The Indian Premier League (IPL) - economics

Today is the final cricket match between the Chennai superkings (led by M S Dhoni) and the Rajasthan Royals (led by Shane Warne)!

Redefining cricket has once again been attempted with great pomp and flourish deacades after the great Kerry Packer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Packer) introduced the world series cricket in Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_overs_cricket).

Please also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cricket

Lalit Modi (the scion of the $2billion, Modi enterprise) has done just that with the fusion of India’s icons – the cricketers themselves who are auctioned, the owners of the teams (each IPL cricketing state has been bought out by the bigwigs), the Bollywood actors, the large # of spectators and of course, the television viewers in millions of viewers across over 100 countries.

Its been a success – without doubt, but is this the key to the future of world cricket?

One year PG Diploma in Intellectual Property Rights Law - NLSIU

Before I begin this post, this is my mantra since the last few years when I have been exposed to this: I have a fondness for IP creation or Intellectual Property creation and this blog probably stands testimony to that fact! Which better place than to study IPR law from India’s topmost institute - National law school of India University (NLSIU).

I have written about this earlier too: http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/captive-product-units/

A re-look at consulting

I did some look n feel changes to my blog appearance because I was tired of the old design. I also changed the tagline from “The economic rationale of the 21st century” to “Consulting|Technology|International business” as this is what we want this blog to serve in future posts.

A year later — a sneak preview / status of the Devanahalli airport and Bangalore real estate sector

We are still stuck there though things are looking better this year. Though real estate activity in and around Devanahalli area has heated up (the government has raised the guidance value per acre to almost Rs. 7 crores in main Devanahalli township) but any large projects are yet to see the light of the day. There is a huge water shortage in Devanahalli - its basically barren land and our guide from L&T had told us the same thing last year too. So, things have not improved on that. But, if Dubai can improve by building an Oasis in the middle of a desert, our politicians can tear a leaf out of the Dubai story and make Devanahalli better indeed.

Ecofinglobe.com and its statistics from an year ago

I was chancing to look upon my blog’s readership and it has skyrocketed in last few months. To give you an idea of how much the readership for http://www.ecofin.wordpress.com has gone up by, Alexa rating has shown a consistent rise in my webpage ranking (it currently stands at 755139 worldwide and its India ranking is better at 58137. Furthermore, my year old blog stats shows my blog to have averaged 9999 hits way in May 2007. The current count stands at 77791.

Above means nothing if people don’t read posts. Simple page views/hits serve no value absolutely. The most important indicator that indicates the health status of a blog is its post:comment ratio. My blog’s average post:comment ratio is at about 1:2. This means, for every post I put up, I get double the # of comments. This ratio was about 2:1 last year at about the same time and it had not even reached breakeven. So, it is a satisfaction that my blog is a success in terms of these critical metrics.

Thank you, all for making this blog readable! Its only my readers who can turnaround this blog and I hope to keep you as repeat readers so the value of this blog is enhanced further!

Keep visiting back - you know where to look for me: http://www.ecofinglobe.com!

Book review — Harvard business review — Finding and keeping the best people

Makes sense for me to read this since this is something I need to do at work day in and day out.

Will post a detailed review once done.

Derivatives, the sub prime mess, US recession, Bear Stearns bailout by the Fed/JPMChase

 We know this story so we will not repeat this again: JP Morgan Chase set to acquire Bear Stearns for a paltry $2 a share - based on the transaction price of March 14th 2008!

http://www.bearstearns.com/sitewide/our_firm/press_releases/content.htm?d=03_16a_2008

http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=299805&ReleaseType=Current

You can refer to the following article to get the update from the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) on Bear Stearns - NYSE: BSC(http://www.bearstearns.com/) and its survival thanks to the revival package of the Fed and JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120580966534444395.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

Another delay in the Devanahalli International airport opening!

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/a-visit-to-the-devanhalli-international-airport/ 

It looks like even without a formal Government, the administration in Karnataka is equally laggard when it comes to taking quick decisions.

This airport project has again been delayed by another 1-month (the earlier date given was end of March 2008). Moreover, there has been enough hue and cry on whether to keep the HAL airport catering to needs of domestic travel since the Devanahalli International airport is not yet well connected from the city center with the typical delays that are entrenced in any Indian social sector project.

Texas Instruments - BA II Plus Professional Financial calculator acquired!

I bought this advanced financial calculator (the Texas Instruments BA II PLUS Professional) for all my complicated calculations and to manage my portfolio of assets. Actually, this is primarily used only by CFA’s and CPA’s as its one of the only two authorized calculators for their examinations etc. Its cool!

Some macro economic predictions for 2008

Here’s a caveat: I fully understand economic predictions are foolhardy and its a bunch of crap since it is not something that can be predicted. Famous investors such as billionnaire Warren Buffett etc. also share the same viewpoints about economic predictions not being practical due to the changing dynamics of economies worldwide!

I still choose to defy this and some of my predictions for 2008 are as follows. Do not worry - I will not try to state the obvious and this is a result of some tad bit of analytical analysis thrown in for it to have some meaning.