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Finished the one week ISMS course and on the last day had an exam too. Wrote well.  Hope to pass. Came back to work after a week to a mountain of emails and things to catch up on. Wish i could take a few days off and relax at home, but with so many things happenign at work simultaneously, i kept that thought on the backburner for now.

The new team, work is exciting.  Lots to learn and so less time.  Things move very fast here unlike at my previous position.  Hardly have time to procastinate, which only leads to things getting escalated to the other people in the team.  Its been fun, but ya tiring at the same time too.

Blogging has taken a back seat as of now.  So much to write, but i find so little time.  Also realise that i havent checked my equity portfolio properly in a week.  The sad events in Japan have really shook up the markets not to speak of the Japanese people.  But am sure their resilience will come to the fore and Japan will once again rise from the ashes as it has always done.

Maybe the Japanese govt will finally open its door to the immigrants who will now be very much needed for the reconstruction work.  Nuclear plans will be on hold all over the world.  That would mean more reliance on fossil fuels.  Oil prices are sure to shoot up.  The previous record of $147 per barrel could be broken.

People (both pro and anti nuclear) will play out their agendas.  But lets keep it in mind that nuclear power for all that has happened in Chernobyl, Japan and the Three Mile island incident is still the cleanest way for us to produce electricity.  Lets face it, the other methods like wind or solar are no patch to the quantity and quality of electricity that can be produced through nuclear power.  Ya, its risky and a lot of checks and safeguards need to be in place.  Proper mechanism for disposing off the spent fuel rods must also be in place.

The commies and the jholawalas are sure to raise muck about the numerous nuclear power plants that are coming up around the country.  The chaddis as usual will try to fish in murky waters.  But let the rhetoric not make us take our eyes away from the goal.  That is clean power which is an absolute must if India is to grow above 9% per year.

Countries like France generate almost 75% of their electricity from nuclear power.  Japan also generates almost 30%.  Its easy to take the path of using dirty fuels (fossil fuels) to achieve our economic growth and end up with disastrous consequences as China’s environment has faced.

So lets take a step back, clear our mind of all the rhetoric and take a call.  What lies ahead is nothing but our future.  Let’s learn it from the experts who have done it and done it well.

Meanwhile my deepest condolences to the thousands of Japanese killed and the millions whose lives have been affected by this triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear accident.

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Finished reading this book almost a month ago, but due to paucity of time almost forgot to write about this book.

This book is a look into the next 100 years by George Friedman (no relation to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times).  George Friedman is the chief executive of STRATFOR, a private global intelligence firm he founded in 1996. He has spent more than 20 years teaching political science and has commented extensively on security and defense issues.

Though its difficult to accurately predict what can happen next year, Friedman lets his thoughts into the next 100 years based on the situations and issues that have shaped the past 100-200 years.  Based on this he comes to the conclusion that in the next 100 years, the major powers of the world would be (hold your breath) USA, Japan, Poland and Turkey.

He goes on to describe that by the end of the current decade (2020), China would have disintegrated and Tibet liberated with active participation by India and China will either go back to its closed doors policy or become a non-entity.  Yes, China has to keep up its blistering growth or else there could be serious trouble among its population which has no other outlet to express its disenchantment against the communist government.  But to think that the communist government hasnt thought about it and doesnt have a plan B is difficult to imagine.

The author asserts that the United States power is so extraordinarily overwhelming that it will dominate the coming century, brushing aside Islamic terrorist threats now, overcoming a resurgent Russia in the 2010s and 20s and eventually gaining influence over space-based missile systems that Friedman names battle stars. Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, an independent geopolitical forecasting company, and his authoritative-sounding predictions are based on such factors as natural resources and population cycles. While these concrete measures lend his short-term forecasts credence, the later years of Friedmans 100-year cycle will provoke some serious eyebrow raising. The armed border clashes between Mexico and the United States in the 2080s seem relatively plausible, but the space war pitting Japan and Turkey against the United States and allies, prognosticated to begin precisely on Thanksgiving Day 2050, reads as fantastic (and terrifying) science fiction. Whether all of the visions in Friedmans crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment.

source: Amazon

There are a lot of issues on which i dont agree with the author of the book.  Other than a few instances, Friedman makes no mention of India in the whole book.  He says that India would be a regional power with no impact on the global affairs.  I cant understand how he manages to just discard a country that could have 1.5 billion people by 2050, the world’s top 5 standing army, one of the best airforce and naval power, not to mention an economy of at least $ 20 trillion by 2050 (conservative estimates).

I tried making a small comparison chart of the countries that are supposed to be significant players (according to Friedman) in the next 100 years versus India.  A cursory glance at the figures and its easy to see why the book is way off on its prediction.

* Data belongs to year 2009
** All figures are in US dollars
*** GDP & per capita is PPP
**** Data sourced from CIA website

But he goes on and on about Turkey and Poland being significant leaders in Europe who will militarily crush the rest of Europe.  There is hardly any mention of France or Britain.  Germany according to Friedman would be on the decline.  Agreed on that, but to dismiss the German power with regards to Turkey and Poland is simply too far fetched.

He also speaks a lot about Mexico which could be the top 10 economies by 2050, but no mention of India which could be the top 3 economy by 2050.  The author looks too enamoured by USA and believes that they will maintain status quo into the next 100 odd years.  Of course, no one believes that US will just lie down and die, but to imagine that the disastrous economic policies pursued by USA would have no impact into the future is a bit too far fetched to believe.  As for Japan, its negative population growth combined with its insignificant economic growth for the past 20 odd years have dented its abilities both on the economic as well as military front.  As a country that doesnt encourage any form of immigration, Japan will be in deep trouble as it has to cope with a rapidly graying population.  If it opens its doors to immigration, its will have to face a lot of social tensions.

The book is a good read, if you are into fantasies and would love to have a good laugh.  Surely not a book to be taken seriously.

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
Author – George Friedman
Pages – 272
Publisher – Doubleday

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Finally, i finished reading this book.  Have been reading it on and off for the past 6 odd months.  In the meanwhile have finished reading a few others too.  Odd, because the book is a very good read and written with lots of historical references.  For someone who loves to know the Roman, Greek, French, British and American history, this book is a treasure trove.

The authors of this book are Bill Bonner & Addison Wiggin who have been writing the free daily newsletter, The Daily Reckoning for more than 10 years now. The newsletter covers a lot about the daily economy, world politics, investment strategies, gold, stock market etc.  Bonner is also the founder and president of Agora Publishing.

The authors believe that the America of today has left the values of its founding fathers far behind and has become an imperial power instead of being a country.  Bonner also believes that the end of America is also coming soon.  The author talks about the dollar crisis, the coming end of the US economy. He writes about how successive US governments have gone to war and wasted all resources, the decoupling of the dollar to the gold standard, the federal reserve under Alan Greenspan with his inflationary policies totally wrecked the US economy.

Quoting from Amazon,

Bonner and Wiggin view ancient Rome as the classical model of empire. Running an empire was an expensive business; the folks in the homeland needed to be mollified with government handouts (bread and circuses), while a large military had to be maintained in the frontier. Rome used its military power to exact tribute from neighboring states; it was a protection racket, no different from the Mafia. Nevertheless, this scheme generally kept the central state solvent and the territories at peace. The United States is also an empire, Bonner and Wiggin maintain, but it does not follow the classical model. It placates its citizens with massive distributions of government largess while using its powerful military to exert influence and keep peace abroad. However, “[i]nstead of getting paid for providing protection, the United States is on the receiving end of loans from its tributary states and trading partners ” (p. 77). This is how the United States became the Empire of Debt.

Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis
Authors – Bill Bonner & Addison Wiggin
Pages – 384
Publisher – Wiley

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The football world cup begins in South Africa tomorrow.  I havent subscribed to the sports channels and that would explain that iam not dying to watch the matches. But ya, will be following the sport on the net as much as possible.  Websites, blogs, twitter, videos….there is a lot to choose from.

As always, my favourites are anyone other than England and Brazil.  Why i dislike England is because they remind me of the Indian cricket team comprising the fab 5 of yesteryears.  Apart from their personal records, India hardly won anything when they played.  Similarly, i believe the English football team is also a team of superstars.

Brazil is an exception as it manages to win the cup inspite of having so many superstars in their team.  But then they have won the trophy so many times that iam bored of following them.

Argentina, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal…so many to choose.  Hope Italy doesnt suffer from the defending champions curse and crash out soon.

The matches are telecast late at night here and i dont think i have the patience or energy to stay up late at night to watch the matches.   But will try to catch any of the matches that falls over the weekends.  If i was back home in Hyderabad, i would have stayed up late and watched all the matches with my dad.

My prediction of the toppers per group

Group A – France, Mexico
Group B – Argentina, Korea
Group C – England, USA
Group D – Germany, Australia
Group E – Netherlands, Denmark
Group F – Italy, Slovakia (guess)
Group G – Brazil, Portugal
Group H – Spain, Switzerland

May the best team win

Above world cup groups image courtesy: Eldirectorioargentino

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After years of talking to many industrial and retail houses, the French retail giant, Carrefour has agreed for a retail alliance with Kishore Biyani’s Future Group.

Future Group will open Carrefour-branded franchise stores in the country under a deal signed three months ago, said the two persons, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement is yet to be made.

Future Group plans to open between 150 and 300 Carrefour-branded hypermarkets in the next five years, said one of the two persons.

“This is quite ambitious given the challenges in finding right space required for such hypermarkets,” said the person.

Future Group, which runs Pantaloon and the Big Bazaar chains, will pay the French retailer a royalty for using the brand, said the person, who declined to specify the royalty amount.

Indian rules allow foreign multi-brand retailers to operate in the country only through franchise agreements with local firms.

Carrefour has been scouting for a partner for several years, without success. It has previously held talks with Bharti Enterprises Ltd, which teamed up with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Wadia Group, and real estate firms DLF Ltd and MGF Ltd, among others.

In 2007, Carrefour started two separate units in India, Carrefour WC and C India Pvt. Ltd to roll out fully owned wholesale stores, and Carrefour India Master Franchise Co. Pvt. Ltd, which was to partner an Indian company to open the French firm’s branded stores in the country.

Full article here

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