Expense Account, Mint No, this is not about what this column expects the new government to do for financial sector reform. It is assuming that these are going to be fast-tracked, and along with new products and services, consumers of financial products will bear the burden of too much choice. In his book The Paradox Of Choice,...
Expense Account, Mint I’ve learnt to treat questions that include soliciting stock tips and my prediction for the stock market as feeble male attempts to include me in their conversations at social dos. I’d actually much rather talk about dogs, kids and trade hummus recipes. Anyhow, the one question I do take seriously is one...
Expense Account, Mint One of the reasons the new pension system (NPS) had got good previews before launch was due to the tiny costs the scheme carried. However, newspaper edits this week suggest that there is fine print to be looked at and that the product is not as cheap as touted. The criticism also...
Expense Account, Mint Markets are up about 30% over the past six weeks.Will this stock rally last? Should you buy now? One view says that post-election, the markets will crash. However, if the Congress manages a stable coalition, they will soar. Some experts believe that this is a dead cat bounce—a bear market rally that...
Expense Account, Mint As I sit surrounded by mounds of paper, with laptop humming to one side and the fan off, dog and kid out of the room, I bemoan my fate. Most women I know don’t suffer the chore of paying utility bills, planning, executing, managing investments and paying taxes. But be foolish enough...
Expense Account, Mint What if a kilogram was a variable? Or a kilometre? How’d you react if the vendor was free to decide what a kg would measure today? The vendor could then choose to give you five mangoes a kg when he bought mangoes at Rs25 a kg, he could define a kilogram such...
Expense Account, Mint Imagine that you are the manager of a school cafeteria. The school offers a wide range of food and beverages. Suppose research shows that no matter what is at the top of the list, the top three items get ordered more than the rest on the menu. If the manager writes out...
Expense Account, Mint The BlackBerry is active but basic banking is not. I’m at Gaula, home to only 150 people across 27 families. It is also the regional office of Chirag, a 21-year-old non-profit based out of Sitla, Uttarakhand. Why am I here? The chief executive of Chirag is concerned that his staff of 133...
Expense Account, Mint Everybody knows that roads are unsafe, people get run over and cars smash into each other. Yet we continue driving, riding, walking and crossing these roads because there’s a set of rules that defines road use and works 90% of the time. Equity investing is no different. There is a set of...
Expense Account, Mint Buying a financial product in India is a bit like an arranged marriage: you don’t know what you are getting into. And once in, divorce is a costly affair. The matrimonial ads describe the prospective brides and grooms in detail: gori(fair), very beautiful; tall, large income, own house. And of course, a religious...