India - How Big ?

Previously I've posted on the sheer size of Africa and also the size of USA states' economies in relation to other countries. This time it's India turn (ripped from The Economist). Have a play with the interactive map.

As The Economist writes:

If Uttar Pradesh were to declare independence, it would be the world’s fifth most populous country (as the map below shows, it has about the same number of residents as Brazil). Yet its economy would only be the size of Qatar, a tiny oil-rich state of fewer than 2m people. That makes it poor on a per person basis. Despite India’s two decades of rapid growth, Uttar Pradesh’s GDP per head is close to that of Kenya. The map below presents country equivalents for India’s states and territories in terms of GDP, GDP per person (in PPP terms) and population.

Warning

Milken

About a year ago I posted on the Milken Conference. This year's MC looks like a cracker. Lots of vids and there will be something for everyone - whether you're interested in clean tech, infrastructure, emerging markets investing, US-centric financial issues, medical technology, sports ownership, tax reform, social media or longevity. Check out the vids list here. 

Who is John Galt ?

Despite a bunch of Hollywood pinkos doing their best to ensure this film was never funded, it's been made. Whether it lives up to the book will be interesting.

Here's the trailer - Atlas Shrugged Part One:

Cycle Tours in the Gobi Desert

How 'bout some of these apples?

Where Not to Eat in Paris

Thankfully, I've never heard of this little sh*t hole. What a fantastic piece of restaurant reviewing from A.A. Gill. If this doesn't dent L’Ami Louis' income, nothing will. Here's a sample:

What you actually find when you arrive at L’Ami Louis is singularly unprepossessing. It’s a long, dark corridor with luggage racks stretching the length of the room. It gives you the feeling of being in a second-class railway carriage in the Balkans. It’s painted a shiny, distressed dung brown. The cramped tables are set with labially pink cloths, which give it a colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you might be a suppository. In the middle of the room is a stubby stove that also looks vaguely proctological.

Recent Reading

I've been asked for links to the best financial markets reading I've had in the last few months. I've read a lot of good stuff (and some bullshiitake), some of it subscription only, some of it free (and the paid stuff generally differs little in quality from the smarter free stuff). I especially focus on commentary + analysis style pieces - it's usually more useful and helps fade out the noise of the short-termism 'news'.

Anyway, from what I can remember of the good stuff, below is my list of four non-subscription must-reads. Even the Howard Marks note which is a quarter old, and the Xie article which is a few weeks old, are not yet dated reading (rather the contrary is true):

1. A GMO White Paper authored by James Montier: The Seven Immutable Laws of Investing. Montier is a member of GMO's Asset Allocation team, has authored a number of books on value investing and behavioural finance, and used to be the Co-Head of Global Strategy at Societe Generale. No link for this one as it's behind a free registration wall, so it's below:
   GMO - Montier March 2011
   
   
   
2. PIMCO Co-Founder & Co-CIO Bill Gross's March Investment Outlook note to investors;
   
   
3. A client note from the end of last year by Howard Marks, Chairman of Oaktree Capital Management;
   
   
4. And finally Andy Xie's late February article in the English Caixing Online: Hot Money, Fast Riots. Xie is on the Board of Rosetta Stone advisors. But better known as the former star Asia-Pac Chief Economist for Morgan Stanley. All of his stuff is very good, not just the one article linked to above. 

Flying Toilet Terror Labs

A great article from 2006 detailing the bullsh*t rationale behind banning liquids on planes. Officious rule-making morons at work. . . .  Something to think about when you're next at airport security fumbling with that zip-lock bag of 100ml containers. Here's a sample:

. . . . Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard. . . .

. . . . Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.

Ski Speed Riding

Australia

Sometimes things mustn't look so bad in New Zealand. . . .

Sunday Tune

Campfire OK - Strange Like We Are

The Apprentice: Russian Style

Great essay from the London Review of books:

. . . .Putin’s PR men dress him like a crime boss (the black polo top underneath the black suit) and his soundbites come straight out of gangster movies (‘we’ll shoot the enemy while he’s on the sh*tter …’). . . .

Wave Skiing at Maui

"All of Life is a Wager"

An excellent interview recorded late last month with the sick and (probably) terminally ill Christopher Hitchens. . . It's long, but well worth watching.