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Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times is one of my favourite columnists. One of her specialities is to roast companies that spew out meaningless bullshit in their communications and press releases. She even hands out annual Golden Flannel Awards for the worst corporate gobbledygook. She's at her best today canning Mondelez (The Oreos to Cadbury company). The company's marketing head quit and this is what they had to say about finding a successor " Our search for a successor will focus on finding a digital-first, disruptive and innovative leader who can build on Dana’s legacy and mobilise breakthrough marketing in a rapidly changing global consumer landscape" Every word is a cliché and the sentence says absolutely nothing other than mouth inanities. Does it make you any wiser who they are going to hire ? She has , over the years, mocked at meaningless drivel, quoting such outstanding examples as these From Burberry - "In the wholesale channel, Burberry exited doo...

Did you see the news item about a flying car, revealed by Kitty Hawk, a Silicon Valley startup funded by Google's founder, Larry Page ? If you didn't , watch the video below I now petition Kitty Hawk that the best place in the world to launch it first would be in Bangalore. Everybody knows that a basic version of this already exists in the wonderful city's roads , for after all, a two wheeler can come from all 360 degrees to dent your car even  today. But passing over that lightly, let's examine how and why this would be a major hit in Bangalore Everybody who works in the world famous Ecospace building would buy it immediately. Ecospace is the world's first building where traffic jams are inside the building area and not outside. Average mean time currently for exiting from parking and coming to the gate is 45 mts. With a flying car, the coder will simply jump out of his office window in it and zoom away.  Similarly coders in cubby holes in every other monstrosity -...

I am an Indian citizen. I have no right to vote in the US elections. That's fine - US citizens can make their own choices on who to govern them. But when the US starts passing laws that affect the world, expects global compliance and which  have global consequences, then I am not prepared to keep quiet. Nowhere is the US effect more on other country citizens than in the area of finance. If it starts a war, as it did in Iraq, at least I am not affected too much and its unlikely that the US will start a war with India. But Trump, by the act of trying to roll back Dodd Frank,  is directly affecting me and is therefore fair game in being virulently criticised. Dodd Frank what ? Yes that's a fair question as unless you are a student of economics you may not have come across the Dodd Frank Act. Here's the context in layman terms - Remember the financial crisis of a decade ago. It was caused by global financial behemoths (mainly US based) going crazy - Post the crisis, the Obama a...

France goes to the polls on Sunday to elect a new President. If you haven't been following this election, then you are missing something. It's a very crucial election and is much more fun for an outsider to follow than the US Presidential elections. This blog largely tries to steer clear of political issues and focuses on the economic ones. So, although this blogger has strong views on the candidates and knows who he would vote for if he had a vote, he will avoid discussing that here. Instead, the focus is strictly on economic policies, which is of course, only one dimension of evaluating any candidate. Who's the most dangerous of them all economically ? If the pat answer is Marine Le Pen, a more polished version of Trump, think again. Introducing Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far left candidate who is currently surging in the polls . Nearly 20% of France want him as President . Here are his economic policies, without comment 90% tax rate for those earning more than Euro 400,000 ...

When this blogger started blogging in 2009, his very first post was titled " What is American goods, anyway ? " Eight years later, when returning back from a two year hiatus in blogging,  the same theme resurfaces as the second innings of blogging is started. The trigger for this post is of course Trump's executive order titled the same as this post, which he signed with much fanfare three days ago.  The order , of course, is pure bombast and is only meant to show that the President is doing "something". It simply orders the Secretary of Commerce to tell the world what the hell this means in 60 days and orders sundry other Ramamrithams to specify how it will be implemented  in 150 days. I was not aware that you need an Executive Order to tell people to do their jobs, but apparently in the world of alternative reality, that is required. Precious little, other than nuisance value, will come of it. For you see, in today's globalised world of supply chains it i...