1 The New York Times editorial, The poor, the near poor and you. What is it like to be poor? Thankfully, most Americans do not know, at least not firsthand. But everyone needs to recognize a chilling reality: One in three Americans — 100 million people — is either poor or perilously close to it. Census data shows 49.1 million Americans are below the poverty line — in general, $24,343 for a family of four. An additional 51 million are in the next category, which they termed “near poor” — with incomes less than 50% above the poverty line. There is also a growing out-of-sight-out-of-mind problem. A study, by Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford, shows that Americans are increasingly living in areas that are either poor or affluent. The isolation of the prosperous, he said, threatens their support for public schools, parks, mass transit and other investments that benefit broader society. The poor do without and the near poor, at best, live from paycheck to paycheck. Most Americans don’t know what that is like, but unless the nation reverses direction, more are going to find out.
2 The New York Times on questions being asked about Germany as an island of stability. Germany’s stature as an island of stability in the European debt crisis was shaken Wednesday when it fell far short of selling all the government bonds it put up for auction. The debt crisis has toppled five governments, including Italy and Greece, by raising those countries’ borrowing costs to dangerously high levels. And now the crisis is prompting many investors to pull money out of the euro region altogether. Germany on Wednesday had sought to raise as much as 6 billion euros ($8 billion) in an auction of 10-year bonds. But it was able to sell only 3.9 billion euros worth, Germany’s central bank. By that thinking, investors might have concluded that the relatively low yield, or interest rates, on the German bonds — Wednesday’s auctioned bonds were priced at an average yield of 1.98 percent — were not worth the potential risk that Germany’s economy could soon be strained by the demands of bailing out Italy or Spain or other big debt-saddled euro union members. For comparison’s sake, yields on 10-year bonds offered by the United States Treasury, which continue to be considered a global haven, are about 1.9 percent.
3 The New York Times on Tata group’s new boss. The largest Indian business group, Tata Sons, on Wednesday appointed an insider whose family owns about 18% of the company to succeed its longtime chairman, Ratan N. Tata. The successor to Tata, Cyrus P. Mistry, will take over as chairman in December 2012 after serving as deputy chairman for a year. Tata Sons, based in Mumbai, is the holding company for an $83.3 billion group that includes companies engaged in industries including software, cars, steel and the Taj hotel chain. Mistry is a member of the committee that had been searching for Tata’s successor and a member of the board of Tata Sons, which is not listed on the stock exchange, though many of its subsidiaries are. In addition, Mistry is the managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, a real estate and construction business that owns about 18% of Tata Sons, more than any other non-institutional investor. About two-thirds of Tata Sons is owned by charitable trusts established by the Tata family. Other potential candidates had included Indra Nooyi, an Indian native who heads PepsiCo in the United States; Arun Sarin, the former top executive of Vodafone of Britain; and Noel N. Tata, a stepbrother of Tata’s and an executive at the group.
4 San Francisco Chronicle on Plaxo founders turning to chocolate making. What do tech company founders do after selling their startup for millions? In the case of Cameron Ring and Todd Masonis, the young creators of Plaxo, an online address book service, the answer was simple: Make chocolate. Really good chocolate. The two friends are slated to open a chocolate factory, Dandelion, later this year — four years after selling Plaxo to Comcast for an amount that TechCrunch estimated at $150 to $170 million. Unlike Plaxo’s venture capitalist funding of $28 million, Dandelion is self-funded with less than a million dollars. But it demands the same hours as any startup, and Ring and Masonis take a hands-on approach.
5 The Guardian reporting the choice of ‘squeezed middle’ as word of the year. After a year defined by economic turmoil, austerity and cutbacks, the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary have chosen the phrase "squeezed middle" as word of the year. OED lexicographers on both sides of the Atlantic picked the phrase – popularised by Ed Miliband – as their first global word of the year. The phrase beat a group of other largely politically resonant terms such as Arab Spring, occupy, phone hacking, and hacktivism – the action or practice of gaining unauthorised access to computer files or networks in order to further social or political ends. The phrase "squeezed middle" was thoroughly derided when it was first aired by Ed Miliband during a headline interview on Radio 4's Today programme earlier this year. In an interview with John Humphrys, Miliband struggled to define who it specifically represented, but Dent said that had become the phrase's strength.
6 The BBC on Chinese manufacturing contracting to a 32-month low. China's manufacturing activity fell to its lowest level in 32 months in November, according to the HSBC bank purchasing managers' index. The news renewed fears that the economic powerhouse is losing steam. China is the world's second-largest economy.
7 The BBC on why Israel thrives as a high-tech hub. Israel currently has almost 4,000 active technology start-ups - more than any other country outside the United States, according to Israel Venture Capital Research Centre. In 2010 alone the flow of venture capital amounted to $884m. The result: high-tech exports from Israel are valued at about $18.4bn a year, making up more than 45% of Israel's exports. Israel is a world leader in terms of research and development spending as a percentage of the economy; it's top in both the number of start-ups and engineers as a proportion of the population; and it's first in per capita venture capital investment. Not bad for a country of some eight million people - fewer than, say, Moscow or New York.
"If you look at how this country was created, it was really a start-up on the large scale," says serial entrepreneur Yossi Vardi, who has been dubbed the godfather of Israel's high-tech industry. "A bunch of crazy people came here, trying to pursue a dream of 2,000 years." But there is more to this start-up scene than certain aspects of Israeli culture - the lack of hierarchy, a constant drive for individualism, regular risk taking. The government played a key role in the rapid rise of this start-up nation.
8 The Sowetan carrying a government report that 15.5% of teens are getting pregnant for grants. Teenagers are falling pregnant to access social grants to alleviate poverty, according to a report by the Limpopo (a province in South Africa) health and social department. The report was issued after the department conducted a three-month study into teenage pregnancies and factors forcing children to abandon their education. The report found 15.5% of participants fell pregnant to access child support grants. This behaviour forced children into inter-generational relationships with contraceptives largely ignored. Thirty-two percent of participants had multiple sexual partners but this was not seen as a major contributor to teenage pregnancy.
9 The Dawn on the scarring of Pakistani society as terrorists attack CD shops. Reports about bombings of shops selling CDs and DVDs have in recent years become so frequent that the public, bludgeoned from all sides by bad news, has become inured. We forget, though, that behind each such report is a story of assets ruined, livelihoods cut off and painstakingly built up businesses destroyed. This has prompted some to turn to new occupations. Owners of markets, unwilling to risk damage to their properties, have also started asking CD and DVD shopkeepers to either change their focus or vacate the premises. In so doing, an entire culture is being changed. No longer are marketplaces in the region characterised by Pushto music and film posters as was once the case, and people who have been musicians for generations are no longer training their sons to take their place; dholwallahs and flautists, traditionally invited to perform at weddings, are seeking other professions. The situation can be seen as an analogy for Pakistani society as a whole, being forced as it is down unfamiliar paths by the extremists and their violence-imbued agenda. Whatever else happens, one thing can be said with certainty: Pakistanis will emerge badly scarred from this experience.
10 The Wall Street Journal on the importance of office politics. Many promising executives derail sometime during their careers, often because they weren't very good at office politics. Not playing the political game is often seen as a good thing, even a badge of honor. Some managers see it as proof of their integrity. They are going to succeed because of job performance alone. They couldn't be more wrong. Research finds that a person's political skills are key to building a successful career—for the good of both themselves and their company. When talented executives combine a knowledge of what their company needs with an ability to get things done, everyone benefits. Being politically savvy is not about pushing others down or being untruthful to advance your own cause. Instead, it means building networks—relationships—with people inside and outside your company who can provide useful information and assistance. It means not picking fights over issues that aren't critical. It means informing others in the company about your contributions and accomplishments, and asking for advice and help, particularly from those senior to you. Self-serving? Sure. But there's nothing wrong with that. If you are going to make a difference, you need to have power.
11 The Economic Times on India's carmakers cutting production to deal with falling demand. The country’s top car maker Maruti Suzuki will end the fiscal with a 10% drop in output. Last month, car sales had fallen 24%.
12 Business Standard and Business Line quoting Qatar Airways CEO as saying 26% FDI in Indian aviation sector is not good enough.
13 Sunil Jain writing in Financial Express about the India story beginning to unravel, and that the PM is right in saying India could go the same way as the West if political parties don’t co-operate to pass critical legislation.
14 Financial Express editorial on Sabir Bhatia’s breakthrough in free SMSing across the globe. The new free SMS service released by Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia is the next step in a process already well under way. The service, called JaxtrSMS, allows users to send SMSs to anybody around the world for free. What is different about JaxtrSMS is that it allows users to receive messages sent via the service even if they don’t have the app installed. Now consider this: In the not-inconceivable future, everybody has at least a data-enabled phone, and data service penetration is excellent. With VoIP services and SMS services like JaxtrSMS, the only role service operators will have is to provide Internet; they could very well have to shut down their voice and SMS networks. That’s perhaps a long way off, but it gives some indication as to why these companies are focusing so much on the 3G auctions.
15 Jagannadham Thunguguntla pointing out in Financial Express that at Rs 72 trillion, total debt of all listed Indian companies now exceeds their total market cap of Rs 64 trillion. The total value of shares pledged by the promoters alone is to the tune of Rs 1 trillion. That’s massive by any stretch of imagination. There are about 752 companies whose promoters have pledged shares. In the current bearish market conditions, there is a big risk that the margin calls may get triggered on several of these companies, leading to further panic selling resulting in crisis. Several mid-cap companies are not properly hedged for such an eventuality.
16 The Deepika reporting that locals in Kannur handed over a 25-year-old to the police after catching him dumping wastes by the roadside. (Kerala is clamping down on waste disposal in public places with a fine of Rs 5,000 – a first world development in a third world country.)
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