capitalism *is* fun :-)

I ran down to the nearest convenience store to pickup a few small things. When I was about to pay with my credit card, I have noticed a nice announcement: “We only accept credit cards issued by X bank”. Apparently, in the past days, the bank that offered the POS terminal for the store, decided not to accept any Visa/Mastercard cards, but to only cards issued by them. I bet people will immediately get a new credit card with some obscure bank just because at some convenience store they will only accept *their* cards. When a bank has like 0.00000000000001% of market share, it can force people to only use their cards …. or not.

I wonder if losing all the fees they got so far for processing any Visa / Mastercard will be replaced by perhaps one (or none) person that will get a card from them.

I love this Kamikaze way of doing business: You are do business with us, or die. Oh well … I won’t miss them once they leave the market like many other banks using crappy tactics.

I was in their marketing department, perhaps I would have slashed the fee charged to the convenience store by a bit, in exchange of letting me advertise my products in their store. 

This is a bit of an older news, but I loved it:
“Angry investors have attacked the Karachi Stock Exchange in Pakistan, after share prices plunged.“

I love these guys. Investing their money in stocks, in a country which barely has something to be called “an economy”. I wonder what do those people think? That stocks are something which can always be bought for cheap and sold more expensively? And that stock prices are driven by governments or the people who operate the stock market? Did those guys imagined that after trashing the KSE, investors from London would simply start placing BUY orders for huge prices? I think they enjoyed their afternoon tea watching this on satellite TV.

Somebody should create a Stock Plunge Protection Team, to help suffering investors. This almost resembles the US gas price caused, “pain at the pump”. People’s birthright of making tons of money without working (or thinking), must be protected at all costs.

These “investors” looks like they have hedged their portfolios well:

I would love to post more on this one, but I almost spilled Coke on my laptop a few times, laughing, while writing this post.

Best quote from a Pakistani investor:
“I am upset because I am constantly losing money and there is no one ready to help me.“

Please give this guy a hand

Once again,  Mercer Consulting has elected Zurich (Switzerland), as the number one city in the world, to live in.
Well, I have been there and all I can tell you, is that they are 100% right.
The mix of old building, swiss banks and overall welfare, it’s truly an expression of capitalism, in it’s purest form.

Dan informed me that 28.57% of the days in a week, are weekend days. Ever wondered why the weekend has 2 days? Why not 1? Or 3, or 1 and a half … or 4 days?
The fact that the weekend has 2 days is not an arbitrary fact. It has been precisely calculated. Let me tell you why.

Ever noticed how Saturday is different from Sunday? You get to see this entire rush on Saturday. You have stay in line almost everywhere. At the gas-station, at the carwash, at the mall, etc. But not on Sunday. 2 days is the maximum amount you need for exactly 2 purposes:
1. (Saturday) - go out and spend whatever amount of money you can, and you haven’t spent it during the week. Noticed that almost nobody is relaxing on Saturday?
2. (Sunday) - for rest. If people don’t rest, they are unable to work. And we can’t have that … can’t we?
Those are the exact reasons why the weekend has 2 days.

To let you in on some more info, have you ever noticed that all important price hikes are made during the week, and never in the weekend? Take gas prices for example. They are raised during the week. You assimilate that information but you don’t have much time to think it over, because you are probably late for work, while reading that news. By the time you get to fill up your car (in the weekend probably), you already know this and it’s not a shock when you see the price at the pump.

Perhaps it’s the fun of working 7 days in a week, is that you don’t have any weekends and have the opportunity to make the above mentioned observations.

Enjoy your week

There I was at Starbucks (NYSE: SBUX) 2 days ago. While waiting for my Latte Venti, I left a tip for them in the little box they have for this purpose. There, I saw a little yellow shining coin. It was the smallest coin in circulation (1 ban), which has an estimated value of 0.3 US cents. Who on earth would go to StarBucks and leave 0.3 US cents as a tip? Going to StarbBucks it’s all about the money. You have more money to burn on coffee then anyone else. There is a high chance you drove there with a low-mpg oversized SUV and parked somewhere totally wrong. Come on man … at least leave a decent tip, or don’t do it at all.

This is an old one (at least for me), but I have decided to post it, since it’s fun.
I will now describe the various models of capitalism in the world.

Traditional capitalism: You have 2 cows. You sell one, and buy a bull. Later you will get to have a lot of cows, sell them, and retire rich.

Corporate capitalism (Enron type): You have 2 cows. You sell 3 cows in an IPO, using bank guarantees from your brother in law. Then you swap a debt for a public offer and buy back the 4 cows with tax exemption for 5 cows. Ownership of the 6 cows is transferred to an offshore company in the Cayman Islands who is owned by the majority stock holder, who will then sell you back the 7 cows. According to your annual report, you have 8 cows and options for another one. You sell one cow, and buy the US president. No report is being published. The people buy it.

American capitalism: You have 2 cows. You sell one, and force the other one to produce the equivalent of milk produced by 4 cows. You are surprised when it dies.

French capitalism: You have 2 cows. You are on strike, demanding to own 3.

Japanese capitalism: You have 2 cows. You redesign them to be 10 times smaller then a normal cow, and produce 20 times more milk. Then you create cartoons with them, called Cowkemon and promote them worldwide.

German capitalism: You have 2 cows. You redesign them to live 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

British capitalism: You have 2 cows. Both are mad.

Italian capitalism: You have 2 cows, but you have no idea where they are. You take your lunch break.

Russian capitalism: You have 2 cows. You count them and have 5. You count them again and have 42. You count them again and have 16. You stop counting and open another bottle of vodka.

Swiss capitalism: You have 5000 cows, but none belongs to you. You charge the owners a depositing tax.

Indian capitalism: You have 2 cows. You worship them.

Chinese capitalism: You have 2 cows. 300 people are busy milking them. You have zero unemployment, high productivity and arrest the reporter that published different figures.