1 Khaleej Times on the need for a new banking system for Asia’s rich. Wealth is being created in Asia at a rapid pace by a young generation of entrepreneurs whose private banking needs differ significantly from those of high-net-worth individuals in Europe or the United States. Europe is “old money, and there are a lot of wealth preservation issues and intergenerational transfer of wealth, so it’s about trusts, taxes – that’s the type of conversation you have,” said Piyush Gupta, chief executive of DBS Group Holdings and DBS Bank in Singapore. “Asia is still in the wealth creation mode,” Gupta said. “It’s not wealth preservation, it’s wealth accumulation.” “In Asia, we find that linking up the private banking with the institutional side of the business, investment banking, and the ability to do deals is actually a lot more important than it is in Europe,” he noted. This, he added, requires private bankers to be a little more “quasi-investment banking type people,” and they must be able to orchestrate the right team of internal resources.
2 Nicholas Kristoff in The New York Times about the world getting nicer. It’s pretty easy to conclude that the world is spinning down the toilet. So let me be contrary and offer a reason to be grateful this Thanksgiving. Despite the gloomy mood, the historical backdrop is stunning progress in human decency over recent centuries. War is declining, and humanity is becoming less violent, less racist and less sexist — and this moral progress has accelerated in recent decades. To put it bluntly, we humans seem to be getting nicer. That’s the central theme of an astonishingly good book by Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard, called “The Better Angels of Our Nature”.
“Today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence,” Pinker writes, and he describes this decline in violence as possibly “the most important thing that has ever happened in human history.” Still, even in a 20th century notorious for world war and genocide, only around 3% of humans died from such man-made catastrophes. In contrast, a study of Native-American skeletons from hunter-gather societies found that some 13% had died of trauma. And in the 17th century, the Thirty Years’ War reduced Germany’s population by as much as one-third. The reasons for these advances are complex but may have to do with the rise of education, the decline of chauvinism and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of others.
3 The Financial Times on wage cuts prompting 10,000 to strike in fresh wave of unrest in China. China is facing its worst wave of labour unrest since a series of wildcat strikes at Japanese-owned car plants last year, as declining export orders lead ¬factories to reduce worker pay. More than 10,000 workers in Shenzhen and Dongguan, two leading export centres in southern Guangdong province, have gone on strike over the past week. The latest protests broke out on Tuesday at a Taiwanese computer factory in Shenzhen.
4 The San Francisco Chronicle on China overtaking the US as the biggest smart phone market. China passed the United States to become the world's largest smart-phone market by volume in the third quarter as the devices became cheaper and more widely available. Shipments in China reached a record 23.9 million units, up 58% from the second quarter. That compares with a 7% drop to 23.3 million units in the United States.
5 Stephanie Flanders on BBC Online about the Euro ‘end game’. Two very worrying things have happened in the eurozone in the past two weeks. The first is that financial markets have started to take seriously the idea that the single currency will break up. The second is that the politicians with the most to lose from that happening have dug in their heels. Needless to say, the two things are related. Investors look at the political gridlock and they draw their own conclusions. In my conversations with analysts, traders and officials, I'm finding more and more of them are talking about the end game for the euro. Not the end, necessarily, but a moment of truth very soon that will either force a big leap forward, or a wrenching break-up.
6 The Johannesburg Times on South Africa being a nation living in fear. A third of South Africans are so afraid of being attacked by criminals that they will not walk alone in open places. This was revealed in a survey released by Stats SA yesterday. Because of crime, 22.2% of South Africans will not leave their children unsupervised in their neighbourhood. The survey also found that 14.7% of parents would no longer let their children walk to school alone. In addition, 11.7% of the respondents said they did not use public transport because of crime, 33.3% would not venture into open spaces or parks, and 22.2% would not allow children to play in an open area.
7 The Wall Street Journal blog on Sachin Tendulkar approaching (and missing) his 100th international century:
Forgive us for tempting fate, but we – like millions of others – can’t help feeling that this is the day Sachin Tendulkar gets to that incredible landmark of 100 centuries in international cricket.
• 9.54am It's like the World Cup final all over again in Mumbai - the atmosphere is absolutely electric as Sachin Tendulkar, who is now joined by Virat Kohli, ticks his total towards that ton.
• 9.55am The wicket in Mumbai, Sachin’s home, is flat and friendly. That’s not, by any means, to say this is an easy task. Already the illustrious Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and, just now VVS Laxman have returned to the pavilion.
• 9.59am This is the closest Sachin has been to scoring a century since March. In the July Test vs. England at the Oval he got 91, but then was out LBW and we all cried.
• 10.00am 15 innings have come and gone since that March World Cup century against South Africa.
• 10.01am Single through covers off Edwards takes Tendulkar to 94. The Little Master looks like the most relaxed person in the stadium, perhaps India.
• 10.07am Tendulkar's scored quickly this match, taking just 150 balls to get to 94.
• 10.08am If my palms are sweaty, I dread to think what Tendulkar's are like. Probably ice cold. • 10.09am Youuuuch!! Noo, an edge.
• 10.10am Disaster, and Rampaul, strike. Tendulkar's edged him to Sammy in the slips and he goes for 94.
• 10.12am Wankhede is silent. The crowd (and us) really thought today would be the day.
• 10.14am India 323 for 5, chasing West Indies' total of 590. One way round this is for the remaining Indian batsmen to collapse so the team can go for a follow-on and Sachin can blast a ton tomorrow. That's not going to happen.
8 The Economic Times story on Daimler, pointing out that the world over, no foreign player has been able to dominate any local truck market till date.
9 Richard Branson writing in ET that it is an achievement of global importance that a nation of 1.2 billion people has managed to maintain half the world’s surviving wild tigers. But 1,600 is a low number. When I asked my guide at Corbett why the numbers are so low, he replied:” The tiger has no voting rights”.
10 Sudhir Tailang's cartoon in Deccan Chronicle: Corruption, black money, price rise. The common man is angry. We’ll have to do something immediately. We’ll beef up the security of our ministers.
11 While journalists generally went around asking others about the context and quality of the slap India's federal agriculture minister Sharad Pawar received on Thursday, Business Standard asked Pawar himself and he replied, “Please ignore the incident. I really don’t know who he was. I thought he was a journalist”.
12 Business Standard on Indian private airline Kingfisher beginning to lose leased aircraft. Kingfisher said today two of its aircraft were being taken back by a lessor – AerCap Aviation.
13 Business Standard quoting HSBC about the rupee’s likelihood of falling to 58-levels against the dollar. The rupee, which declined close to 18% in 2010-11 so far, may be headed further south, owing to further shocks from developed economies. India's widening current account deficit, volatile capital flows and high inflation have made the domestic currency vulnerable to developments in the West. With no quick resolution to the debt crisis in the euro zone, the rupee may have to go through more pain. “The rupee has room to fall further, if global growth expectations continue to decline and dollar liquidity pressures intensify… we believe the dollar-rupee rate could reach the 58-level,” said David Bloom, global head of foreign exchange strategy, HSBC Bank.
14 Business Line reporting that the total debt of Air India stands at Rs 437.77bn.
15 Financial Express editorial, 'Et tu Merkel'. On Monday, Reuters Breakingviews columnist Peter Thal Larsen came up with a new acronym to replace PIGS that rapidly got overtaken by events—after playing with SPIFFINESS to include the likes of France, Finland and the Netherlands, he settled for what a PIMCO portfolio manager called EEG, Everyone Except Germany! On Wednesday, however, the new EEG got a bit of a crack when a routine 6 billion auction of German bonds got only a 60% subscription. The immediate reaction was a hike in German yields, from 1.98% to 2.04% and a 1 percentage point fall in the euro. All of which suggests the panic is spreading.
16 Contrasting Indian media reaction to the government opening up retail to foreign direct investment:
Times of India: Coming soon: World’s top retailers.
Financial Express: Welcome to Walmart
Malayala Manorama: Kerala retailers to shut shop on Tuesday to protest entry of monopolies.
(You bet, Keralites think differently.)
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