Piece of my thoughts..

Mar 11, 2009

Wall Street - When profits are privatized and losses are socialized

Image by Jodene via Flickr

What happens, when bankers start looting? in daylight.. and, none is held accountable.. probably, another Great Depression.

There are more and more articles dissecting the fallout of the Lehman Brothers and the life after the shocker.

Series of bank failures, collapse of stock market, historic job losses, deficit state budgets, mounting jobless claims, rising foreclosures.. just a few among the long list of impact on the economy.

The greed of bankers and lack of moral ethics even in times of deep recession have been condemned in numerous instances. Merill Lynch giving away millions in staff bonuses, when the bank was requesting billions in bailout from the government.

How did it go unnoticed? Why didn't the economic experts predict it? Probably, not all of them. But, some did. Economists George Akerlof and Paul Romer questioned the system of running banks and the bankers' mentality in the 1990s.

The article "The Looting of America’s Coffers" from New York Times presents a great indepth into lessons learnt and lessons to learn to avoid another great recession. Following are the key excerpts from the article:

Promised bailouts mean that anyone lending money to Wall Street — ranging from small-time savers like you and me to the Chinese government — doesn’t have to worry about losing that money. The United States Treasury (which, in the end, is also you and me) will cover the losses.

The knowledge among lenders that their money will ultimately be returned, no matter what, clearly brings a terrible downside. It keeps the lenders from asking tough questions about how their money is being used.

When people are protected from the consequences of risky behavior, they behave in a pretty risky fashion. Bankers can make long-shot investments, knowing that they will keep the profits if they succeed, while the taxpayers will cover the losses.

Merrill Lynch’s losses from the last two years wiped out its profits from the previous decade.

Banks borrowed money from lenders around the world. The bankers then kept a big chunk of that money for themselves, calling it “management fees” or “performance bonuses.” Once the investments were exposed as hopeless, the lenders — ordinary savers, foreign countries, other banks, you name it — were repaid with government bailouts. In effect, the bankers had siphoned off this bailout money in advance, years before the government had spent it.

The federal government needs the power and the will to take over a firm as soon as its potential losses exceed its assets. Anything short of that is an invitation to loot.

The above excerpts and title are from the original article here at NYTimes. Recommended read.

Mar 5, 2009

Safari 4 browser - Awesome treat from Apple

I have been following Safari browser with utmost curiosity since its first release on Windows. Simplicity was good in the first release. The best performance rendering was another great thing(fastest browser in the market today!). But, certainly didn't have the touch of a Mac or iPhone kind of jazzy UI.With the release of Safari 4 beta, Apple has just blown away the competition showcasing what its best at. The GUI. The Safari 4 is already topping the charts on rendering performance, Acid Test 3 100% compliance and awesome UI.The browser brings in some of the jazzy features available in its existing line of products. Let the pictures speak the million words, that i can't express with :)

History Preview - Top Sites: Grabs your attention the moment you open it. Eventhough similar to Opera/Chrome preview, this has the Apple touch to make it 3d and jazzy.

Editing your history - Apple way!

Flip through history pages like albums - iTunes and iPhone thingy.

Tabbed browsing - a tinge of Google Chrome

Split out tabs into windows and stitch them back.This is a cool feature similar to Google Chrome. Inorder to drag a tab into a new window, click on the small bunch of stripes at the top right corner of a tab and drag it. The tab now becomes a separate Safari window/browser whichever way you like.To put them back together, just drag the tab into another tab. The tabs stitch together into a single browser.Surprising, there is a company that Apple likes to follow, atleast in some aspects. Voila Google!Bad news - Safari gobbled 225mb of memory and never gave it up till i had to kill the "beauty outside, beast inside" browser ;)

On the whole, Safari is very Apple with a taste of Chrome.

Feb 11, 2009

Downturn is the best time to invest.

Image by ...-Wink-... via Flickr

Downturn is the best time for a corporation to build a product or revamp an existing infrastructure. Average work is not acceptable any more. Only the outstanding can survive the downturn. And, every single person in the crowd knows that. So, everyone is going to give better than their best so far.

All the above state that, the quality of work and the value for money is at the highest now than ever. Moreover, this is the best time for organizations to build great products at very competitive cost, to have them ready when the economy springs back couple of months from now. Pulicat

To summarize, this is the best time for organizations to build products or start new initiatives. People are going to know their true potential by putting their best efforts ever to survive the downturn and trying out things they haven't done so far.

Jan 23, 2009

Recession or Depression - How bad will it be?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The current Recession is portrayed more as the upcoming Second Great Depression. Its the popular belief. Its the speculation that drives the economy. Its the way economy works. If you are still making good money, expect to be on job for the next 5 months, you have nothing to do with the Recession. Its just a personal thingy.

Technically, the entire globe is in great recession.

Newspapers, Magazines and Websites are churning out bad news and hopes to survive. This is my perception of how bad is the recession.

It's the worst recession since the great depression.

GM and Chrysler are on the verge on collapse. Bad decisions are the cause. It has always been so with these companies. They had respite from financial lenders. It's not going to be the case now. There is no money in the market and only the government can save these companies.

Toyota has announced loss for the first time in its 70 years history.

Microsoft is cutting jobs for the first time in its history.

Google cutting jobs for the first time.

The big US banks that once controlled the global economy don't exist anymore.

Circuit City closes chain, due to non-availability of credit for merchandise.

German billionaire tycoon Adolf Merckle commits suicide. Forbes 94th richest man on planet.

Typically in every recession, the signs are known towards the end of recession, meaning the turn around in economy is around the corner. The current recession signs seem to be just the beginning of worse.

Jan 21, 2009

When perfection becomes a curse

Image via WikipediaBeing perfect is associated with "Winning", "Pride", "Confidence" etc. But, being finicky about perfection can become a hurdle and cause negative impact on your personality.

That's the message from a recent article. It presents the uncommon perspective of being perfect.
But, nevertheless no one can deny that Perfection pays and distinguishes the creamy. We wouldn't have the great products like iPhone, Gmail, Bose or Facebook of today without someone's desire for perfection.

Here is the well written article.

Jan 15, 2009

Practice Management System as a Web Service

Image via WikipediaIn the current healthcare software market, three systems are critical and vital part of any health organization from small clinics to big hospitals. The PHR(Personal Health Record), Electronic Medical Record(EMR) and Practice Management System(PMS). In most cases, PHR and EMR are packaged together as a single software system. And, PMS is sold as separate software system. There are blurry lines between PMS and EMR features, as the features available are interchangeable and overlapping at times.

But, the two systems serve two totally different purposes.

PMS for administration such as scheduling, reports, accounting, claims processing, etc. While, EMR functionality revolves around the medical practice and PHR. There are good EMRs in the market and PMSs in the market. But, all of them are built as software and not as service to my knowledge.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to have PMS available as a service for EMR systems to integrate, thereby let the PMS do the job of scheduling, accounting etc in the background and just provide the results to the EMR. As electronic health records are gaining importance after decades of neglect, more and more EMRs are going to be built in the future. And, these systems are going to require PMS functionality, which can be either developed from scratch or integrate an existing PMS available as service. But, none of the existing PMS seem to offer the functionality as service. The existing PMS are available as only web apps.

My question: Are there PMS systems available as a web service that can be integrated into a newly developed EMR?

Jan 13, 2009

AR Rahman wins Golden Globe - A tribute!

The Genius, The Maestro, The most humble person on earth.. what not?? AR Rahman is the first Indian music composer to hit the world stage and at the same time keep the Indian flavor of music. He proved his genius with the Vande Mataram album for 50th year celebration of Indian Independence. The album was awe inspiring with soulful music, that just took the breathe away from every Indian across the globe. It recreated the magic of feeling patriotic again after 50 years of independence. And, continues to enthrall the global audience.

Winning the Golden Globe is a moment of pride of all AR Rahman fans and obviously Indians. It reflects in every single news article across global web sites. With the much anticipated Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire, every Indian is looking forward to ARR at Oscars. And, i am longing to see that happen :)

Watch the slides on the genius from a true, ardent, die-hard fan of ARR. Myself :)