Depleting Dollars..

Figures can get really interesting at times. I'm generally not into stuff like economics, et al, but then genres such as these at times put together some astounding figures, which compelled me to look at them from an intriguing perspective. To be more specific, I was looking at the general perception of the US economy and was presented with a plethora of statistics from various sources, all of them point to the same thing - all's not that well.. The worst part is that this is one economy that tends to play a huge role in the way the world economy goes as well.
The so called Global War on Terror looks to be a never ending saga, atleast till the Bush regime continues. Not delving into the political aspects of this, I'd rather like to consider a few financial aspects. Statutory Warning: I'm definitely not a qualified scholar on this topic, but the 3 w's (www) do provide some interesting numbers.
$8 million - cost of war in Iraq.. Per Hour!! Continuing on this trend, the mega spending comes out to approximately $700 Billion per year. Phew! According to Portfolio.com,

At that rate of burn, General Electric’s value would be wiped out in three and a half years, Bill Gates’ personal fortune would evaporate in just seven months, and the troubled Ford Motor Co. would cease to exist in a matter of weeks.

Staggering as that number is, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist Linda Bilmes calculated that the real cost exceeds $2 trillion. As a sidenote, the cash inflow into the war saga is a big factor in the depletion of the US Capital, which is going down at the rate of $80 million an hour.
The US $ on the other hand continues to fall - the exchange rate today says that $1 US is equivalent to 41.538 of its counterpart INR. According to Professor Peter Morici of the University of Maryland -

"This is not great news, as the February figure was revised up from 0.2%. Over the last year, producer prices, including food and energy, have risen 3.2 percent, and this is troubling high."

Errr.. did I say earlier, that All's not well.. well, guess, I should have rather said - something's seriously wrong.
Enough of background on this, but we all know how the world economy functions, i.e. through circulation of money. Now, even the Big Sam can't generate money in the order of its spendings, so the question arises - How the heck are they continuing the war in Iraq? $700 Billion is a huge sum after all. The answer lies in the fact that the war effort is being ridden on the debt, which is held by the biggest players in the global economy: Japan, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and China. So probably, not a lot of pain is being inflicted on the US economy (now) even after the multi billion dollar adventure, but then someone's gotta pay later..
Among all the big players mentioned above, China is turning a lot of heads towards itself. A trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves - they are accumulating to their forex at an eye-popping rate of $30 million an hour, and considering the continued growth rate of more than 10% - well, better get your calculators out. What's more, they are all geared up to spend $400 Billion in the next 4 years over infrastructure! Excuse me, did I hear it right?

According to the Economist,

"China's official reserves already far exceed what is required to ensure financial stability. As a rule of thumb, a country needs enough foreign exchange to cover three months' imports or to settle its short-term foreign debt. China's reserves are equivalent to 15 months of imports and are six times bigger than its short-term debt. The explosion in reserves is also a headache for the central bank. It creates excess liquidity, which risks fuelling higher inflation, asset-price bubbles and imprudent bank lending."

Two diverse countries, and radically different foreign policies. I'm not advocating China, they have been a closed door for most part of their existence (though changing radically now), but the fact that they have managed to pile up reserves the way they have did - perhaps even the best brains didn't expect this to happen so soon!

Brilliant, Breathtaking and yet.. Beautiful!

Date: June 22, 1986
The occasion was the World Cup match against England, and Diego Maradona's Goal of the Century was the highlight of this day. Nine minutes into the second half, Héctor Enrique passed the ball to Maradona some ten metres inside his own half. Maradona then began his 60 metre, 10 second dash towards the English goal, leaving behind five English outfield players (Hoddle, Reid, Sansom, Butcher and Fenwick) as well as goalkeeper Peter Shilton to make the score 2-0 to Argentina. This goal is rated sixth at the list of 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.

Date: April 18, 2007
A repeat of the earlier version was utmost difficult, but Lionel Messi, the Argentine wonderboy did come really close at emulating it. According to a football enthusiast,

'Messi beat five players; he covered covering 48 metres in 12 seconds, taking 10 touches with his left foot and three with his right'.

Well, the team at the recieving end was Getafe, and Messi was not representing Argentina, rather was representing Barcelona at the King's Cup. Labelled by the pundits as the next Maradona, Messi has already recieved the Golden Boot in the U-20 version of the World Cup. So, will he really set the world of football alight with his enigmatic displays, time will only tell. For now, watch this brilliance..

Google Latest Add-Ons..

Google has introduced 2 new add ons -
-Google Web History: Analogous to the normal page history maintained by your browser, Google comes up with its own version to do the same. However, the difference here is that it maintains the history irrespective of your client machine, which implies that one can access the pages it has searched before from any computer, provided it has the internet access. The history is viewable only after the customary google sign in, which means it takes care of your privacy. The history page obviously has the usual Google makeover, with your visits classified according to your searches done in the Videos, Froogle, Maps, Music et al.

-Google Recommendations: A pretty novel concept - it is primarily a service which provides a daily recommendation to you about the sites that might be of your interest. The recommendations are presented based on the searches that you have done in the past which are already recorded by the Web History. This add on comes in the Google Toolbar, for which you should have the latest version downloaded.

I tried this, but it was a bit of a blooper. However considering its a brand new service, I have decided to give it some more time.

Thanks Brian, It was a Privilege..

Another era goes by, and this one definitely won't be an easy one to let go off. One of the greatest batsman to have ever played this game bids adieu to international cricket. Brian Charles Lara finally seems to have got tired after scoring a mammoth number of runs in both forms of the game - 22340 (before Saturdays' game). But it is just not this figure that he'd be remembered for, but the manner in which he managed to come to it.
Scene 1 Act 1: An unorthodox stance coupled with an incredibly high backlift just when the ball was about to be delivered.
Scene 1 Act 2: Thats an unbelievable cover drive!!

Over the past 17 years, we have seen this happening time and again, the result of which has often been the ball ending up either on the fence or beyond it. The swish-pull off one leg, the scathing square drive, the stupendous backfoot punch - they are never going to be the same again.

Since Sir Donald Bradman, there hasn't been any soul who's hit the big runs so often in this game. A 501, a 400, a 375..errrrrr.. excuse me, we haven't seen ever Sir Don do that!

Lara was a true sporting icon, and I say this because he hasn't been without his share of controversies as every icon generally goes through. But what has been remarkable, is the way he has bounced back.. and done that time and again! He seems to have been a loner in the West Indian side, how often have we seen him perform outstandingly and yet end up in the losing cause. Consider this, he holds the record for the highest number of runs in a match and yet ended up on the losing side - Against Sri Lanka, Lara totalled 351 runs (221 and 130) but Sri Lanka still won by ten wickets.
Cricket's never gonna be the same again. With Lara gone, and Sachin probably considering it as well, it will be a long search before the game finds such icons again. Thanks Brian, it was a privilege for me watching you play and to be born in the same era as you and see you perform the way you did. I'm sure this holds good for most cricket lovers around the world.
Thanks again,
P.S: West Indies were trailing by 228 runs in the first innings when Lara smashed 4,6,6,4,4,4, off Robin Peterson to break the world record for the most runs in an over. Watch it here..Guess what, Lara went on to reach 202 but a second-innings collapse resulted in a 189-run South African victory.

Poms and ODIs.. Nah, not happening..

There are thrashings, there are wallopings and then there's what happened to England today.

-Cricinfo

The Proteas hit 188-3 at 8.06 runs an over to beat Scotland last month — less than the 8.12 they smashed against England.

-The SUN

England's lack of form and adventure was bound to catch up with them at some stage. Granted, most of the pitches in the Caribbean have not been belters (this one had bounce but was a little two-paced), but there has been no Plan B to counter the better sides except to flounder about hoping opponents will somehow implode. For that, the players, the coach, and a county system where one-day cricket is treated with casual disdain, must shoulder the blame.

-The Telegraph

England were bundled out of the World Cup yesterday with all the dignity of a drunk escorted from a temperance night club.

-The Guardian Unlimited

Such was the plight of English cricket after their exit from the World Cup. I haven't written even about the Indians not making to the Super 8s, winning and losing is a part and parcel of the game. If the Indian Team can be criticized for not showing enough heart for the game, how 'bout the Poms? Was it the lack of appetite for One Day Cricket or pure nonchalance about the shorter version of the game, since whatever said and done, for a team to perform the way they did yesterday against the Proteas is simply unforgivable. No I am not really talking about the collapse they suffered mid-way, but the way they started off with the game. Yeah, the turf was a bit bouncy, but it was brilliant for batting and what a mess did the English batsmen found themselves in within the first 10 overs. This was more of a game lost by England rather than won by the South Africans - a perfect example of serving the win on a platter.
It was a sad display and in certain ways a disregard for this game and its ultimate glory. Spare Collingwood, Pietersen and to an extent Strauss, and then you are left with a bunch of players who 'seem' to be least bothered about whats happening in the 100 overs in the middle. (Well, Monty Panesar looks to be an exception to this bunch though, but I'll take a conservative stance on this one)
All in all, we could have afforded a Super 7s rather than an octa version of the same. Atleast a few inconsequential matches could have been avoided.