I’m sorry, how much does that say floss costs? Why doesn’t someone just start selling floss at, like, $1.00 — which is still a huge profit margin for what is essentially some string run through a bit of wax — and make a killing?
Health Insurance
Automobile Insurance
Homeowner’s Insurance
Jewelery Insurance
Life Insurance
Disability Insurance
Professional Liability Insurance
Extended Laptop Warranty
Automated Backup Service
Is it really 2009? I almost hadn’t noticed. Not only was the start of the year particularly busy, leaving little time to reflect on 2008 (or to blog about it), it was also, frankly, not the greatest beginning.
Some nasty colds afflicted Casa Asaravala, and these were not helped by the boy deciding he had no interest in sleeping anymore. I admit, there were a couple mornings when I dropped him off with the nanny and returned home to crawl back into bed. Unfortunately, while I tried to sleep, a handful of executives in India were scheming to wipe out a chunk of our retirement savings.
What, I didn’t tell you about that? Okay, so they weren’t focusing on our retirement, per se. But they screwed us and thousands of others like us nonetheless.
The story goes like this: We owned stock in an Indian IT firm called Satyam Computer Services. Over the past several years, the company brought in more and bigger clients (including the United Nations), racked up kudos from analysts and industry associations, and logged some nice profits. The stock price responded in kind.
Then, on December 16, 2008, the Satyam board announced that it had approved plans to buy 100% of a company called Maytas Properties and a 51% of Maytas Infra for a total of $1.6 billion. The bizarre thing? Neither of these companies does anything related to IT — they’re construction and housing development firms. Even more bizarre? “Maytas” is “Satyam” backward.
Wait, it gets better: The Maytas firms are owned by the sons of then-Satyam CEO Ramalinga Raju. That’s right, it seemed that Rama Raju wanted to give his sons $1.6 billion of Satyam’s cash.
So, at this point, Satyam’s stock dropped 55% almost immediately.
Now, we could have sold our shares here and walked away. But Satyam cancelled its plans to buy the Maytas companies within hours due to the overwhelmingly negative response from shareholders and analysts. And so I figured that, given Satyam’s previous record of profits, the CEO would likely be on his way out but the company and stock price would recover.
I was right about one part of it, at least. On Jan 7, the CEO issued a statement in which he announced his resignation — and that he had orchestrated a $1 billion-plus fraud for the past several years. Satyam’s cash in the bank? Completely bogus. The bungled acquisition of Maytas and Maytas? Quite likely an attempt to cover up the fraud when the pressure from the worsening economy threatened to expose it.
And the stock? It went into sudden free fall, leaving the price down over 90% when trading resumed two days later. Thanks a lot, you greedy bastards.
Ironically, Satyam means truth in Sanskrit. But I think the Wall Street Journal put it best when they called Satyam “Sanskrit for ‘Enron‘”.
Now, fortunately, our Satyam shares didn’t make up so large a portion of our retirement funds that we’re in any real trouble. And we’re young enough that we still have hope that the money lost will seem insignificant compared to what we eventually do retire on (we hope).
Plus, 2009 as a whole has improved since all that. Sleep has returned to the Asaravala household — not great through-the-entire-night sleep, but some sleep. The colds have run their course. And what about that presidential inauguration, right? I must say, I’m quite happy to have the boy growing up in this period in history. For him, there will never be a question of whether his country can get past its prejudices and elect someone other than an aging white male to its highest office.
Not so bad, yeah? So then, shall we all agree that 2009 actually began on Tuesday, January 20th?
Why is it that two of the best songs of 2008 have the worst lyrics?
First, there’s Human, by The Killers. It sounds great, but what sort of crap is a chorus that asks, “Are we human? / Or are we dancer?”
That’s right — not even “dancers”, plural. Just “dancer.”
The first few times the Wife and I heard that one on the radio, we tried to explain it away. Surely, we’re just hearing it wrong, we said. They must be saying something else — like “Are we human … something something… cancer?” “Answer?” “Prancer?” “Ants, sir?”
I heard somewhere that human/dancer question has something to do with the late Hunter S. Thompson. But that doesn’t make it any better. You still don’t want to be caught singing along when you hear it at Starbucks — and yet, you so know you want to sing along.
And then there’s James, who are back together after an excruciatingly long hiatus to make Hey Ma, one of the best albums of 2008. The title track sounds like another one of the fun anthems James is often known for. So you start singing along. And then you realize it’s a protest song, which is fine because, hey, you like a good protest song….
And then you realize you’re at a stoplight with the windows rolled down and you’re shouting along to the chorus that goes: “Hey, ma, the boys’ in body bags / coming home in pieces.”
Come on! You’ve just guaranteed that the song won’t ever get any radio time.
Oh well, I guess I’ll go check out that new Christmas album by the Tourettes Support Group Singers now. I hear their version of Silent Night is sublime.
Is it weird that after the boy goes to bed, we look at pictures of him (instead of heading off to bed ourselves)?
On Tuesday, citizens in Arizona, California, and Florida will vote on controversial proposals that would amend their state constitutions to explicitly ban same-sex marriages.
Opponents argue that the amendments are discriminatory and a backward step for civil rights. Indeed, in California, where same-sex marriage is currently legal, it is a fact that a “yes” vote would remove rights from one group of individuals while retaining it for another.
Proponents of the bans, however, argue that the amendments are really about defining the term “marriage” rather than about taking rights away from gays and lesbians. For example, ProtectMarriage.com, the group behind the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign in California, claims on its Web site that Proposition 8 “does not take away the rights that same-sex couples already have under California’s domestic partner law.” Furthermore, it says, “California law already grants domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple.”
If that is the case — if current domestic partnership laws already bestow full legal rights to any two citizens who wish to commit their lives to one another — then one wonders why the extra legal status of “married” is even necessary in our civil code. Shouldn’t we strive to keep our laws as streamlined as possible by removing clauses that don’t provide any additional legal benefits?
So my proposal is this: Let’s strike the term “marriage” from our state constitutions.
In other words, let’s take the definition of marriage out of the hands of the law and let’s only involve the state in granting domestic partnership rights. That way, states can continue to provide equal rights to all citizens, and “marriage” can be defined and bestowed by whatever church or official a couple chooses to respect.
The truth is, I suspect such an amendment would not get much support. After all, many people would ask: Why should I give up my right to be married to placate a group of people who believe differently than I do?
Consider that question again: Why should I give up my right to be married to placate a group of people who believe differently than I do?
It’s a question same-sex couples in California are being forced to ask themselves at this very moment.
The shoe is not so comfortable on the other foot, is it?
She says:
“How weird is it that when we want to add new members to our family, we just make them?”
I just looked out the kitchen window, over the top of my neighbor’s house, to see… Angel Island on fire!
(Update: Jeff has posted much better photos over on his site.)
There’s nothing about it on television news at the moment (~9:20pm), nor on sfgate.com or kron4.com. Yet, several Twitter users are clearly seeing the same thing I’m seeing, as the screenshot of the search shows below.
I’m not sure I’m ready to agree with the claim that Twitter can compete (in some ways) with AP and other news wires, but I can now see its utility in connecting you to others who are sharing a common experience.
All messages that begin with “I need to talk to you” always lead to news you don’t want to hear. (The same is true of “We need to talk.”)
I bought some reusable grocery bags while checking out at the supermarket the other day. I don’t know why it’s taken us so long to get some. The number of plastic bags we bring home from the grocery store each week (and then shove under the sink to be recycled later) always horrifies me. So I’m feeling good that we’ve now finally taken the plunge and are cutting off a big source of our “transitory plastic.”
The only problem is, it’s not easy to remember to take the reusable bags into the store before you start shopping. So you (or maybe just I) find yourself in line with a cart full of groceries and the realization that you’re sans-bags. And I’m ashamed to say I usually don’t get out of line in these cases. I doubt others do either. Consumer habits are very hard to break.
An idea: Environmental groups ought to give stores free signs that they can put up in their parking lots to remind customers to bring their reusable bags into the stores with them.
bookmarked