The story about R Madhavan on rediff reminds me of a few friends of mine who were passionate about agriculture, farming, tools etc. One of them was very close to doing something on those lines , purchased some land area, invested in some technology based on improving productivity..However it ended there…Somehow , None of them are pursuing what they said,they were passionate about. I am optimistic though. I hope , at least one of them decides to give vent to their passion and be truthful to their calling.

Here is a prediction saying we are in a frightening bear market! As all predictions are, it is a prediction after all. If only the author bets money on the bearish trend, will I take the prediction , seriously. Alas! neither can the author confirm on that, nor I can verify his action! This is the perennial problem of all predictions. Is it cheap talk! or a serious prediction! ? God knows!

Currently, US National Debt stands at $10.59 Trillion. Now look at this metric : The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.49 billion per day since September 28, 2007! Link : Debt Clock

There are a couple of books which I think , every risk manager should read. After reading them I hypothesize that there will be 4 outcomes Risk manager ignores the view as just another view and moves along ( and moves the firm too , in a downward direction) Risk manager starts introspecting his/her methods and starts becoming skeptical about them and will probably do something about it Risk manager starts introspecting his/her methods and becomes extremely skeptical about them and will do something about it, hopefully Risk manager quits his job and does something else, far removed from the field of risk management.

Here is a brilliant intro to Precompiled Headers . Overall, the site “Games from Within” is superb and should be del.icio.us for any C++ hacker. Link : The Care and Feeding of Pre-Compiled Headers