Short read: School children sang anthem too softly – Hong Kong
The latest indication of the desperate mindset of the Communist Party high command in Beijing is this article from the BBC which says: “Hong Kong officials have singled out at least two schools for singing the Chinese national anthem “too softly”. Teachers at a third school have been asked to help students “cultivate habit and […]
Long read: The House of Arnault
Following up on the pieces on Hermès we featured in the past two months is this long read on Bloomberg about the only other luxury goods company that comes close to Hermes – LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy). The piece is as much about the firm as its chairman and CEO, Bernard Arnault, who “…Over the […]
Long read: The Supreme Court just made a massive power grab it will come to regret
India is not the only free market democratic nation grappling with the delicate balance of power between the Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary. When we discuss this subject with thinking Americans, we find them even more worried about this subject than we are. Last week, in a remarkable judgement, the American Supreme Court dramatically […]
Long read: How Buddhists lost out to Brahmins in Nalanda (even before the Turks came)
Most of us have grown up believing that: (a) Nalanda was the first organised university in the world; and (b) Turkic raiders burnt it to the ground in the 12th century. Historian Anirudh Kanisetti challenges both of these conventional notions in this punchy piece for The Print. Mr. Kanisetti does not dispute Nalanda’s 1500 year old […]
CCP’s Amplified Exposure to ‘Enterprising Compounders’
Businesses with strong competitive advantages (and hence high ROCEs), can be categorized into different types based on their capital allocation decisions. Amongst these, the most enterprising ones (the ‘enterprising compounders’) are those which reinvest capital not only to strengthen and evolve their core business, but also to scale up new businesses consistently. Shareholder returns from such businesses […]
Short read: Three-legged lion makes record-breaking swim across a crocodile-infested river – for sex
During our teenage years most of us understood that sex is a critically important aspect of human life. Then the stress of the workplace and the onset of family life made us want to climb up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs i.e. music, culture, philosophy, etc. Therefore it is good to be reminded by other (carnivorous) […]
Short read: Palmer Luckey and Anduril want to shake up armsmaking
Indian companies catering to the increasing indigenisation of defence spending by the Indian government have seen their stock prices soar over the past couple of years. A different trend is emerging in America which could likely spread to the rest of the world. The American defence industry largely controlled by a handful of behemoths is […]
Long read: The Crazy Economics of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag
Earlier this month, we carried a blog on the history of what is arguably the world’s ‘biggest’ luxury company – Hermès. This piece in the WSJ does a detailed take on the economics behind Hermès’ flagship handbag brand ‘Birkin’, which seems to make it an appreciating ‘asset’. “A basic black leather Birkin 25 costs $11,400 before tax […]
Long read: Inside the Recent Rise in Female Workforce Participation Rate in Rural India
Over the past year or so we have published a series of blogs on the rise of Indian women. More specifically, we have viewed the rise in the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) over the past few years as a positive development (see https://marcellus.in/blogs/the-rapid-rise-of-female-entrepreneurs-in-india/). Sapna Goel, Assistant Professor at Hindu College in Delhi takes a […]
Long read: UP village kids forced ISRO to bring space lab. Now they use drones, building weather station
The Print’s reportage of India consists not only of heartwarming feel-good stories, their stories (almost always authored by outstanding female journalists) help one understand both changes afoot in this vast land AND the upside potential if India fixes its broken institutions. The added benefit of these stories is that they highlight how the changes seen […]
Creative Destruction on an Epic Scale in India Inc
As per data from the Income Tax department, of all Indian companies that filed non-zero tax returns for FY22, only 17% saw growth in PAT in real terms over the preceding ten years. And these 17% accounted for 98% of corporate India’s PAT. Furthermore, data from the CMIE shows that the prospect of upward mobility (in terms […]
Short read: Why does AI hallucinate?
You know Artificial Intelligence has truly arrived when you hear instances of chatbots making up information which appear right most of the time, akin to the delusions that intelligent humans go through. The article begins with a few such instances: “Meta’s short-lived scientific chatbot Galactica made up academic papers and generated wiki articles about the […]
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