What explains the Obama phenomenon?

The polls still show Obama with a significant lead over McCain.

That, despite his long and close associations with Rezkos, Wrights, and Ayres. That, despite the flip flops on NAFTA, public financing, Iraq and surveillance. That despite his comments on guns and faith.

Come to think of it, Obama has no resume other than a speech he made in 2002 (he never voted according to his convictions on Iraq war). And he really has nothing to offer other than hope.

What hope?

That he will get jobs back to the US. That he will improve the schools and the hospitals and infrastructure. That the US will usher into a green energy revolution.

And how will he do that?

Here's where you hear the deafening silence. There are no plans. Just hopes. Of course there's this plan to tax the oil companies because of their record profits. And to tax the wealthy.

While I truly believe that just like you can't drill your way out of the energy crisis, you can't tax your way out of this economic crisis, I will focus on the other important question - what makes Obama so appealing to the voters?

Firstly, people are very outward-looking. They get easily swayed by looks and appearance. Obama is a fairly decent looking guy. He dresses well. And yeah, he speaks well (you could contrast him with Hillary who used to stretch her sentences like "And we will go all the wayyyyyyyy", and McCain who, my friends, speaks like a sad man).

Secondly Obama knows that blaming the current administration always works because people are generally fed up or just bored with the current administration. It just helps more when you have an economic, housing and energy crisis at hand. And if you blame them long enough, people actually start believing that.

Thirdly, Obama knows that if you promise people the good life (with great schools, hospitals and infrastructure, and jobs and high tech jobs in green energy, and cheap energy etc) they will like you without questioning. (They don't trust the Nigerian emails where they are promised a share of millions of dollars if they could claim the money in a Nigerian bank, but they will gladly trust a politician without question).

It just helps that Obama is 46 and McCain is turning 72. The ageism is on his side.

Obama has very carefully cultivated a rock-star image, playing basketball and pool for photo ops and playing rock music in his meetings. He knows that the American youth can be easily impressed with these symbols of Americana, and since the young tend to earn less, the promise of taxing "them" just impresses them more.

He speaks nice to each community. He talks about going easy and diplomatic with Iran, yet talks about protecting Jerusalem to Jews. He talks about nuclear energy to everyone but no Yucca Mountain in Nevadans.

Overall, Obama comes across as a very shrewd politician who plays his cards extremely well. Whatever might be Obama's negatives, you can't deny that he is one of the most clever and calculative politicians of recent times.

And at least that is a good thing.

The collapse of Indymac Bank : Bad Omen?

Today evening the FDIC took over the beleaguered Los Angeles, California based Indymac Bank.
The rumors had been circulating for over 6 months - it was a disaster waiting to happen. But the final straw came when Chuck Schumer, D-NY went public with his comments on the bank's liquidity crisis and its ability to survive the housing crisis. Over $1.3b was withdrawn from the bank in the last few days. Indymac tried to offset this by increasing its interest rate on deposits to 4.55%, but apparently it just wasn't enough.

Schumer should be answerable for his irresponsible act of taking his comments public.

FDIC says over this weekend, people can use ATM to withdraw their money but can't use telephone banking or online banking. Ridiculous!! It is discriminatory against people not local to Los Angeles area (or where ever Indymac bank branches don't exist).

As I write this, the indymacbank.com website is down.

Most of the customers with deposits in the bank are safe because it is FDIC insured for deposits up to $100,000. Overall, 96% of the deposits in the bank are FDIC insured. The bigger problem is going to be more of the impact on the psyche this event is going to happen.

What does it mean for the overall economy? Monday would be another bloodbath in the stock market. Secondly, the world's faith in the US economy will take a beating, and as the world's investors move to withdraw their investments in the US dollar, the value of the US Dollar would fall. This in turn will increase the price of oil. Gas will become more expensive, and inflation will increase. Overall, it will hurt the American people.

Let us now keep the crystal ball away and keep our fingers crossed. Lights, camera, action ...

A small (and free) hosting solution !!

Recently I heard in a forum about how some people want to be able to have their own small private website without paying for it.

OK, my take on this is - don't do it. Its generally not worth it.

1. Firstly, hosting is ultra cheap now. I have a domain (www.stockeconomics.com) and it costs me ~$9/yr. The hosting used to cost me like $4 a month (when I was hosting it - I am too lazy to do anything, so not hosting now). Overall cost was like $4.75/month. Ultra cheap by all standards. Now I am not advertising for the provider I used so I'd not take names.
   
2. Secondly, and the bigger problem is security. If you have your home PC running your website, I would never be sure if you've secured it enough that no one can break into your system and steal your information. In running an HTTP or a FTP server on your PC, you're inviting anyone on the internet to be able to connect to your PC (albeit on port 80 or 21 respectively), but depending on your application and security it provides, someone will some day manage to break in.
3. Most service providers' terms of service specifically disallows you from doing this. They will ask you to buy static IPs or business class service from them. They monitor port 80 or 8080 for activity. If you're running only a few MBs a day, you'd probably get away with it without noticing, but if you become greedy, they will notice and shut you down. Of course you can find ways around that too - run your HTTP service on a different port, or tunnel it through a VPN. I will discuss the second part sometime later.
   

Enough said.

If you really want to go ahead and do it, you can try what I did as a proof of concept.

1. I registered with dyndns.org. I created (say) abcd.dyndns.org.
2. I went to my router's configuration page. My router is Netgear MR814v2, and I have a link for Dynamic DNS configuration. If you have a different router, see if you have Dynamic DNS confguration. I provided DynDNS user name and password (from #1) in my router's configuration, and specified the port (say) 1234 to be used.
3. Set up Port Forwarding on my router for port 1234 for the computer (say) 192.168.0.7 in my network that will host my HTTP application(s).
4. I ran the Apache HTTP Server on my computer (192.168.0.7), on port 1234.
5. Opened the Windows firewall for Apache application.
6. Went to my browser and typed in http://abcd.dyndns.org:1234/. It works !!

The good thing is that you're running your HTTP traffic over port 1234 instead of 80. So no one will notice it immediately, though someone can simply run a port scan on abcd.dyndns.org to see that you have port 1234 open.

Do share your experiences if you try this.

Why Democrats don't understand, and Republicans don't listen?

America is a nation divided. Vertically. Into Republicans and Democrats. Republicans call "them" "left-wing, liberal nut-jobs", and Democrats call "them" "right-wing conservative nut-jobs". Both are right. Both are wrong.

How can I tell? Because I am neither Republican nor a Democrat. Heck, I am not even an American, so there are a thing or two I know about the world that most Americans don't. Ah and yeah, having lived in the US for 5-odd years, there is a thing or two that I know about Americans that most non-Americans don't.

Republicans are still living in the past

Republicans still think that the US is the most powerful country in the world and war is a solution to all foreign policy issues.

No more. Firstly, the strength of a country is not in its military alone, but also in its economic strength. US is militarily strong, but it is not economically as powerful as it once was. If you remember, USSR was as powerful as the US once, but it was brought down to its knees because it stumbled economically. It did not lose its military might till the very end - it had a big fleet of high technology fighter airplanes on the ground - but no money to fuel them.

Secondly, the wars that are fought now are not the conventional wars - they're more like Gurilla or terrorist wars where pure military might is of little, if any, significance. Come to think of it - US could not win in Vietnam and Somalia, and lately the victories in Iraq and Afghanistan can be summed up with this quote "Once you hear of the details of victory, its hard to distinguish it from a defeat - Jean-Paul Sartre".

Finally, even a small nation state, like N Korea or Iran can now stand up to the US on the might of their nuclear weapons. Conventional warfare just does not cut it. There's Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) of course, but a small crazy nation state like N Korea does not care because it really does not have anything to lose, while US has everything to lose.

Republicans still think that Global warming is a sham propagated by the likes of Al Gore

Maybe it is propagated by Al Gore. Maybe it was done to gain power and control. But moving beyond the political aspects of it, are the physical aspects of it untenable? It is obvious that if you burn carbon-based fuels, you release CO2 in the atmosphere, and CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so it traps more heat from the sun than O2 and N2 would. This is Physics 101. If you don't believe CO2 is given off by fossil fuels burning, or CO2 is a greenhouse gas, you're bordering on insanity. If you believe the earth is heating because of the natural heating cycles of the earth, why push it even more so that it goes over the top? Some Republicans that I talk to tell me that the earth is actually cooling, and 2007 was the coolest year in last 15 years or so. Balderdash. The 8 hottest years on record have all occurred in the years since 1998.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html

What is wrong with the Democrats?

Democrats still believe in robbing Peter to pay Paul

Democrats still believe in higher taxes, especially the higher income people to spend on the "unfortunate". This is so stupid because

1. This reduces incentive to work. If one is "earning" without working, he'd rather not work and "earn" a little less, than work and earn a little more (and see a big chunk of earning taxed away).
2. The "unfortunate" (or anyone for that matter) does not appreciate something that is not hard earned.
3. Higher taxes are bad for the economy - they drive away the industry. Why would someone set up a true multinational in the US if the US is going to take 40% of their profit away, if setting up the same company in another country can reduce the tax liability by 90%. A case in the point, Schlumberger, the oil drilling company is moving to Dubai.
4. If the industry moves away, there goes your employment, and there goes your taxes. Is that too hard to understand?
   
5. What part of never kill the goose that lays the golden egg you don't understand?
6. This country was founded on the notion of "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It is pursuit of happiness, not provision of happiness.
   
7. This is Capitalism, not Socialism. US is prosperous because of enormous wealth creation by Capitalism. Socialism didn't work in USSR, it didn't work in North Korea, it didn't work in East Germany, it didn't work in China (till it shunned its Socialist/Marxist policies in favor of Capitalism).
   

Democrats still believe that they can tax companies to keep jobs in the US

This is an erroneous view of the world. Companies shift jobs overseas to cut costs and stay competitive (and of course make profit - but then isn't profit the motive in any enterprise? Is this charity?). You tax them to keep jobs in the US, and they lose their competitive edge. Believe it or not, but at this time, there's nothing in this world that cannot be made outside the US. The world is a competitive place. You tax your companies, the companies would simply close shop and move.

Democrats still believe that war is not the right thing, and they can use diplomacy instead

Maybe, but its not a given. Some people just hate the US. It has no rhyme or reason. If Iran wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, its not because of a reason, Palestinians or otherwise. Its just what it is. The world is not a rosy, quiet, friendly place. Just like Republicans are war mongers, Democrats are diplomacy mongers. US does indulge in a lot of diplomacy, but a lot of it is covert than overt. Of course it also indulges in a lot of overt, rather than covert operations. Diplomacy is not a panacea for all ills, and it ticks the Republicans off that Democrats don't get this.


There are stark differences between Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, instead of talking and resolving these differences, they resort to shouting each other down. This is a nation divided, and it does not bode well for the country.

The art of the start

What are some of the things that really distinguish between a startup failing and succeeding? This is a million dollar question - why Google is big, while WebCrawler faltered?

Here I discuss a few ideas related to the art of the start.

Do what you like, and the money would follow. If you start following money, you will go nowhere. The hidden idea is to unleash your creativity in designing the product/service idea that you think is revolutionary, or will change the world. The market has wonderful ways of paying for wonderful ideas. If you start focusing on money, you'll lose sight of the great product. Remember, you are in the business of making great products and services, and not in the business of making money.

For an entrepreneur, it is important to hit the market with a new idea, new product or a new service. Incremental improvements just don't cut it, because then you are competing with established companies. Unless your improvement is substantial, and nearly unreplicable, or at least difficult to replicate, you'd not succeed. You need to find a niche that's not easily replicated. Or, do something entirely different. As another example, if you hit the market with another-fast-and-cheap-database, you're probably competing with Oracle and DB2 on speed and cost. Would you succeed? Maybe, but I'd not bet my shirt on it. On the contrary, if you introduce an SQL-compliant, ultra low footprint, fast database for embedded systems, I'd say you've huge chances of success.

As an entrepreneur, one difficult task is to manage the finances. Too many good companies failed because the money just ran out. If a source of funding is available, take it by all means. Giving away a share to the Venture Capitalist (sometimes called an evangelist) is by all means worth it if it turns out to be the only difference between success and failure.

Obama's hot air, and other interesting stories

Unbelievable article. My apologies if its copyrighted, but I'll give the credits.

Gas Attack [John Derbyshire]

I dunno, I must be missing a gene or two. Everybody, including even some conservatives, is telling me what a fine uplifting orator Barack Obama is. All I see is great gusts of hot air. When he says something that actually has any semantic content, either it is just false, or else it is naked socialism.

I was just looking through Obama's latest oratorical masterpiece. It strikes me as obnoxious, where it is not just flatulent.

… we've got young people all across this country who have never had a reason to participate until now.

The "reason to participate," for people of any age, is the sense of citizenly duty. This sense didn't exist before Obama showed up?

We're up against the belief that it's all right for lobbyists to dominate our government, that they are just part of the system in Washington.

But lobbyists are part of the system in Washington. It says so in the First Amendment: "… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Obama wants to repeal the First Amendment?

We're up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House.

That's the conventional thinking? So how did Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush get elected President? None of them had any "longevity in Washington" — not even as much as you, Senator. Sure, I understand, this is throwing some of Hillary's stuff back at her, but it's still nonsense.

… real leadership is about … the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

Not just cant, but Leninist cant. We are a republic of free people, not the tools of some "leader" pursuing a historical "purpose." What is your "higher purpose," Senator? And what happens to those of us who decline to rally around it?

… there are people all across this great nation who … can't afford another four years without health care, that can't afford another four years without good schools, that can't afford another four years without decent wages because our leaders couldn't come together and get it done.

A doctor visit costs no more than a name-brand pair of sneakers — less, probably, in relation to average earnings, than ever in our history. Hospital emergency rooms treat anyone. The theory that spending a ton of money gets you "good schools" was tested to destruction in Kansas City, 1985-97. All that KC got out of it was the most bloated and corrupt educational bureaucracy since Imperial China's (and increased dropout rates to boot!) And why should employers pay "decent wages" to Americans, when they can pay in-decent wages to illegal immigrants? — those illegal immigrants whose unlawful presence in our country you are just fine with, Senator?

And where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words: Yes, we can.

Cynicism towards the kind of vaporous flapdoodle Obama trades in is fully justified, and ought to be encouraged. Doubt that an Obama administration will be able to do any better with the nation's issues than a Clinton, McCain, Romney, or Paul administration, is likewise fully justified, given Obama's lack of executive experience, or of experience in any real job; as is doubt that the things Obama says he wants to do, are desirable. Fear that an Obama administration will just take more of our money to sluice away on bureaucratic extravaganzas, ditto.

The man's a hard-left socialist, for Heaven's sake. Anyone falling for this stuff learned nothing from the later 20th century.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGJjMmMwOWQwMGQ2NTRmYjNiNGI4ZjcwNDQ0ZmY3YjM=

The Political Debate

Actually, it should read "The fooling of the American People".

So much has been written about Clinton vs Obama that any attempt to write about it would not add anything new to the debate. It however, can surely bring into attention a lot of nuances that either have, or are being ignored.

Today I'll just take my gloves off for Obama. I'll reserve this opportunity for Clinton for some other time.

Its easy to trick people. All you need is to appeal to people's fears, greeds, insecurities or pain. And Obama is a master trickster. Its surprising how can anyone think of letting someone take the office of President without any experience even remotely similar to it. Think about it - would you let someone who has never flown a plane (but has been riding a bicycle for the last 2 weeks) pilot your plane? Or you would rather let someone who has been a co-pilot and has been flying gliders take the job. Its just plain common sense. Even companies check the background of people before giving them the job - this is the job of the President of the United States!!

Its beyond belief how sweet talk and populist messages can make people forget everything and willing to let anyone become the President.

Going by the popularity of Obama, I think its no small section. Really.

It makes me roll on the floor laughing when Obama touts his foreign policy experience by being on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for some time and by his living overseas(?). Are you kidding me?

Other than (well rehersed) speeches that Obama gives (and I give him credit for it - he speaks rather well), he is a dud when it comes to real talk - he speaks too slow, he hams, and fumbles for words. It makes me suspicious if he really speaks his heart and mind, or if he just speaks his pre-written speeches. I remember the question when at a CNN debate, he was asked that with 3 of the former Clinton advisers advising him and with little experience of his own, how can he provide different governance? His answer "Hillary, I am looking forward to you to advising me" came after 10 seconds of "well", "I", "Aaa" and the likes. Similarly, at another CNN debate after the "truce" between the Clinton and Obama camps after the "race and MLK" controversies, his reply was vague, and he just veered away from the topic.

Needless to say, he comes across extremely weak in the debates.

Obama comes across as a lying and manipulative person when some aspects of his life described in one of his books were researched (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-070325obama-youth-story,0,5069625.story). For example, he was not one of the black students who struggled with their racial identity in their school in Hawaii, as he pointed out in his book. His biggest struggle, growing up wasn't race, but his sense of abandonment by his parents. There was no issue of Life magazine that Obama talks about in his book. He re-inventing his autobiography to make it a bestseller!!

Well, if nothing else, it makes him a master of spin.

Hope is a good thing. Only trouble is, it alone doesn't get you anywhere. I am sure the poorest people in the poorest countries are hoping to be rich and strong one day. Only trouble is, that day never comes just by hoping for it.

Populism can pay handsomely for Obama, but its high cost would ultimately be borne by America.

Good to Great

Just got to get my hands on "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Looks very interesting. I am going to write more about it when I am done reading it.

Would Fed's rate cut change anything?

Recently, I was explaining to my wife that a very anticipated rate cut by the Fed could allow infusion of cheap money in the economy, causing people to be able to afford cheaper mortgages, increasing housing demand, and consequently increasing housing prices.

My wife asked "Why would it help the people as a whole to save some interest on the mortgage, but pay higher for homes, if the prices increase"?

Now that question did stump me. So I decided to think about it.

The only people who will benefit from the cheaper money will be the ones who buy right away, with cheaper money, before the prices start to go up. But it is only a matter of time before they do. So what is the advantage of cheaper money for the rest of us?

It does not increase the GDP of the country in terms of production. It has an inflationary effect on the prices of homes. It reduces the value of the Dollar in the international market. It allows the mortgage companies to create innovative products to lure homebuyers again into risky loans.

In reality, almost nothing that cheaper money brings to the market will make America more competitive. Well, almost nothing, because cheap money breeds innovation, promotes risk taking, and allows innovation that can, in the long run, make the country more innovative.

But the Fed has no way to ensure that the cheaper money finds its way to go where it should. And it has no way to ensure that the cheaper money is not used to issue those sub prime loans again.

It really boils down to what is more profitable to those who get this cheap money. If the banks and financial institutions find the returns on sub prime mortgage better than the Venture Capitalists find the returns on risky new ventures, the economy would behave exactly the same way it did before.

So take your time, and figure why are all these financial institutions crying hoarse over an impending stagnation or recession?

Immigration to the United States

A recent discussion on the same topic with a friend "inspired" me to "pen down" my thoughts on this issue, and many many other related ones.


The American perspective

The Americans believe that the world has gained a lot from the Americans, and America has been a donor nation, giving away aid, education, peace, democracy and technology to the rest of the world.

Being from a different country, I know that ALL governments have a similar doctrine to feed to their general populace. This is the political stuff the governments are made out of. Only that the people are so easily tricked into believing that all of that is true.


A nation of immigrants

Contrary to what the Americans themselves believe, the world has NOT always stolen from the US. Au contraire, the US has always and regularly tapped from the best resource pool of the world. I took this list from the Time Top 100 scientists of the 20th century:

Leo Bakeland, the inventor of plastic was Belgian. Enrico Fermi, the Nobel laureate and particle physicist was Italian. Albert Einstein, the Nobel laureate and discoverer of relativity was a German. William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor (who brought silicon to the Silicon Valley) was born in London. Kurt Godel, the mathematician who gave the incompleteness theorem, was an Austrian.

All of the above ended up being Americans.

I added to the list some other most influential scientists the US has had:

Neils Bohr, the particle physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project was Danish. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb was the son of German immigrants. Wolfgang Pauli, also a particle physicist (of the Pauli's exclusion principle fame) was an Austrian.

Even in sports, the US has benefited by immigration. Martina Navratilova is Czech. Andre Agassi is the son of Iranian parents. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Austrian.

Even the bureaucrats like Madeline Albright (Czech) and Henry Kissinger (German) are first generation immigrants.

A more comprehensive list can be seen in the third reference.

Americans created this wealth themselves?

No doubt US is the only superpower. No doubt that it is the largest economy in the world. But the notion that all this power was generated in vacuum, by Americans themselves is farcical, and anyone believing this is indeed kidding himself. Indeed a lot of wealth that the US has created in recent times was generated by immigrants to the US.

The symbol of Americana, the Levi's Jeans were first created by Levi Strauss, a German immigrant. The man who created the Mustang, Lee Iacocca was the son of Italian immigrants. The co founder of Intel, Andy Grove is a Hungarian immigrant. The co founder of Hotmail, Sabeer Bhatia is an Indian immigrant. The co-founder of Yahoo, Jerry Yang, is a Taiwanese immigrant. The Bose Corp was founded by Amar Bose, the son of Indian immigrants. The "Father of the Pentium processor" is Vinod Dham, an Indian immigrant. Sun Microsystems was co-founded by Vinod Khosla, an Indian immigrant. Tibco was founded by Vivek Ranadive, an Indian immigrant.


Why the US immigration policy sucks

Many many immigrants to the US cannot turn entrepreneur because of the archaic laws that prevent them from opening up ventures on their own, and hence the major reason why so many of the technology companies were founded by immigrants as co-founders. Those who wait for a more favorable status find their wait extraordinarily long. In an age and time of rapid progresses in science and technology, such a wait can ruin entrepreneurship. This hurts the competitiveness of the United States in the long run.

The Xenophobia

The xenophobia that is sweeping the US is acquiring some of the shades of the Nazi Germany, where the more successful Jews were loathed and blamed for the ills of Germany. While the xenophobia at this time is merely at the hate level, and has not acquired the violent shades as observed in the Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

Still the xenophobia is apparent in the campaign against the H1B visa holders, especially the Indians and Chinese who, in the words of the campaign, lower wages, and increase joblessness in the country.

The US immigration system is completely broken (or is created thus) to create modern-day slaves for businesses. Slaves who have to work on lower salaries, who cannot change jobs or positions or open their own companies. They are stuck in queues for years, waiting for an absolution,

The cracks appear?

The unfavorable myopic policy in the United States, coupled with a more favorable one in most other nations is rapidly reversing the flow of immigrants into the US. Many students, especially from China now return back to China to set up start-ups after studying at the US universities. According to the Chinese Ministry of Personnel, by the end of 2005, more than 930,000 Chinese had studied abroad, and about 230,000 returning to China over the last decade.

What the future holds
The stifling of entrepreneurship and discouragement to immigrate to the US is causing the US to miss out on the next big thing. With China, Australia, India and Ireland rapidly making strides in research and development, the US superiority in much of new research areas has already appeared to crumble. Indeed the US has already fallen behind a lot of development in the automobile (hydrogen and electric/hybrid autos) biotechnology (stem cell research) and Wireless (3G). With a failing manufacturing sector, stagnating housing, and decreasing profits, the US is rapidly turning from a net producer to a net consumer. The rapidly falling value of the dollar is a testimony to the danger the future holds for the US economy. That the dollar has lost 43% of its value against the Euro in 2003-2006 portends worst for the future.

I hate to be the pessimist guy here, but the result does not appear to be too rosy or too far for the US.

References:
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/
http://www.ailf.org/notable/famous.htm
http://immigration.about.com/od/usfamousimmigrants/Famous_and_Notable_Immigrants_in_the_US.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_Americans
http://english.cri.cn/4426/2007/02/17/164@197584.htm

Down with cybersquatters

Looking to launch a website on finance and investing, I looked through domain names like intelligentinvestor.com, betterinvesting.com, fastmoney.com, profiteer.com and the likes. And much to my bad luck, none is available. Most have been grabbed by the cybersquatters who don't even have web pages there, or just have ad-links pages.

At first this bothered me, then it made me angry. After all, just because they happened to have access to the Internet first doesn't mean they should deprive the more deserving and genuine people of their fair share of the Internet domains.

But then realization downed on me. Does fool.com really mean anything remotely similar to money? No. Does thestreet.com sound like a good domain name? No (all the domain names with "the", "my", or "your" prefixed before the main name is a desperate attempt to get a domain people would recognize). In fact, some of the names are outright ludicrous. Take for instance, moneycontrol.com. I can understand if they're trying to say take-control-of-your-money-dot-com. But really, moneycontrol.com doesn't sound anything like that. Despite this, this site is very popular. Why? Its the content that matters. Not the fancy name.

What really is happening is this : Domain names are losing their value. I don't type "stockadvisor.com" when I am looking for advise on stocks. I just Google (or Yahoo) "stock advise". And most of the people I know don't either. They just use Search Engines. Search Engines have eroded the value of easy-to-figure-out domain names. Bookmarking has eroded the value of easy-to-remember domain names.

So, in essence, I can build a better website than anyone who has a better domain name, and can find a better domain name than anyone who can build a better website.

B.t.w, if any of you readers can think of any decent name for my investing website, please advise. I'd appreciate it.

Who is Jim Cramer?

Today Jim Cramer recommended selling BJ Services (BJS), saying the stock is good, but he doesn't like it, and people would do well to book profit and get out of it.

Well, I do have BJS, so I thought what the heck.

I did a search on the Internet for "Jim Cramer BJS" to get the story again, and the 4th link caught my attention: http://seekingalpha.com/cramer/on/bjs

This link leads to this page: http://seekingalpha.com/article/15862

Cramer was bullish and bearish on some stocks in Mad Money on 22nd Aug 2006. I thought I'd rather look closely on Cramer's calls. Here's some analysis:

S&P moved from 1298 to 1455. That is a gain of 12.09%. Good. Now see what Cramer recommended, and what happened to them.



The results are in. Cramer, over a 6 month period of time (Aug 22 2006 to Feb 14, 2007) managed winning picks only 9 out of 14 times, an accuracy of 64.28% only. And if you consider that many of his picks rose less than S&P500, his actual gain over S&P500 was a shameful 5 out of 14 times, i.e. 35.71%.

Look at it this way. If you invested $100 in each of the 14 stocks based on Cramer's recommendations on Aug 22, this investment of $1400 would be worth just $1434.13 (Aren't you glad at least you didn't LOSE money?). You would have lost in 5 of the 14 picks. And an average guy picking all the stocks of S&P500 index blindly, would have turned his investment of $1400 into $1569.26.

Go figure. Booyah !

The fundamentally flawed strategy

There are quite a few trading strategies out there. There are two I'd like to talk about.

The first is about trying to look for stocks that are relatively small, fundamentally strong, very under-priced and have not yet been spotted by the Wall Street eagles. This, at least theoretically should yield hundreds of percentage point returns over a few years.

While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this strategy, it usually does not work. How many spotted Walmart in late 1960s, or Genentech in 1980? Very few. Even Warren Buffett did not. If you think you can be one of those who can spot these gems amongst the millions out there who trade in stocks, then you're looking at a probablilty of 1 in millions. I think its practically zero. Unless you're a big time risk taker, penny stocks would almost never be a good idea to invest in.

In the other fundamental strategy, you look for fundamentally good stocks, fair or somewhat underpriced (though "underpriced" is not absolutely necessary), that have an upward momentum, and find good entry and exit points, and most importantly, don't expect hundreds of percentage points returns in just a few years time. You don't sleep over your stocks but ride on the momentum and sell them. Timing and speed become your best friends.

While this second strategy never gives astronomical returns, it is more possible, probable and practical. Think about it.

Why Intel and AMD should do well in 2007

Recently the semiconductor technology industry has seen a fair bit of downturn. In fact, in 2006 the PHLX Semiconductor index lost 5% while NASDAQ gained 8%. Partly it was because of the inventory glut, and partly because of the reduced sales worldwide of computer equipment, because of corporates waiting for Windows Vista.

The two main players - Intel and AMD suffered. Intel dropped 20% in the year. AMD suffered even more - dropping about 37% in the year.

Fundamentally there's nothing wrong with either Intel or AMD. AMD was always tight on financial controls. Intel corrected itself in 2006, by means of restructuring and reducing workforce.

And because of the reasons mentioned above, the valuations of Intel and AMD appear very good at this moment.

AMD at 20.35 is trading at just about 47% of its 2006 high. It has a very good EPS of 1.01 and a very healthy P/E ratio of 20.03. The funnel of AMD includes Barcelona, that is a true quad-core processor that is useful for gamers and high end servers market. While gamers don't necessarily comprise a huge market, the high end servers is a niche market that provides higher margins, and thus provides a good incentive for chip manufacturers to enter this market. The gains from ATI acquisition should also appear in 2007. If the lawsuit against Intel's monopolistic practices goes in its favor, AMD should gain market share from Intel.

Intel, at 20.25 is trading at 76% of its 2006 high. With an EPS of 1.01 and a healthy P/E ratio of 20.03 (exactly the same as AMD), its valuations appear very interesting. With the restructuring, Intel is likely to improve its earnings. And with a very successful Core Duo and Core 2 Duo range of processors, it is likely to maintain its market position for the desktop and mobile processor segment.

The downside to this optimism about the chip stocks is if Windows Vista doesn't play out the way it is widely expected to. If Vista does not succeed, the demand for new equipment would essentially stagnate, and that should hurt both Intel and AMD.

The only fear that AMD and Intel have is from each other. In a competitive chip market Intel and AMD will live as long as they let the others live.

Dhoom 2 aka Doom 2

Its a movie that has so many flaws, that you start to believe that it is an amateurish movie, of course until you have a closer look at the cast. (And yes, read this list after you've watched the movie - if you're sure of watching the movie, that is).

1. The thief never gets shot while he is being dragged by the train, and the security officer is taking shots at him.

2. The thief is being dragged by this train, and suddenly he jumps back on top of the train, hitting the security officer.

3. If the thief was trying to write an "A" across the world by the locations of his heists, why on earth was he going back to Junagarh after Mumbai?

4. What sewer lid was that got corroded within seconds? (Cast Iron lids don't corrode) And why did none of the police officers try to follow him? And how did he fly out of a sewer lid on he road a few seconds later? Did he get sufficient time to change his dress? Is he doing a Krrish again here?

5. Was the security blind that they could not see a 4"x6" Remote Controlled car moving right under their feet? Or were they all looking at the ceiling? And even when the RC dished out a 2' long arm to pick up the diamond (who keeps a diamond without enclosures anyway?). And how come the blind securitywallas didn't notice someone looking alternately at the controller and the car repeatedly?

6. How come the sharpshooter policewoman who had been tracking this thief for 2 years suddenly disappear from the movie when push came to shove?

7. How did the Snowhite's dwarfs reduce their height by a full 2 feet?

8. How did the thief fall hundreds of feet into water when "shot" repeatedly by his accomplice and survive?

To be fair, Hrithik Roshan brings good acting and some good stunts to the table. Abhishek Bachchan looks grumpy throughout the movie. Bipasha makes a quick entry and then fades away just as fast. Aditya Chopra is in the movie to provide an occassional laugh, and he does his job fairly.

If you don't mind the glaring technical flaws, well, you may just try your luck in the Cinema. You may just like it.

Else just stay way from it.

Why AajTak sucks

1. It shows more ads than news. On top of it, the quality of its ads (Pataka 502 tea, Lux Cozi undershirts, Kamdhenu TMT bars etc is downright pathetic, to say the least).

2. It repeats its content so often, that it hurts.

3. Today it covered Amitabh/Amar Singh/Abhishek/Aishwarya visit to Varanasi for a full 3 hours. It was mighty painful - India had lost just hours ago to SA, and I wanted to get a detailed coverage on that. Instead, all AajTak was showing interviews with Pandits, and its own speculations on who looked happy, who looked coy, and whatever that implied. Damned. Why don't you call yourself Aaj Tak Tabloid TV. And you kept covering that for 3 hours. Hell, had all of India been watching the TV at that time, you'd have wasted 3 billion hours of people's time.

4. Prabhu Chawla sucks big time in "Seedhi Baat". Instead of sounding an authoritative journalist and asking penetrating questions, he appears to be appeasing the guests, and begging them for some answers. Duh. Take some inspiration from Karan Thapar and Shekhar Gupta.

If someday you feel that you've been healthy and cheerful for too long, just watch Aaj Tak.

And for those, who're thinking of subscribing to Aajtak (International programming), consider yourself warned.

Why comparisons between India and China are absurd?

I am sick of all these articles that have been emanating from Indians worldwide for so many years: How Indian Tiger will tame the Chinese Dragon. In my opinion, these opinions are based far less on reality than wishful thinking on the part of Indians.

Chinese are building 108 new airports between 2004 and 2008, including the world's largest, Beijing international Airport, designed by Foster and Partners. On the other extreme, Indian airports are filthy, ill-equipped and swarming with touts. Indians are resisting tooth-and-nail any improvement to their airports, that are worse than many developed countries' train stations.

Chinese population is stabilizing, with the population growth rate as low as 0.59% (estimated, CIA WorldFactbook). Agreed, that a lot of coercion has gone behind the fulfillment of the Chinese objective of a stable population. But all this is now beginning to yield fruit. While with a stabilizing population promises that the fruits of Chinese prosperity would be more tangible to its people, India is consistently losing the fruits of its boom to ever-burgeoning population, which, even now grows at 1.38% (estimated, CIA WorldFactbook).

China has averaged growth of 10% over last 2 decade. Not only has China outpaced India in the rate of growth for each of these 20 years, it had a far bigger GDP compared to India to begin with. You do the math.

The proponents of the Tiger overtaking Dragon often point out that India is a democracy, and that would eventually turn out to be better for India, and investments would pour into India because the investors would see India as a better investment option. This has not happened in the last 15 years, and I still don't see it coming. China attracted an FDI of 40 billion in 2000, while India managed 3.1 billion. (Some Indians point out to differences in computation of FDI, that adjusted China's FDI to 20 billion, and increase Indian FDI to 8 billion. That still leaves China's FDI 2.5 times that of India). Chinese administration has its own flaws, freedom being the topmost casualty, but the world's largest democracy is also fairly feeble. Regional and ethnic strife, and religious issues are extremely disruptive to the business climate (an ample example, why Bihar, one of the most natural resources rich state attracts hardly any industry). Every new administration reverses the decisions made by the previous one, or orders enquiries - not very conducive to creating a good investment friendly environment - as Enron would readily testify. In comparison, with the exception of Tiananmen Square, China has experienced a good deal of peace and tranquility.

While China's share in the World Trade is roughly 6%, India's is less than 1%. Chinese GDP is more than twice that of India's. China's literacy rate is 91%, compared to 60% of India. And everyone knows what literacy means in India.

While China is going around, signing contracts with nations around the world, assuring itself of energy supplies for the years to come, regardless of the regimes, India, is taking the high road (of not dealing with questionable regimes), and missing the bus.

The recent growth rate of 8.1% in the second quarter of 2006 for India (S&P estimates a growth rate of 7.6% for the year) might not really be a sign of things to come, or a source of optimism, but maybe just be cyclical. This is buttressed by the fact that in 2006, the developing world (including Sub-Saharan Africa) has averaged a growth rate of 4.8% and China has averaged 11.1% for this quarter (and the World Bank estimates a growth of 10.4% in 2006). Even Pakistan has managed a growth rate higher than India.

Finally, while China has developed its economy in a planned way, creating linkages between its manufacturing, service and agriculture sectors, Indian economic development is more haphazard. Hardly a million Indians work in the IT and ITES (IT Enabled Services) sector. This constitutes less than a quarter of a percent of Indian workforce, and its contribution to economy is less than 10%. In addition, a lot of ITES is back office and call center work, that produces no intellectual capital, and is prone to moving elsewhere for precisely the same reason it moved here. Indeed, Chinese are learning English in a big way, and believe it or not, competition is going to threaten this one biggest bastion of Indian industry.

The difference between Chinese and Indian growth is that while Chinese growth has been FDI-dependent, Indian has been more organic, and intrinsic. That has led to many more entrepreneurial ventures in India, compared to China. Many more Indian companies are listed in the Fortune 500 list, compared to those from mainland China.

The huge monetary inflows have caused the banks to give out non recoverable loans, and the NPAs of banks in China may be as large as 50%. At some time these would have to be written off. At that time the investment in more productive area would take a hit. While India also has large NPAs, at 15%, they are significantly lower than China's.

Chinese growth has been because of the government, and Indian has been inspite of it. Till the Indian government changes for the better, or the Chinese government changes for the worse, don't expect miracles to happen. And till that happens, all the pipe dreams of India overtaking China are well...just pipe dreams.

What's happened to the famed Indian Cricket team?

The short answer - they've been shown their correct position.

While I never had any doubts that the perceptions of the Indian Cricket team were spindoctored to suit the needs of the Chappell-More-Pawar (CMP) cartel, now it has become more than clear that Indian tigers were tigers in India. Outside the subcontinent, they became meek cats, and got their ass whipped repeatedly.

The experimentation with position rotation has failed repeatedly - but a stubborn Chappell is persisting with it because he can't be seen in public acknowledging his mistakes.

The extraordinay trust reposed in Sehwag, Pathan and Kaif has backfired. India has repeatedly lost matches, and they've not returned to form. If lack of form was the reason for dropping Ganguly, then keeping these three can never be justified.

The team has not learnt to be professional like the Australians. When the wickets are falling around you, you should not be chicken and throw your wicket away - as the team still does. They never know when to pace the innings and when to chase with singles.

What was the use of the parachute training and the millitary training in Bangalore? Was it another attempt to hoodwink people into believing that Chappell has tricks up his sleeve that would change the face of Indian Cricket? (Yes they have - for the worse).

Why're people like Ganguly and Zaheer being kept out? Why the vendetta being allowed to influence the team selections?

Indians never ask tough questions - because if they did, and demanded results, Chappell, who has an extremely dismal record before coming to coach India would have already been on the flight back to Australia.

The new comedian on the block : Arun Lal

Watching cricket these days is more for comedy's sake than for the game itself. The reason - Arun Lal - the commentator.

In the last game against West Indies, he was referring to some "ridge" on the pitch which was causing the Indian batsmen to get out cheaply (?). And he kept mentioning it over and over again till Tony Craig snapped "Wait a minute. A ridge is convex, this is concave. This is simply a depression". To this, pat came the reply from Arun Lal "You're absolutely right. This is a depression".

In the last game against Australia, he used these words repeatedly : "purchase", "as far as India is concerned", and "relish". I doubt the correctness of sentenses like "he is getting purchase from the wicket". Arun Lal used them with impunity. Of course you can use the other 2 words/phrases (concerned and relish), but abuse is more like what happened with Arun Lal.

With an overall average of < 10 runs per innings in ODIs, he was never one of the greats of the game. For this reason, Arun Lal doesnt add value - he just speaks what he sees - as mechanically as a news reader.

Why do I think he's still getting the contracts to comment in the matches? Probably because the foreigners like to be paid in dollars(gets multiplied by 45), while Arun Lal relishes payments in Indian Rupees. And also because a certain Mr Sidhu is busy with The Great Indian Laughter Challange.

GMAT !!

After getting 750 in GMAT and 118 in ToEFL (not bad, eh?) I thought I just as well might do my bit to help those who're walking in the same shoes I walked in some time ago.

Check out http://www.mbacountry.com and let me know what you think. Leave answers for those who seek them, ask questions if you need to know, and yeah, leave feedback for me. Spread the word if you like what you see. And well, if you don't like what you see, still spread the word - you never know who might !!