, is an alternative league that can create some interest in cricket-lovers who are tired of watching the same 10-20 players who play without any flash, hunger or creativity. It's already having the effect of providing competition to the old boys' club as well. The cricket board in India, for example, has increased the salary of their players.

One would think this would be taken as a positive sign by the people who run Cricinfo, the definitive cricket site. Somehow they don't... Cricinfo is criticising the players joining ICL (calling them, among other things, 'opportunistic', 'discards' and 'disgruntled'), the league organizers and whoever else they can lay their hands on. I am not sure what they have to lose here and why they are taking such a negative attitude towards the fledgling league? Surely they know how tough it is to get something like this off the ground! Why the sniping?

Link

Poor timing for Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney seems to have spent a lot of time in the leveraged buyout (LBO)/private-equity world. If the upcoming slowdown in the PE world turns into a bust (probability 90%, if you ask me), his candidacy is pretty much set for failure.

Link

Sunday, August 19, 2007

British army stretched?

I'm watching a BBC report where the British Army chief says that because of the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the British military is stretched. How the hell did they manage the Empire?


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?