The Fine Art

call it "ingratiating", "brownnosing", "assmosis". loathe it..ignore it.. it is there at all the workplaces and works too!

Business 2.0 article has more to say on this fine art

Evolutionary or Revolutionary

Microsoft has been promoting their Tablet PC for about a year now. Whether they succeed or not, we will have to wait and see.

But one thing is sure, I would definitely prefer it over a laptop and will not mind shelling out a few hundred dollars more (once i have those ;)).

Its about Money, Honey!... is it ?

These days when one is inundated with mails about iraq war - whys, hows, jokes and what not. One of them suggests that the war is all about using Euro instead of Dollar:

" In the last 50 years the US dollar is the main currency in the world. USD bills and coins are made in only one place Federal Reserve, USA (which is a consortium of private Jews banks) If France or any other country wants to buy anything for $50 million or more, they must "work" for those money. But if USA wants that money they need just to print those bills. That is what USA did in the last 50 years. They flooded the world with USD without having any gold coverage in the bank. That is why the American terms of trades have a huge budgetary deficit, which is about $2.5 trillions, and it is anticipated to grow in the next years. As per Bush budget plan the budgetary deficit will be $3.5 trillions in next 3 years that is 50% of the GDP.
This is just the beginning of the problem because Iraq is the first country from OPEC who stopped selling oil for USD and starts to sell oil for EURO. On November 6th 2002 when 1EURO=0.8USD Iraq lost lots of money because they made this change. The investment was worth. Meanwhile EURO grew bigger than USD so as a result Iraq gains money. This was the big mistake that Iraq did and America will never forgive that. At least two OPEC countries (Iran and Syria) want to switch to EURO for the oil they sell. At the end all OPEC countries will switch to EURO. Including Venezuela who produces 7% of world oil, already sells part of the oil for EURO. That means Venezuela has changed half of reserve currency into EURO. Russia's central bank and China's central bank did the same. That's the reason there is a shortage of EURO and a surplus of USD on the international market. That's the reason the USD is falling and EURO in rising. This is the worst nightmare for American economy.
As per Alan Greenspan who prognoses a lost of 13 trillions of dollars just in the first phase. If EURO will become the world currency as USD was in the last 50 years the USD value will go down seriously. America won't be able to put printed USD on the market as they like, without gold coverage in the bank. Most countries will give away the USD and get EURO to buy oil from OPEC. The biggest investors will move from America to Europe. Living on debts and printed money will vanish. Already the USD is artificially kept by US political tricks with China, North Korea, Taiwan and Japan. These countries produce almost every product that USA needs. America is lending money to these countries. This way those countries can produce what is going to be sold back to America. The profits are going back to America to pay the debts. Bankers and economists have estimated long time ago that if Asia continues to support American dollar using such political tricks then American economy will go down badly. Asia will change to EURO because of the necessity of oil, which is coming from OPEC countries. So looks like Bush called "Axis of Evil" all countries which changed USD with EURO. They will attack these countries (Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela) and change the governments with new ones which do what America says. This way America will try to force these countries to use the USD again. This is the reason why Great Britain has not changed to EURO otherwise they could not be on American side. British are like fox as usual. If USA will win, than they will keep their pound, if EU stops the war Britain will switch to EURO which they just delayed to see what's going to happen despite that they lose money at the moment. The bet of this war is huge. If USA won't start the war then she will lose the superpower title, against the EU. That is why France and Germany would like to fight the whole battle. Iraq is just the beginning of the battle. Whoever is going to win this war will last much longer."

Another of those mails where people let their imagination run wild. I didn't quite agree with it and a little research took me to Paul Krugman's page. I could not have agreed more and the last line sums it all:
Of course, you may well ask, why then are these people so determined to have their war? The answer is because. Just because.  

The Vicks Story
Till yesterday, I thought Vicks was an indian brand. Currently I am reading a great book by Gurcharan Das called "India Unbound". It is one of the most insightful book that I have ever come across. check out the reviews.

coming back to story, Vicks was facing severe profit crunch and losses when all the chemists united and boycotted the product unless the company agreed to their demands. During one of these meetings, one of the manager joked about ayurvedic medicine. and bingo! they had an idea. They classified vaporub from western medicine to ayurvedic medicine after discussion with their lawyers, r&d. This enabled them to reach a greater market segment and vicks was available at anyone's neighbourhood store. In the words of Das himself "It seemed too good to be true".

So, just a change in classification got them out of the trouble. It is this kind of discontinuous, out-of-the-box ideas that is critical for the business to grow. The further effect of this classification was localization of the brand. Indian consumers were able to identify much more with the brand, and even do.

time to get back to the book..

Back to Square One
After much hullabaloo, Deloitte Consulting has decided NOT to seperate from the Audit Arm Deloitte Tousche Tohmatsu.

Thats a bold step considering the fact that every other Big four companies have seperated their consulting and audit arm and coming up with weird names as Monday (PWC), BearingPoint(KPMG, how can one bear this name is beyond me!!!!). Even Deloitte had such a name in mind (Braxton).

so no more Braxton. well.. what can i say Thanks a TON!

This is my first blog to let the world know that I exist!