Blood, Justice and Corruption: Why the Chinese Love Their Death Penalty - TIME

Blood, Justice and Corruption: Why the Chinese Love Their Death Penalty - TIME: "According to the Chinese professor Hu Xing Do, 99% of the corrupt officials will never be caught. The few who do get caught are simply considered unlucky, and even if their punishment is typically heavy, the dissuasive effect remains minimal. In addition, the calculation is that even if you are jailed for ten years on corruption charges, the total amount you that have obtained through bribes is largely superior to what you could have honestly earned during the same period."

Why Self-Expression Is Far More Valuable Than Dying With The Most Toys

Why Self-Expression Is Far More Valuable Than Dying With The Most Toys:----

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Yes, Jobs is a billionaire, but the money was secondary. Apple was ultimately a form of self-expression.

This is the basic philosophy which powers this site, and in the event you may have missed the Bonus Aphorisms below, here is a relevant sampling:

"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity."
(Douglas MacArthur)

"We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle)

"Success: To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, submitted by J.P. Bahner)

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
(Theodore Roosevelt, submitted by Kenneth R.)

"To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it -- who can say this is not greatness?(William Makepeace Thackeray, submitted by U.Doran)

"The way of the Tao is reversal." (Lao Tzu)

"Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur)

"It is neither necessary to hope to undertake, nor to succeed to persevere." (William of Orange)

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)

"Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi)

"All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns." (Bruce Lee)

"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it." (Bruce Lee)

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." (George Orwell)

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." (Leo Tolstoy)

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/dont-despair-its-the-new-normal-part-ii-2011-5#ixzz1NAznjf3g

Truth about Private Equity: Going the Way of the Dodo

Private Equity: Going the Way of the Dodo? - Deal Journal - WSJ: Private-equity fund managers went out of business last year at the fastest rate since records began 10 years ago and another 150 firms are forecast to disappear this year.

Bloomberg News

“Dodo Bird” by Christy Rup, part of the 2010 ‘Dead or Alive’ exhibit at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design.

People in the industry say the figures provide the first hard evidence that the private-equity business has peaked.

Data provider Preqin said 183 fund managers are now in run-off–when firms divest assets and make no new investments–more than double the 90 in run-off in 2009. Being in run-off is the private-equity equivalent of going out of business.

The data provider said its figures are based on firms that have raised no new funds for 10 years despite having spent their previous fund-raising proceeds.

The number of firms going out of business has been climbing since the financial crisis hit in 2007. In contrast, only 13 firms went bust during the dotcom crash of 2000. The total number of private-equity managers now stands at 4,146.

Preqin estimates that about 150 firms will go out of business this year, based on those who last raised funds in 2001.

William Charnley, a partner in law firm Mayer Brown’s corporate practice, said it was no surprise that the number of funds in run-off had risen. He said that if a firm couldn’t raise a fund, it would be unable to survive.

Leverage (finance) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leverage (finance) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Financial institutions were highly levered. Lehman Brothers, for example, in its last annual financial statements, showed accounting leverage of 30.7 times ($691 billion in assets divided by $22 billion in stockholders’ equity).[25] Bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukis determined that the true accounting leverage was higher, it had been understated due to dubious accounting treatments including “repo 105” (Allowed by Ernst & Young LLP).[26] Accounting leverage is the ratio usually cited by the press."

LRB · Donald MacKenzie · How to Make Money in Microseconds

LRB · Donald MacKenzie · How to Make Money in Microseconds: "The most common execution algorithm, known as a volume-weighted average price or VWAP algorithm (it’s pronounced ‘veewap’), does its slicing in a slightly different way, using statistical data on the volumes of shares that have traded in the equivalent time periods on previous days."

Samkhya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samkhya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samkhya the olderst branch of the Hindu philosophy is an enumerationist philosophy that is strongly dualist.[4][5][6] Samkhya denies the existence of Ishvara (God) or any other exterior influence.[7]

Regulating the Shadow Banking System | Institute for New Economic Thinking

Regulating the Shadow Banking System | Institute for New Economic Thinking

One way to think about shadow banking is that it is just the mirror image of this new-line asset management strategy. Shadow banks bought risky bonds, but sold off the risk exposure using derivatives, and funded the portfolio in wholesale money markets. The key point is that the division of old-line asset management into new-line management on the one hand, and shadow banking on the other, showed up statistically as a simultaneous increase in the demand and supply of money.

BRETTON WOODS II 265 and new economy

BRETTON WOODS II 265:

"Keynesian economics have been portrayed as a cure to the Western world’s postwar devastation, in that governments were liberated of money creation restrictions imposed by the gold standard, even while global financiers controlled much of the world’s gold like they do now. Governments, under the new paradigm after the war, were encouraged to promote economic growth and macroeconomic stability by creating more debt-based money for everything that ailed the economy—debt that has brought most of the world’s economies to the brink of bankruptcy."

-------------------------

-------------------------

Now Soros comes along as the new Keynes to save the day by proposing another miracle solution to our problems, couched in lofty doublespeak such as “reform,” “cooperation” and “equal participation.” Soros is proposing the end of sovereignty as we know it.

“Reorganizing the world order will need to extend beyond the financial system,” Soros wrote in his opinion piece.

Soros is saying that a washed-up America should be replaced by a world government with a global currency under UN rule. He also advocates that China should be top dog while we play second fiddle. What Soros doesn’t say is that two decades of outsourcing U.S. industry, opening the borders and bankrupting the economy with pointless wars and other debacles have been intentionally orchestrated so that now international bankers can tell the world the system is broken and that the individuals who broke it need to show us how to fix it.

55% of mobile users miss cheapest deals because their handset is locked | Money | guardian.co.uk

55% of mobile users miss cheapest deals because their handset is locked | Money | guardian.co.uk :-

In fact, it is legal to unlock locked phones, but some mobile networks charge customers £17 on average to carry out the service, meaning consumers could collectively pay out £430m to liberate their mobiles. More than half of respondents (57%) believe unlocking should be offered by their network provider free of charge.

Cadence Announces Breakthrough in System Development to Meet Demands of "App-driven" Electronics :-

Cadence Announces Breakthrough in System Development to Meet Demands of "App-driven" Electronics

Industry-first Suite Approach Bridges Hardware and Software, Reduces System Integration Time by Up to 50 percent

SAN JOSE, Calif., 03 May 2011 -- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced a breakthrough in electronic design with a new suite of products that promises to cut system integration time by up to half for next-generation designs. Bringing hardware and software development closer together than ever before, the suite features four connected platforms that enable hardware-software co-design from architectural-level development through to prototyping. While some companies focus on a portion of the development cycle, no one company has offered the full suite of hardware-software development platforms until now.

"The acceleration of design complexity is even faster than we predicted a year ago, when we first discussed the disruptive transformation happening in system design," said John Bruggeman, senior vice president and CMO, Cadence. "Product development cycles are shrinking to as little as six months, putting undue pressure on design teams who must work 24/7 to deliver competitive systems – and even then there is a high risk that their designs won't see the light of day. Our suite provides a level of connection between hardware and software that hasn't existed until now and will not only enable the most efficient design methods possible, but will redefine the system design process moving forward."

Four Essential Platforms for System Development

The Cadence System Development Suite features two new products--the Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform and the Cadence Virtual System Platform--and connects them to the market-leading Cadence Palladium® XP Verification Computing Platform and Cadence Incisive® Verification Platform. The suite uniquely implements an integrated flow with a common environment that enables system engineers to migrate quickly from one development phase to another.

"The Cadence System Development Suite is an industry first, providing a development continuum that enables engineers to have a seamless migration path through the design phases," said Nimish Modi, senior vice president for the System and Software Realization Group at Cadence. "This integrated flow embodies the open, connected and scalable tenets of our approach to System Realization and provides a significant breakthrough in addressing the challenges of early software development and hardware/software convergence, leading to a dramatic reduction in development schedules."

Smooth Migration from Emulation to FPGA-based Prototyping

The Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform includes off-the-shelf FPGA boards with capacities of up to 30 million ASIC gates, supports standard ASIC flows and provides fast design mapping, multi-FPGA automatic partitioning and industry leading FPGA place & route tools. Its unified environment with the Cadence Verification Computing Platform enables the fast and smooth migration of designs from emulation to FPGA-based prototyping. It delivers high-performance and affordable replicates for early software development and for running exhaustive regression tests while leveraging and sharing the fast bring-up times, superior debug capabilities and comprehensive SpeedBridge® adapters' portfolio of the Cadence Verification Computing Platform.Multiple Views of Hardware, Software, Memories and Registers

The Cadence Virtual System Platform is a software development platform built on top of abstracted hardware models, approaching real-time speeds. It delivers an integrated and fully synchronized multi-core hardware software debug environment, with multiple views of hardware, software, memories and registers enabling system analysis and tight handshake between hardware and software teams. Combined with the Cadence Incisive Verification Platform, it delivers mixed TLM/RTL unified simulation and common metric-driven verification methodology, reducing the risk of discrepancies between the abstracted hardware model and the eventual RTL. Finally, it accelerates the process of platform creation through automation by enabling customers to quickly build highly configurable transaction-level non-processors hardware models and utilize high-performance processor models delivered by ARM and other third parties.

Introduced today at industry events in Silicon Valley and Munich, Germany, the Cadence System Development Suite is a great leap forward in Cadence System Realization technology, delivering against the EDA360 vision, which cites the need for greater technology integration--bridging silicon, SoC and system--to maximize profits.

"We have used Cadence emulation products for many years, including the Cadence Verification Computing Platform, for system validation on our most important projects, such as NVIDIA Tegra processors," said Narendra Konda, director of engineering at NVIDIA. "But with increased software content and multi-core designs, today's electronics systems have become substantially more complex and require a more robust set of technologies to meet time to market and ensure quality. Accordingly, we have deployed the broader Cadence System Development Suite, with elements such as the Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform offering immediate incremental value."

"In order to streamline the system development process of ARM-based designs, we have collaborated with Cadence extensively over the last 10 years. The new Cadence approach of delivering a single environment for virtual prototyping, emulation and FPGA-based prototyping is clearly a need for future complex designs," said Joe Convey, director of Design Enablement at ARM. "Continuing our collaboration to link the Cadence System Development Suite with ARM IP will enable our mutual customers with a pathway to product success."

The Cadence System Development Suite includes the award-winning Cadence Palladium XP Verification Computing Platform, Cadence Incisive® Verification Platform and Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform, which are immediately available; and the Cadence Virtual System Platform, currently in use with early adopters and widely available later this year.

About Cadence

Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software and hardware, methodologies, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

Supplemental Quotes

Altera

"The density of our Stratix® IV FPGAs makes them an ideal device to be used in FPGA-based prototyping systems, and the new Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform takes full advantage of the device's capabilities," said Vince Hu, vice president of product and corporate marketing at Altera. "Additionally, the productivity leadership of Altera's Quartus II software makes it a great match for the Cadence mission of reducing system integration time. We are excited to be joining with Cadence in providing the next generation of FPGA-based prototyping solution to our customers."

ARM

"In order to streamline the system development process of ARM-based designs, we have collaborated with Cadence extensively over the last 10 years. The new Cadence approach of delivering a single environment for virtual prototyping, emulation and FPGA-based prototyping is clearly a need for future complex designs," said Joe Convey, director of Design Enablement at ARM. "Continuing our collaboration to link the Cadence System Development Suite with ARM IP will enable our mutual customers with a pathway to product success."

CircuitSutra

"Virtual prototype models are challenging to create," said Umesh Sisodia, chief executive officer at CircuitSutra. "Our collaboration with Cadence combines our expertise developing high-performance models for software development with the Cadence System Development Suite for hardware/software development and verification. Customers find these services invaluable to rapidly adopt new methodology and achieve success on their project."

Creative Strategies

"Time to market is today's profit predictor in the electronics industry," said analyst Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. "It's clear that we can't keep piling on complexity and expect products to be created in the same development window. There has to be a change in the way electronics are created. The Cadence view of system development is intriguing and has the potential to change not only the development process, but enable the technology advances we have come to expect with every new generation of phone, tablet, car or even washing machine."

Duolog

"At Duolog, we recognize that a comprehensive data management solution is essential for complex IP-based SoC assembly," said Norman Walsh, chief operating officer at Duolog Technologies. "The Cadence System Development Suite provides the key connections between platforms to improve team productivity, and extend into the vitally important area of software development. The collaboration between Cadence and Duolog can harness the power of our industry-leading Socrates platform to give our customers more efficient, interoperable and scalable solutions for their SoC development flow."

Gartner

"System integration time is a key element of success for next-generation consumer products and gets more challenging with each successive generation," said Paul O'Donovan, principal research analyst in Gartner's Semiconductors research group. "The integration of hardware and software in these system designs is a must for companies that hope to sustain shrinking product development cycles in an ever competitive and demanding consumer electronics market."

Imperas

"We have collaborated with Cadence to address the most vexing challenges for today's system development teams," said Simon Davidmann, president and chief executive officer at Imperas. "We've created optimized interoperability of our Open Virtual Platform simulator with the Cadence Virtual System Platform to uniquely address software verification, analysis, and performance optimization. We provide the industry's widest selection of models, and our Imperas OVP fast models of MIPS, ARM, Power Architecture and Renesas processors execute at hundreds of millions of instructions per second and provide system introspection available only with Imperas."

Magillem

"New design methodologies for building hardware and software involve concurrent development techniques and consolidation of design data," said Cyril Spasevski, chief technology officer at Magillem. "Creation and assembly of transaction-level models are the key barriers for customers to effectively deploy virtual platform solutions. Collaborating with Cadence, we are combining their new Virtual System Platform, part of the Cadence System Development Suite, with Magillem ESL/RTL Platform Assembly to create a unique and complete system level through RTL front end design suite for front end integrators, IP and SOC verification engineers, and software platform engineers."

NVIDIA

"We have used Cadence emulation products for many years, including the Cadence Verification Computing Platform, for system validation on our most important projects, such as NVIDIA Tegra processors" said Narendra Konda, director of engineering at NVIDIA, "But with increased software content and multi-core designs, today's electronics systems have become substantially more complex and require a more robust set of technologies to meet time-to-market and ensure quality. Accordingly, we have deployed the broader Cadence System Development Suite with elements such as the Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform offering immediate incremental value."

VDC Research

"Today's consumer electronics companies are struggling to cram more and more capabilities in their products, and then get these remarkably complex devices on shelves faster than the competition," said Chris Rommel, senior analyst with VDC Research. "The Cadence System Development Suite offers an intriguing approach that may help these companies shrink the overall development time significantly through tighter integration throughout the various phases of system development."

Western Digital

"We are extensive users of emulation for RTL verification and FPGA-based prototyping for firmware/software development and system validation," said Raymond Sarraf, SoC validation manager at Western Digital. "The new Cadence System Development Suite will enable us to use a flow that connects the two technologies (the Cadence Palladium XP Verification Computing Platform and the Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform) for the first time. This means that we can quickly transition our designs between design flow stages, shortening bring-up and iteration times significantly, and avoiding duplication of efforts."

Vayavya

"Software driver creation and maintenance is very expensive for today's complex SoCs," said RK Patil, chief executive officer at Vayavya Labs. "Our firmware and device driver synthesis solution combines with every platform of the Cadence System Development Suite to speed hardware/software development, integration, and verification."

U.S. Business Has High Tax Rates but Pays Less - NYTimes.com

U.S. Business Has High Tax Rates but Pays Less - NYTimes.com

The paradox of the United States tax code — high rates with a bounty of subsidies, shelters and special breaks .

G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether - NYTimes.com

G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether - NYTimes.com

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.

In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.

Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.

Yet many companies say the current level is so high it hobbles them in competing with foreign rivals. Even as the government faces a mounting budget deficit, the talk in Washington is about lower rates. President Obama has said he is considering an overhaul of the corporate tax system, with an eye to lowering the top rate, ending some tax subsidies and loopholes and generating the same amount of revenue. He has designated G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, as his liaison to the business community and as the chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and it is expected to discuss corporate taxes.

||Yoga of Renunciation of Action||

||Yoga of Renunciation of Action||

"The ignorant people say that the yoga of knowledge and the yoga of action are different. But the learned ones do not say so. By achieving mastery in either of the two, one can attain the fruit of both."

[Chapter 5 verse 4]

Oil price list -Super gasoline & Diesel

GTZ International Fuel Price Survey – Data

Super Gasoline and Diesel Retail Prices as of mid-November 2008

8

Country

Super Gasoline

[US Cents/litre]

Diesel

[US Cents/litre]

Country

Super Gasoline

[US Cents/litre]

Diesel

[US Cents/litre]

Afghanistan 105 96 Bulgaria 128 137

Albania 136 131 Burkina Faso 138 133

Algeria 34 20 Burundi 139 123

Andorra 124 106 Cambodia 94 89

Angola 53 39 Cameroon 114 104

Antigua and Barbuda 111 n/a Canada 76 90

Argentina 78 58 Cape Verde 184 143

Armenia 108 111 Central African Republic 144 144

Australia 74 94 Chad 130 132

Austria 137 143 Chile 95 95

Azerbaijan 74 56 China 99 101

Bahrain 21 13 China, Hong Kong 195 116

Bangladesh 117 70 Colombia 104 73

Barbados 100 103 Congo, D.R. (Kinshasa) 123 121

Belarus 133 106 Congo, R. (Brazzaville) 81 57

Belgium 150 134 Costa Rica 124 110

Belize 70 53 Côte d'Ivoire 133 120

Benin 103 103 Croatia 127 137

Bhutan 91 n/a Cuba 167 151

Bolivia 68 53 Cyprus, South 128 125

Bosnia and Herzegovina 113 118 Czech Republic 137 145

Botswana 88 102 Denmark 154 154

Brazil 126 103 Dominican Republic 104 94

Brunei 38 21 Ecuador 51 27

Egypt 49 20 Indonesia 50 42

El Salvador 78 81 Iran 10* 3

Eritrea 253 107 Ireland 156 164

Estonia 118 130 Israel 137 170

Ethiopia 92 89 Italy 157 163

Fiji 115 104 Jamaica 74 84

Finland 157 139 Japan 142 130

France 152 145 Jordan 61 61

Gabon 114 90 Kazakhstan 83 72

Gambia 79 75 Kenya 120 114

Georgia 109 116 Korea, North (D.R.) 76 95

Germany 156 156 Korea, South (R.) 151 140

Ghana 90 90 Kosovo 110 121

Greece 123 141 Kuwait 24 20

Grenada 128 134 Kyrgyzstan 80 88

Guadeloupe 181 154 Lao PDR 92 76

Guatemala 86 82 Latvia 112 123

Guinea 102 102 Lebanon 76 76

Guyana 84 85 Lesotho 79 93

Haiti 116 89 Liberia 77 103

Honduras 80 80 Libya 14 12

Hungary 127 138 Liechtenstein 130 152

Iceland 115 131 Lithuania 113 122

India 109 70 Luxembourg 140 133

Macedonia 115 112 Pakistan 84 77
Madagascar 155 143 Palestine (W. Bank and Gaza) 134 125
Malawi 178 167 Panama 67 68
Malaysia 53 53 Papua New Guinea 94 90
Mali 130 110 Paraguay 117 96
Malta 166 156 Peru 142 99
Mauritania 149 106 Philippines 91 81
Mexico 74 54 Poland 143 140
Moldova 120 104 Portugal 161 147
Monaco 164 155 Qatar 22 n/a
Mongolia 138 142 Romania 111 122
Montenegro 127 121 Russian Federation 89 86
Morocco 129 83 Rwanda 137 137
Mozambique 171 137 Saudi Arabia 16 9
Myanmar (Burma) 43 52 Senegal 135 126
Namibia 78 88 Serbia 129 114
Nepal 113 82 Sierra Leone 91 91
Netherlands 168 145 Singapore 107 90
New Zealand 109 85 Slovakia 157 168
Nicaragua 87 82 Slovenia 118 126
Niger 99 97 Somalia 112 115
Nigeria 59 113 South Africa 87 95
Norway 163 163 Spain 123 128
Oman 31 38 Sri Lanka 143 75

Sudan 65 45 Uzbekistan 135 75
Sudan, South 159 125 Venezuela 2 1
Suriname 91 n/a Vietnam 80 77
Swaziland 86 93 Yemen 30 17
Sweden 138 152 Zambia 170 161
Switzerland 130 152 Zimbabwe 130 105
Syria 85 53
Tahiti (French Polynesia) 158 139
Taiwan (China) 64 69
Tajikistan 103 100
Tanzania 111 130
Thailand 87 64
Timor-Leste (East Timor) 122 135
Togo 89 88
Trinidad and Tobago 36 n/a
Tunisia 96 84
Turkey 187 163
Turkmenistan 22 20
Uganda 130 122
Ukraine 88 96
United Arab Emirates 45 62
United Kingdom 144 165
United States 56 78
Uruguay 118 117

Petrol price in India -the complex unclear story

The Government appears to be the net beneficiary from

the current tax system while oil companies appear to be loosing out. The net position of the

consumer, and tax payer, is not clearly determined. There a several implications from the

current situation that should be considered in future policy decisions.

http://www.iea.org/work/2006/gb/papers/petroleum_product_pricing.pdf

Mark-to-Market Accounting Basics

Mark-to-Market Accounting Basics :-

Mark-to-Market Accounting: What You Should Know

By Alex Dumortier, CFA | More Articles
October 2, 2008 | Comments (15)

Don't let it get away!

Keep track of the stocks that matter to you.

Help yourself with the Fool's FREE and easy new watchlist service today.

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You know you're in a financial crisis when a technical accounting rule becomes front-page news. The financial rescue bill the Senate approved yesterday includes a heavy-handed signal to the SEC to consider suspending "mark-to-market" (MTM) accounting.

Applying MTM accounting has forced banks to recognize billions of dollars in losses on mortgage-related securities; critics contend the practice has worsened the credit crisis. Are they right?

What is mark-to-market accounting?
Loans and securities make up the bulk of a bank's assets. Thus, the method you use to establish values for these securities when preparing your financial statements affects shareholders' equity. (Shareholders' equity = assets – liabilities, remember?) That, in turn, has an effect on a bank's profit and loss statement.

Mark-to-market accounting sets the value of (or "marks") the assets on your balance sheet to reflect their market sale prices. In theory, that all sounds nice and clean. In practice, things get a little messier.

All the way down to Level 3 hell
Not all securities are as liquid as Microsoft shares, for which anyone can look up the price on the Internet at any given moment. Some mortgage securities may not even trade once a day; what prices will you use for those?

To address this, there is a hierarchy of assets, with a set of guidelines for each:

• Level 1 assets have market prices.
• Level 2 assets don't have market prices; they're marked at fair value based on a model. The model is fed with inputs for which there are market prices (prices of similar securities, interest rates, etc.).
• Level 3 assets don't have available market prices for the model inputs, forcing the people preparing the financial statements to make assumptions about those inputs' values.

As you can imagine, in a market like this one, the resulting value for Level 3 assets may be highly questionable. "Mark-to-imagination" might be a more suitable term in this case.

(I wonder how Warren Buffett factored that into his decision to invest in General Electric(NYSE: GE ) ? After all, GE Capital has nearly $16 billion in Level 3 assets on its books.)

Does the market always know best?
The problem with MTM accounting is that it relies on the notion that the market is an asset's best arbiter of value. Most of the time, that's a fair assumption, but it breaks down in a market crisis. When investors are gripped by fear, panic-selling can produce prices way out of whack with underlying asset values. Worse, a market may stop trading altogether.

Even the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the SEC issued a clarification of the accounting rule known as FAS 157 on Tuesday, saying that the price of "disorderly" trades (distressed selling or forced liquidations) isn't "determinative" when measuring fair value. And since it's difficult to imagine a market more disorderly than the one we're in right now, when it comes time to do the books, accountants are basically taking a guess and hoping for the best.

The resulting uncertainty creates a very real problem. The Bank for International Settlements (basically, "the central bankers' central bank") has suggested that applying mark-to-market accounting to triple-A-rated subprime mortgage securities, using the ABX index -- which tracks the current market value of such securities -- as an input, could overstate expected total losses by as much as 60%.

Your credit is no good. Here's your reward!
In addition to muddying up asset values, MTM accounting creates a mirror problem on theliability side of the balance sheet. Paradoxically, as the price of a bank's bonds falls (indicating that the market believes the bank's risk has increased), banks have been able to report these changes as gains on the income statement. The riskier the bank becomes, the richer it gets -- on paper, at least.

Here's how it works: The bonds a bank issues are part of its liabilities. When their value decreases, shareholders' equity technically increases. (Remember, shareholders' equity = assets – liabilities.)

We're not talking small numbers here, either. In 2007, Citigroup (NYSE: C ) , Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER ) , Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS ) , Lehman Brothers (OTC BB: LEHMQ.PK), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ) , and Bear Stearns (now part of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) ) booked $12 billion in aggregate gains related to this rule.

A prophetic vision from 2005
But wait -- it gets even worse. A farsighted academic paper from 2005 suggests that mark-to-market accounting amplifies the boom-bust cycle in asset prices. Especially in a financial crisis, it can magnify the level of distress. If the authors are correct, mark-to-market accounting may not be superior even with a normally functioning market and plenty ofliquidity.

According to the same paper, mark-to-market accounting also fuels the "reach for yield," as we witnessed in abundance during the run-up to the crisis. With interest rates near historical lows and the credit faucet running full blast, banks and investors took on massive amounts of (mispriced) risk just to earn a few extra basis points of interest. The only predictable outcome of this large-scale phenomenon: the massive losses now devastating the banking system.

Based on my preliminary research, I think that the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the SEC should reconsider the legitimacy of MTM accounting. That said, suspending or abolishing the practice isn't a cure-all for the banking crisis. Even under current rules, bankers already have enormous discretion in how they choose to value their most troublesome, least liquid assets.

Kellblog | The official blog of Dave Kellogg

Kellblog | The official blog of Dave Kellogg

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Completeness

> Features and functions

> Interface to existing ecosystem

> Ease of installation

Correctness

>Value to customers

> Reliability

> Ease of servicing

Fit

> Ease of use

> Suitability for environment

MARKETING

Positioning

> Competitive analysis

> Market segmentation

> Marketing messages

> Proof of value proposition (ROI)

> Packaging

Promotion

> Collateral materials

> Advertising, shows, and PR

> Customer testimonials

Pricing

> Across market segments

> Across channels

SALES

Distribution Channels

> Number and type

> Channel support and training

Sales Force

> Sales model

> Sales pitch

>Training and development

> Lead generation

>Technical support

Sales Stage

> Learning

> Development

> Expansion

Why So Few Ended Up in Jail After the Financial Crisis

Why So Few Ended Up in Jail After the Financial Crisis: "As the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission noted in January, 'at least 10,500 people with criminal records entered the [mortgage-broker] field in Florida, including 4,065 who had previously been convicted of such crimes as fraud, bank robbery, racketeering, and extortion.'"

Just a highlight though .