Newspapers began life in Europe in the early 1600s. Although centuries before the printing press, an idea of a daily paper circulated in Rome, and China had imperial bulletins for bureaucrats in 200 BC. Soon, this idea of newspapers reached England and then the colonies, US. Over time, with the growth of newspapers, the larger
Around the world, who are the largest asset owners? Generally, the large ones are Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, OCIOs (Outsourced Chief Investment Office), University Endowments, Charitable Foundations. The top 100 Funds/Asset owners have USD 23.4 trillion under management. For quick context, global wealth is ~ USD 454 trillion. And global GDP is USD 96
A few threads for macro context: Global Wealth: Thread Pension Assets/ Australia: Thread Top 10 stock exchanges: Thread Sovereign Wealth Funds: Thread Sustainable Development Goals: Thread 1 (Goals 1 -10), Thread 2 (Goals 11-17) Top few economies: Top few African economies: Thread Top few South American economies: Thread Top few European economies: Thread Top few Asian economies: Thread
“Oil is a natural resource formed by the decay of organic matter over millions of years. And like many other natural resources, oil cannot be produced, only extracted where it already exists. Unlike every other natural resource, oil is the lifeblood of the global economy. The world derives over a third of its total energy
Political leaders have so frequently cried wolf over budgetary spending that voters are skeptical about talk of budgetary crises. This is unfortunate, since deficits should arouse genuine concern, particularly as their size in some industrial countries is daunting. Yet, the absolute size of deficits is not their most alarming aspect. Rather, the persistence of budgetary
How much energy does the world consume? “We are really, when you count performance and tabulate behaviour, not supercomputers but a lot like locusts, little chafing dishes maybe, small woks, modest ovens, simple furnaces, barbecue pits and picnic grills: we consume. A universe is burning – a forest for our flame.” For perspective on
Berkshire Hathaway is in an interesting business. Of owning, investing, operating companies. One can look at it as a really large PE fund working with its own capital, an open-ended platform. And yet, compared to a PE fund, the range of investments can be so much better. There is no limit on check size (which
News gets old quickly. And yearly wraps can go out of fashion even as January draws to close. But sharing two such links here – notes I read recently which respectively sum up 2018, and neatly list the major events to watch out for in 2019. Both together can be read as a reflection on
I played tennis for the first time on the first of May of last year. A day special in a few other ways too. As time and again one gets reminded by life that some of the best things in life are unplanned, serendipitous, found on paths not normally taken. So too with this new
I came across a chart today about R&D spends by different companies (the chart is from howmuch.net and is shared at the end of this post). That eventually led me to a data-set by PWC Consulting arm strategy&. They have been doing this analysis on R&D spend for a few years now. They have shared
