Too top heavy…

Many companies are becoming like the film industry. Too much of the people costs are towards the ‘star’ – which leaves very little budget for other costs. Take a movie like Paa. It could NEVER have made money if Amitabh and Abhishek were to be paid market rates. However since it was a family made [...]

The death of a child…children are not supposed to die no?

“My favorite grandson passed away……” read my sms – my neighbor of 40 years was sending it to me on Jhanmashtami. Hey Krishna what is this..was the only thing I could ask the Lord…this cannot be a birthday cruelty God..then I realised why I was at a loss of words. Orphan, Widow, Widower,…are all words [...]

Highest tax paying people…

Who pays the highest amount of tax in the country? Mr. Ambani? or Mr. Narayanamurthy? Well neither. Let us see the life history of a typical government or a bank employee. They join for service after a competitive exam – after that they are happy to hold on to that job for life. They earn [...]

The Great American Mind!

If all actions are reactions why are Americans hated? Well this is a finance site..so let me stick to what I know. Almost all literature we have read on equity markets is American. The great American investors have written all this literature in the past 50-100 years. This was the time when American companies (fairly [...]

US is wrong!

If you read all my posts you will find that I am not such a big US hater, but yes they have got many things wrong. First of all I find the way of calculating GDP is so bad (all over the world including India) that it sucks. For example if there is a big [...]

Capital Gains status: Direct tax code?

There is no clarity about what happens to the Capital Gains under the Direct tax code. There is one school of thought that the status quo ante has been maintained. This means that short term cap gains will be at 10% and long term cap gains will be at 0% in case of equities and [...]