Long read: China’s unemployed young adults who are pretending to have jobs
We hear from friends who visit China regularly that post-Covid many Chinese companies have moved to even bigger factories which are so modern that they make German and French factories look pre-historic. However, most of these factories are highly robotised and automated (again on a scale never seen before in any other country). The result […]
Long read: Profit in NY, loss in UP—what Jane Street ‘market manipulation’ did to Tier 2 & 3 India
Since the onset of Covid, a range of vested interests have worked collaboratively to create a construct in the Indian Futures & Options (F&O) market where the rich & the powerful can fleece the poor & the gullible on a colossal scale. To understand the sheer scale of this activity we joined the dots between […]
Short read: Ferrari Status
We have been accustomed to reading the now legendary blog posts by Morgan Housel at Collab Fund. Here’s Ted Lamade who writes a guest piece every now and then for the Collab Fund on a subject that all of us who have chased growth for the sake of growth can relate to. To drive home […]
Short read: Bankers of the East
Throughout Indian history, specific social groups have dominated the business landscape – Marwaris, Kacchis, Parsis, Sindhis, etc. This history has been captured by various books such as The Stories of Indian Business or Harish Damodaran’s India’s New Capitalists. Here’s a review of a new book by Raman Mahadevan called Fortune Seekers, which dives deep into one such […]
Short read: In Mohammed Siraj, the Pasmanda Muslims have a hero
India’s memorable win against England at the Oval a fortnight ago has broader ramifications beyond the cricket field. In particular, one specific community in India has had plenty to cheer about as one of their community members has done the country proud. Amana Begam writes for The Print: “There’s a subtle radicalism in a name […]
Long read: How AI Conquered the US Economy: A Visual FAQ
Trump’s trade policy was widely expected to be negative for the US economy and markets, some even suggesting a stagflationary scenario for the US as tariffs create inflation which in turn eat into consumer spending and hence drag on growth. Yet, neither has panned out and markets continue to be on a tear, hitting all-time […]
Long read: Living with the face-clawing sloth bear that scares tigers
Did you know that the world’s deadliest bear lives in the forests of India? The BBC’s Sophie Hardach tells us that the Indian sloth bear is such a deadly animal that even the Royal Bengal Tiger is scared of it. Ms Hardach writes: “Sloth bears (named due to their long claws and teeth, supposedly resembling […]
Long read: The Enshittification of American Power
In this startlingly original article, Henry Farrell & Abraham Newman say that what Trump is doing is simply following a time trend in American society where over the past few decades the tendency has been to monetise power wherever possible. Their core hypothesis is that: “First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US […]
Short read: India’s win at The Oval might herald a golden era for them
Less than a week since the epic India-England series ended, many of us are experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Fortunately, there’s plenty of content online – podcasts, videos and blogs that help us relive what was arguably the most thrilling Test series in recent memory. Of the content we came across, we found that the essay that […]
Short read: Tiny Hoofed ‘Mouse Deer’, Thought Extinct, Returns After 30 Years
We are accustomed to reading depressing stories about how man’s encroachment of forest land is driving numerous species out of existence and how this reduction in biodiversity will have dire consequences for us. For a change, here is some good news on this subject. Sheetal Kumari reports that: “in a remote Vietnamese forest, a tiny animal […]
Short read: Your job might be quietly changing your brain structure and you don’t even know yet: Study
Some of us in Marcellus have been working 60-hour weeks since we were in secondary school. As we age, we can feel the toll it has taken on us. This piece in the ET says: “A new study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine has found that working long hours—specifically 52 or more per week—may […]
Long read: How Social Media Shortens Your Life
Gurwinder Bhogal writes about human behaviour and how we can use research in psychology to become aware and live a more fulfilling life especially in a world filled with attention seeking technology. His substack introduction goes: “Exploring the ways we’re fooled in the digital age”. Most of us have often found ourselves getting sucked into […]
For more content on our strategy, visit the archives GO TO ARCHIVES