Going Global

Yes. Again. And this time it seems, on a far bigger scale.

The Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka an 'investment bank' and a listed subsidiary of state-run Bank of Ceylon has taken over and is planning to 'restructure' Ceyliinco Group's Finance and Guarantee group of companies. According to this LBO report.

Meanwhile, all refunds from these companies have been stopped. Mainly to prevent 'influential' depositors getting their funds at the expense of others and a recovery plan will be revealed in 'two weeks' according to a media report released by MBSL.

Apparently there is a 'sufficent asset base' present and investors in F&G real Estate Co. will have to only sacrifice 'certain time period' to get their refunds. This from the MBSL chairman Janaka Ratnayake.

Now it doesnt exactly specify if full refunds will be available, but if you were an investor in that group, and if i was you, i'd start wondering a bit because the same report specifically states that the F&G groups assets were 13.5 billion while their liabilities were 12879 billion.

Yeah, have another look at those numbers. Now im not a big financial guy but even i know that a thousand to one difference between liabilities and assets will spell trouble. Even assuming most of these liabilities were not long term.

Mr. Ratnayake also said that F&G Real Estate Company Ltd had been offering interest rates of 42% per year for some customers and has been rolling over deposits. Now does that 'investment strategy' remind you of anything else? like for e.g. Bernard Maddof? The chap who pulled off a $50 Billion Ponzi scheme under the eyes of the likes of Alan Greenspan?

And if we thought Sakvithi was bad, he'll be chickenfeed in comparison to the potential destruction if the MBSL restructuring plan somehow fails and all this money is lost.

What really happened? A day after the attacks, speculation is still rife.

The story hit the top of the economist web site today, which followed up with a long account of the incidents and Sri Lanka's gesture of solidarity that ended up in their cricket team getting shot. But then dwindles down into a rather pointless review of religion and the Pakistani cricket team and irrelevant ramblings about Muhammed Yousuf, a 'muslim fundamentalist' whatever that means.

The Economist also goes on to stress on 'Jihadist' attacks by 'Pakistani' militants. I can understand calling them Pakistani militants because they were obviously operating from Pakistan, but Jihadist? No group has taken responsibility yet for the attacks so there is no way of telling for sure if it was a self-proclaimed Jihadist group or not. Dissapointingly presumtuous especially coming from an esteemed source such as the Economist.

We can draw some parallells with the Mumbai attacks here. The attack out of the blue (like thats anything new), first of its kind in many ways, and no group takes responsibility. Instead suspicions are cast, scapegoats are found along with cicumstantial evidence and before you know it BAm! theres all out accusations.

Kinda reminds me of 9/11. Overally though, i think India handled the Mumbai attacks far better than the US handled 9/11. Killing indiscriminately and invading all over the place, UN be damned.

What am i trying to get at here?

im trying to tell you folks to calm down a bit and dont be so quick to judge. The attacks could have been carried out by anyone for any conceivable reason. Pakistan has been the target and location of many meaningless attacks over the past few years. Most gone unclaimed and un accounted for, it has also seemed to be the target of extreme detabilisation post 9/11.

so lets not assume anything.

From Desperate Taxes For Desperate Times from the Democracy in America blog: THE states are facing their greatest revenue crunches since 1939, and they're run by legislators who—understandably—don't want to lose re-election by raising taxes on everyone. Thus, they're getting creative.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a freshman from San Francisco, made a proposal intended to increase revenue, and, no doubt, appetite: legalizing and taxing marijuana, a major—if technically illegal—crop in the state. "We’re all jonesing now for money," Mr Ammiano said. "And there’s this enormous industry out there."

In general, sin taxes are the most regressive—and popular—taxes that legislatures can enact. A marijuana tax would be less regressive than a cigarette tax, given the demographics of each drug's smokers. In some quarters it would be extremely popular. And the money it would cost to collect the tax would be a pittance compared to the money saved by police no longer making marijuana arrests. So is this enough of a crisis to give it a try?

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Hmmm.. a commenter later goes to point out that in the longer term, health hazards of pot (yes it is almost as equally hazardous as cigarettes) will nullify any short term gain, especially given that this may boost consumption. Plus he raises a very interesting point that got me almost to laugh out loud, but wasn't really all that funny; Big Marijuana.

If weed is legalized, prety soon it will be capitalized, compartmentalized, segmented and marketed. All the fun will be lost and Runaway Jury 2 would be suing Big M.

How about it's effects in Sri Lanka then? obviously if it is capitalized worldwide we would be washed up in a wave of big companies if we legalized it over here, but what if it wasn't legalized in the US and we decided to do so as a measure to bring in some revenue to the government and make some people more happier than they already are? But it wont work;

First of all, pot smoking is frowned upon in Sri Lankan society rather more than in Western societies so support will not be there.

Also, a regime that focusses on 'mathata thitha' as one of its main marketing angles will never pass it through.

But what if we ignore these things and assumed it was passed it through anyway? would we reap any economic benefits?

Pot smoking will be legalized and massive corruption in the drug trade will stop

Local pot industry will boom due to lack of international entrants and small scale farmers will profit. Expertise will be home grown and we will be well poised to take advantage of a global pot industry, if it ever does materialize and we'd be able to add marijuana as a fourth major export crop.

Heavy taxes may be imposed to bring in additional revenue for 'nation building' without stunting industry growth

Tourism would benefit
Living conditions will improve and growth will increase.

People will chill out even more than they already do probably and perhaps this will have a detrimental effect on other industries, they don't call it a drug for nothing. Added to that the apparent health hazards. Although i think it's hardly got much on the hazards of Kassippu consumption.

Dude, the cricketers have been shot at? In Pakistan, yes. Now wait a minute, whenever we hear about injuries to cricketers in India and Pakistan its mostly injuries to their own cricketers at the handsof enraged fans.

But why in the world would anybody in Pakistan shoot to kill Sri Lankan cricketers? Thats just really strange. At least four players are reported injured. Among them Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene (reported shot to the leg), Thilan Samaraweera and Ajantha Mendis.

Effectively the cream of the crop. A pre emptive strike prior to the world cup? maybe cricket is taking a turn for the ugly.

The actual motives for such a strike are extremely unclear. If it was a terrorist group in Pakistan would they really attack the Sri Lankan cricket team? I cant think of any reasons for that.

It could be an attack by the LTTE. They could easily establish contacts there.

Or it could also be a plot to discredit Pakistan even further. Perhaps a counter move as revenge to the Mumbai attacks?

All we can do is speculate. And hope the truth will come to light soon.

So now the hullaballoo has died, the issue of Tibet has slipped down the list of international hot spots for the worlds attention to be drawn to. I had many friends on Facebook who even dedicated their status messages to it; talking about Tianamen square branded defiance and the like. The Olympics at one point looked to be slowed to a crawl when protests broke out all over the world against Chinese oppression in Tibet.

The Economist runs a story on Tibet, on how the attention of the world has slipped away from it. On how the Chinese are super miffed that the British have somwhat carelessly (?) accepeted Chinese sovereignity over the region. The Chinese however are still strongly focussed on the region. Security is intense, foreigners are not allowed in, and they still refuse to talk to the Dalai Lama.

And meanwhile, "Hillary Clinton recently stopped in Beijing to beseech China’s co-operation in fixing the world economy and stopping the planet from frying. In the apparent belief that China, oddly, will not pursue such aims out of its own self-interest, she forbore from harping on issues such as human rights and Tibet". In other words, the world's (read; the US) got more important things to worry about, like the economy and the damage to trade, rather than worry about an opressed people right now. Tibet may emerge again whenever any political leverage is needed though. At least its nice to see that Global Warming made the cut.

The Economist story links back to a story published in 1959 when the Dalai Lama (then 15 years old i believe) escaped military China to Indian territory. A myth emerged then that the Lama had conjured up a cloud to hide himself and his supporters from the Chinese air force. The Economist had its own ideas as to what that cloud really was though, and I'm inclined to agree with them.