Wednesday, July 02, 2008
The joy of being a Hindu.
I've always loved the free spiritedness and the peace that Hinduism has provided me with.
Just a video I saw, that puts in simple facts (as I would) what it means to be a Hindu
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=174354
I've always loved the free spiritedness and the peace that Hinduism has provided me with.
Just a video I saw, that puts in simple facts (as I would) what it means to be a Hindu
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=174354
Labels: Religion
Friday, May 30, 2008
Oil oil oil, you've caused such turmoil..
I sleep hoping your price falls (NYMEX trading)
I wake up to be disappointed
The world is in a crises of you,
Yet you don't give up,
Stop the speculating, all you traders,
And let us common folk have our sleep back..
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/30/opinion/edbowring.php
I sleep hoping your price falls (NYMEX trading)
I wake up to be disappointed
The world is in a crises of you,
Yet you don't give up,
Stop the speculating, all you traders,
And let us common folk have our sleep back..
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/30/opinion/edbowring.php
Labels: oil
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The $ is falling - what about it?
I'll go over in my next post how a falling dollar leads to rising commodity prices, but I've got a class to attend so I'll cover one of the key advantages of the falling dollar in this post.
The good thing about a declining dollar it is balancing the worlds balance of payments and capital flows -
We all know that China's trade surplus is a quarter of trillian USD while the US trade deficit is close to a trillian US (-$820 bn for the last 12 months). China has been lending billions of dollars to the US for them to buy its exports. With the yuan/$ now at 7.07, as opposed to the fixed peg of 8.28 and 8.08 some time back, Chinese exports are losing their edge. As part of my portfolio two of the 4 products I cover are polymers that go into making plastics, packaging material and every possible household good you can imagine. I can vouch for a fact that these producers' margins are so much in the red its not funny.
To take you down the chaing - High crude prices feed into into downstream naphtha/gasoline which gives benzene, toluene, ethylene, propylene, butadiene, xylenes etc. which give various solvents like MX,styrene etc.which then eventually give polyxylene, polystyrene, polyethylene and ABS -polymers used in make all of china's exports. The problem now it upstream costs of crude oil, naptha are not able to make their way felt into final product prices, because fo weak/sluggish demand. Thus Chinese producers now raw material cost climing up, labor costs(explained below) climbing up, other fixed costs climbing up, and feedstock margins drastically reducing.
China has a new labor law it introduced on January first, that gives far greater welfare benefits to workers, and has increased costs by atleast 10%. The snow blizzard around the lunar new year time caused such havoc, producers are yet to recover. Producers in Guandong province, said that in some places there's no electricity for 3 days of the week. Not only that, its well know that the Shanghai stock exchange plummeted the other day on news that the Central bank would tightly monitor prices to curb inflation. The price regulations in place in China is making it difficult for them to raise prices. Thats the microeconomic view. On the ground in China, its not pretty.
Anyway back to my point of the falling dollar balancing the world credits and debits - it would do the the world a lot a good, for the US to clean up its deficits and for the China to cool of a little.
tJust to point out two main fallouts of a falling dollar
1. Currencies exchange rate against dollar rise suddenly-like the yen and the euro, and their exports suffer
2. Inflationary impact, inflation targeting might lead to raising the short term interest rates before economic recovery- but Bernanke seems to be handling it well. Given his 75 basis point was cheered on by wall street before ofcourse, crude oil data came struck it down again.
I'll go over in my next post how a falling dollar leads to rising commodity prices, but I've got a class to attend so I'll cover one of the key advantages of the falling dollar in this post.
The good thing about a declining dollar it is balancing the worlds balance of payments and capital flows -
We all know that China's trade surplus is a quarter of trillian USD while the US trade deficit is close to a trillian US (-$820 bn for the last 12 months). China has been lending billions of dollars to the US for them to buy its exports. With the yuan/$ now at 7.07, as opposed to the fixed peg of 8.28 and 8.08 some time back, Chinese exports are losing their edge. As part of my portfolio two of the 4 products I cover are polymers that go into making plastics, packaging material and every possible household good you can imagine. I can vouch for a fact that these producers' margins are so much in the red its not funny.
To take you down the chaing - High crude prices feed into into downstream naphtha/gasoline which gives benzene, toluene, ethylene, propylene, butadiene, xylenes etc. which give various solvents like MX,styrene etc.which then eventually give polyxylene, polystyrene, polyethylene and ABS -polymers used in make all of china's exports. The problem now it upstream costs of crude oil, naptha are not able to make their way felt into final product prices, because fo weak/sluggish demand. Thus Chinese producers now raw material cost climing up, labor costs(explained below) climbing up, other fixed costs climbing up, and feedstock margins drastically reducing.
China has a new labor law it introduced on January first, that gives far greater welfare benefits to workers, and has increased costs by atleast 10%. The snow blizzard around the lunar new year time caused such havoc, producers are yet to recover. Producers in Guandong province, said that in some places there's no electricity for 3 days of the week. Not only that, its well know that the Shanghai stock exchange plummeted the other day on news that the Central bank would tightly monitor prices to curb inflation. The price regulations in place in China is making it difficult for them to raise prices. Thats the microeconomic view. On the ground in China, its not pretty.
Anyway back to my point of the falling dollar balancing the world credits and debits - it would do the the world a lot a good, for the US to clean up its deficits and for the China to cool of a little.
tJust to point out two main fallouts of a falling dollar
1. Currencies exchange rate against dollar rise suddenly-like the yen and the euro, and their exports suffer
2. Inflationary impact, inflation targeting might lead to raising the short term interest rates before economic recovery- but Bernanke seems to be handling it well. Given his 75 basis point was cheered on by wall street before ofcourse, crude oil data came struck it down again.
Labels: Commodity'n'Currencies
Friday, March 21, 2008
Its Good friday. I've never appreciated a long weekend, as much as I have today.
I'm working full time now. As a reporter in the commodities industry. I assess the price of certain products traded over the counter, and report daily on the market situation. I've come to really enjoy the job - its quite fast paced, and there's set amount things to finish each day. Spares me the added stress of procrastrination. Its stressful for sure, by the time friday comes along(pretty quickly), I can hardly get by without a cup of coffee every 3 hours.
I work 8:30 to 8:30 these days, with a short lunch break in between. But its an easier life, than what I-bankers have going on here. I hardly see sweety at all. She wakes up after I leave for work and comes back mostly after I go to bed. Liz ofcourse, wakes up with me and sleeps about the time sweety does I assume. That's SMU.
I actually prefer work life to studying at this point. SMU really killed the joy of studying for me- I worked 8am to 12 midnight there. Sort of like what Liz is going through now...
My reading has come down drastically. I haven't read the economist for a few weeks now..sigh! Think I'll go catch up on what I've missed. Same goes for the Daily show...
I'm working full time now. As a reporter in the commodities industry. I assess the price of certain products traded over the counter, and report daily on the market situation. I've come to really enjoy the job - its quite fast paced, and there's set amount things to finish each day. Spares me the added stress of procrastrination. Its stressful for sure, by the time friday comes along(pretty quickly), I can hardly get by without a cup of coffee every 3 hours.
I work 8:30 to 8:30 these days, with a short lunch break in between. But its an easier life, than what I-bankers have going on here. I hardly see sweety at all. She wakes up after I leave for work and comes back mostly after I go to bed. Liz ofcourse, wakes up with me and sleeps about the time sweety does I assume. That's SMU.
I actually prefer work life to studying at this point. SMU really killed the joy of studying for me- I worked 8am to 12 midnight there. Sort of like what Liz is going through now...
My reading has come down drastically. I haven't read the economist for a few weeks now..sigh! Think I'll go catch up on what I've missed. Same goes for the Daily show...
Labels: Life and its trivial pursuits
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The First Shop of Coffee Prince.
I'm obsessed with Korean Shows and Korean Actors in the month of February every year. Last year it was Dae Jang Geum. If you've read this blog regularly, you would know that I thought then that she was the Prettiest Asian (not including Indians) woman I ever laid eyes on.
Nowadays, my big crush is on Gong Yoo of Coffee Prince. This 29 year old South Korean Actor has got me to put aside my dislike for Dog Eating humans i.e. Koreans, and consider them as a potential candidate for a future date.
Here's a pic to illustrate my point. You must ofcourse watch the show(I've seen it three times in the last week, 50 hours) to truly appreciate his charm.
The storyline of Coffee Prince is truly brilliant. Basically you have a smart playboy(Gong Yoo), who loves to design toys, but since he is born into a big business family, he is asked by his family to come back to Korea (from NY). He comes back with the intention of going back to NY to design toys after a holiday. However, his grandma, whom he is awfully fond of, convinces him to run a coffee shop to show that he has some sense of responsibility. He takes her promise that if he triples the profits in three months, he gets to go back to NY to follow his dream of being a toy designer.
Since he is 29, his family decides its time he got married. They try and set him up on blind dates with women of similar privileged background. To avoid these dates he hires Yoon Eun-hye (a poor girl he mistakes to be a boy-they meet when she catches the thief who tries to rob the girl Gong Yoo is out with one night, and demands a reward from him) to be his Gay lover. After that he hires her as one of the male waiters at his shop - Coffee Prince. Soon he finds himself falling in love with him(her), and thinks he is losing his mind(since he still thinks her as a boy)...
The show is hilarious and ends beautifully. It ran only for two months in Korea (a mini series) and just finished airing its last episode in Singapore a week back.
There are various angles to this show, that I don't want to get into. Sufficient to say, this show has beaten 'Buffy - first season' in terms of my pure obsession. It has also beaten Dae Jang Geum, in terms of the number of times I have watched each episode(Dae Jang Geum by the way is running in India on DD under the name: Ghar ka Chirag. Catch it if you'll have the time )
I suggest you get your hands on this show. I justify repeated viewing(to myself) saying I am trying to improve my Mandarin(I watch the mandarin version). I would have watched it even if I wasn't. Sweety is already forgetting going to mass, while watching this show. Liz has so far avoided my sales pitch, but has come around to the fact that there is substance, its not all frill (Gave her some jazz on how well each character is crafted and how relationship issues are handled so well.)
Here's a pic of Yoon Eun-hye and the entire gang. Thank you for bringing romance back into my life:)
I am back from my trip to Batam, Indonesia. Pics are up on Facebook.
I'm obsessed with Korean Shows and Korean Actors in the month of February every year. Last year it was Dae Jang Geum. If you've read this blog regularly, you would know that I thought then that she was the Prettiest Asian (not including Indians) woman I ever laid eyes on.
Nowadays, my big crush is on Gong Yoo of Coffee Prince. This 29 year old South Korean Actor has got me to put aside my dislike for Dog Eating humans i.e. Koreans, and consider them as a potential candidate for a future date.
Here's a pic to illustrate my point. You must ofcourse watch the show(I've seen it three times in the last week, 50 hours) to truly appreciate his charm.
The storyline of Coffee Prince is truly brilliant. Basically you have a smart playboy(Gong Yoo), who loves to design toys, but since he is born into a big business family, he is asked by his family to come back to Korea (from NY). He comes back with the intention of going back to NY to design toys after a holiday. However, his grandma, whom he is awfully fond of, convinces him to run a coffee shop to show that he has some sense of responsibility. He takes her promise that if he triples the profits in three months, he gets to go back to NY to follow his dream of being a toy designer.
Since he is 29, his family decides its time he got married. They try and set him up on blind dates with women of similar privileged background. To avoid these dates he hires Yoon Eun-hye (a poor girl he mistakes to be a boy-they meet when she catches the thief who tries to rob the girl Gong Yoo is out with one night, and demands a reward from him) to be his Gay lover. After that he hires her as one of the male waiters at his shop - Coffee Prince. Soon he finds himself falling in love with him(her), and thinks he is losing his mind(since he still thinks her as a boy)...
The show is hilarious and ends beautifully. It ran only for two months in Korea (a mini series) and just finished airing its last episode in Singapore a week back.
There are various angles to this show, that I don't want to get into. Sufficient to say, this show has beaten 'Buffy - first season' in terms of my pure obsession. It has also beaten Dae Jang Geum, in terms of the number of times I have watched each episode(Dae Jang Geum by the way is running in India on DD under the name: Ghar ka Chirag. Catch it if you'll have the time )
I suggest you get your hands on this show. I justify repeated viewing(to myself) saying I am trying to improve my Mandarin(I watch the mandarin version). I would have watched it even if I wasn't. Sweety is already forgetting going to mass, while watching this show. Liz has so far avoided my sales pitch, but has come around to the fact that there is substance, its not all frill (Gave her some jazz on how well each character is crafted and how relationship issues are handled so well.)
Here's a pic of Yoon Eun-hye and the entire gang. Thank you for bringing romance back into my life:)
I am back from my trip to Batam, Indonesia. Pics are up on Facebook.
Labels: Korean Shows
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Sweety is back. She was Working. Not Shopping.
she work too hard!
she work too hard!
Such a beautiful night.
After a while of moaning and groaning about a directionless existence(of not wanting to be another I-banker- or a "mover 'n' shaker" as my boss puts it), I put on my(bequeathed to me by Vas and Vivek) collection of hindi songs.
Just Liz and me. Shweta is shopping for unmentionables. Still shoppin. It's midnight.
Groovin to the Rangeela Soundtrack with bacardi limon really takes away the blues.
We went through all the all time greats.
Started with Guide, then yeh shaam mastani (kati patang), some sholay, caravan, chalti ka naam gaadi... woah. But Lata's ajeeb dastan hey yain is something else. Just pure magic!!!
Currently oh Jo Jeeta wohi sikander dose..My kids will surely learn these before Sinatra and Elvis.
I'm off to Indonesia for a couple of days. It's the Chinese new year. Big deal for them.
Will put some photos up when i return.
till then, Xin Nian Kuai Le!!!
Too much, now its Mmumbhai..Javed Jaffrey is brilliant!!
After a while of moaning and groaning about a directionless existence(of not wanting to be another I-banker- or a "mover 'n' shaker" as my boss puts it), I put on my(bequeathed to me by Vas and Vivek) collection of hindi songs.
Just Liz and me. Shweta is shopping for unmentionables. Still shoppin. It's midnight.
Groovin to the Rangeela Soundtrack with bacardi limon really takes away the blues.
We went through all the all time greats.
Started with Guide, then yeh shaam mastani (kati patang), some sholay, caravan, chalti ka naam gaadi... woah. But Lata's ajeeb dastan hey yain is something else. Just pure magic!!!
Currently oh Jo Jeeta wohi sikander dose..My kids will surely learn these before Sinatra and Elvis.
I'm off to Indonesia for a couple of days. It's the Chinese new year. Big deal for them.
Will put some photos up when i return.
till then, Xin Nian Kuai Le!!!
Too much, now its Mmumbhai..Javed Jaffrey is brilliant!!
Labels: Life and its trivial pursuits
