Shyam Mehta's Material
Dec 13
“50 million: The number of people worldwide who have a mobile phone but that do not have electricity at home.”
— The mobile web in numbers | Royal Pingdom (via courtenaybird)
(via courtenaybird)
China created the subprime crisis
An interesting aspect of the subprime crisis is that its difficult to point a finger at one event, reason, person, institution or decision. A number of reasons have been cited for the cause of the crisis, however, China’s pegging of the foreign currency has rarely been mentioned as a major cause.
The dollar was pegged to the renmenbei at an artificially low level. This incentivized a surge in
exports from China, resulting in an influx of foreign currency, primarily the dollar. This created a current account surplus, which represents excess domestic savings over domestic investments. These excess savings were transfered by the Chinese into the safest possible investment - US Treasuries driving treasury yields to significantly low levels. Treasuries, therefore, lost their glitter in being an attractive form of investment from private investors forcing them to hunt for higher yield. Around the same time, savvy investment bankers in wall street packaged a number of junk and sub-investment grade securities into CDO’s and MBS’s and sold these relatively high yielding structures to private investors painted as “safe” investments. They even convinced rating agencies to give them shining credit ratings. Interest rates in the US being alarmingly low, only led to excessive borrowing from investors into these structures which eventually led to a multiplication effect of similar risky structures which were about to explode. The record low level of interest rates (although gradually increased), along with extraordinary low treasure yields did not rationalize the demand for the risky investments. This eventually led to the sub-prime crisis, once housing princes started declining.
Although the explosion of the risky mortgage structures was inevitable, a full blown subprime crisis with far reaching effects of bankrupt countries to failing institutions to hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, could have been prevented if China let its currency float.
Aug 14
(Source: bippityboppityboo)
“Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes…just be an illusion.”
— Unknown (via kari-shma)
(Source: kari-shma)
Jul 27
Things that I like
Being in an environment where I am involved in making important decisions that are interesting to me.
Things I want to do
1. Improv classes
2. Become a Mash-Up DJ
3. Become very good at the guitar
4.
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
— Mahatma Gandhi (via justbesplendid)
Jan 20
justbesplendid:
m-altruism:
The Beatles in 1957. George Harrison is 14, John Lennon is 16, and Paul McCartney is 15.
http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html
Culture is the non-genetic transmission of behavioral styles to the next generation.
“Beat me” said that Mosachist.
“No” said the Sadist.
