ECONOMIC CRASH

   A market trader has given an extraordinary interview in which he admits he has been hoping for another economic crash because it will make him rich.

   Independent trader Alessio Rastani told the BBC that the rescue package being put together by governments to save the eurozone was doomed to failure and appeared pleased by his own prediction.

   he said. "I've been dreaming of this for three years, I have a confession, I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this," he said.

   "I'm very confident that this particularly rescue plan ... It doesn't matter how much money they want to put in, it's not going to work, because this problem can not be solved."

   He added: "I'm fairly confident the euro is going to crash and its going to fall pretty hard. Because markets are ruled right now by fear."

   A proposed three trillion euro (£2.6 trillion) rescue package for the eurozone is expected to be announced within days, and could be in place within weeks.

   Confirming the worst stereotypes of the City trader, Rastani said traders did not care what happened to the economy as long as they made money. "We don't really care whether they're going to fix the economy, our job is to make money from it," he said. "The 1930s depression wasn't just about a market crash, there were some people who were prepared to make money from that crash. I think anyone can do that," he said. "It's an opportunity." He added: "When the market crashes, if you know what to do, if you have the right plan to set up, you can make a lot of money from this."

  Rastani said that it was "wishful thinking" to believe government's could prevent another recession. "Government's don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world. Goldman Sachs does not care about this rescue package," he said. The interviewer said "jaws had dropped" around the BBC newsroom while they listened to his answers.

LAPTOP IN THE MARKET

 

DELLXPS15Z

DELLXPS15Z
Economically its Price is Rs 80,900
Specs: 15-inch screen, Intel i7 2.70 GHz; 8 GB RAM; 720 GB HDD; NVIDIA 525M graphics card; Slot dvd drive; USB, Windows 7 Home

The XPS 15Z is a specialist: it combines style with the capability to provide the best entertainment you wold need. This laptop is built to perfection. The shell has high-grade aluminium and plastics. Its silver colour is a sight for sore executive eyes. The keyboard is nicely laid down and is very comfortable to work with. On the sides, you will find a couple of USB 3.0 ports and a slot for a DVD drive. Users get a 15-inch LED screen which is exceptionally good for both gaming and movies.

The slim frame hides astounding fire power inside. For starters this laptop has the second generation Intel Core i7 processor with turbo boost, which clocks at 2.7 GHz, an impressive 8 GB of RAM and a lavish 720 GB hard drive. For gaming geeks it even carries the NVIDIA 525M graphics card. It boasts a configuration that allows for editing of HD videos. On our test bench, it did not a decent job, but a fabulous one. Its PC Mark Vantage benchmark score stood at 7741 while on 3D Mark 06, it had 6434-wonderful results. The battery lasts for about 6 hours. This is a laptop for a chosen few.

INDIAN WANTS MORE INSURANCE FOR LIFESTYLE

   85 per cent of middle income earners in India feel a greater need for additional insurance to protect their lifestyles, according to a economic survey. According to the ING Investor Dashboard Survey for the second quarter of 2011, more than 75 per cent of respondents that believe they have less coverage than they require want to purchase an additional insurance policy in the coming 12 months. 

  The survey reveals that within the Asia-Pacific region, Indians feel that there is a greater need to protect their lifestyle and intend to purchase additional insurance policies in the next one year. 

  "With rising disposable income, better health, education and housing conditions, more and more individuals have lifestyles that they want to protect," ING Insurance Asia Pacific CEO Frank Koster said, adding that insurance policies with attached savings plans are proving to be the product that attracts the maximum demand. 

  Priority-wise, within the Asia-Pacific region, Indians attach the highest importance to their children's education after the need to protect family income. Saving for retirement is the third-most important priority for Indians, the survey said "Indians have a strong desire to give good education to their children. Compared to the region, Indians have the backing of a joint family system, which makes retirement planning a lesser priority," ING Life India Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer Uco Vegter said.As the nuclear family system grows in India, we will see growth in the retirement segment too, Vegter added. 

  Due to prevailing high interest rates, the Indian middle class finds fixed deposits their favorite instrument to plan for their child's needs, followed by life insurance Policy.

  The survey further reveals that parents are starting to save for their child early, with over 45 per cent of the Indians surveyed asserting that they prefer to start saving for their children when they are 0 to 3 years of age. 

  The survey tracked insurance purchasing behaviour across seven markets (China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan) in order to explore the lifestyle choices of Asia's middle class. 

  The survey was conducted in June, 2011, and involved online interviews with a total of 2,329 middle income respondents aged 25 years and above across seven Asia-Pacific markets.

GLOBAL MARKET SKITTISH ABOUT EUROPE'S BANKS

   Europe's financial crisis intensified as banks moved to obtain more dollars for loans to their U.S. customers, and some nervous corporate clients began looking to banks outside the euro zone for loans.

   Some of Europe's biggest banks are taking steps to shore up their defenses should the debt crisis spiral out of control and one or more countries leave the euro zone.

   BERLIN (AP) -- The IMF singled out European banks as it insisted Wednesday that more needs to be done to shore up the global financial system, saying Europe's weak banks are "caught in a maelstrom" and must beef up their financial buffers.

 

   Europe on Monday announced a trillion-dollar rescue package for crisis-hit euro countries backed by the IMF and central banks worldwide, sending the euro surging in Asian trade.Leaders hope an unprecedented international intervention, officially running to more than 750 billion euros, will represent a game-changing financial war chest.Essentially, Europe wants to leverage vast borrowings to prop up nations the way governments did their banks during the global economic financial crisis -- keeping interest rates down.

   The interconnectedness of global finance is a truism. This has led many to suppose that U.S. banks could be badly hurt by the crisis currently unfolding in Europe. I believe that the threat to U.S. banks deriving from the crisis in the Old Continent has been somewhat exaggerated. First, the direct exposure of U.S. banks to sovereign bond or private lending markets in Europe is small. U.S. banks have limited exposure to European credit, and much of this exposure has been reduced in recent months. U.S.

RESERVE BANK OF INDIA HIKE THE POLICY RATE

Hike Policy Rate

As was widely expected, the Reserve Bank of India on Friday hiked the economic Policy Repo Rate by 25 basis points to 8.25 per cent and said the rate of price rise remained "much above" its comfort zone. This is the 12th straight rate hike since March 2010, as the monetary authority continues its war on inflation. Most observers expected the increase. 

The repo rate now stands at 8.25% and the reverse repo rate now stands at 7.25%. There has been no change in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), which stands at 6%. The bank rate has been retained at 6%.

The Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate, determined with a spread of 100 bps above the repo rate, stands recalibrated at 9.25% with immediate effect.

PRANAB MUKARJEE SAYS  RATE HIGH ONLY TO CHECK INFLATION:

The RBI said it had little choice but to continue its tightening stance, as despite 12 rate hikes the year-on-year wholesale price index (WPI) inflation rose from 9.2 per cent in July this year to 9.8 per cent in August.

The oil marketing companies raised the price of petrol by Rs 3.14 a litre with effective from this month.

BARAK OBAMA TO PROPOSE $1.5 TRILLIONN IN NEW ECONOMIC TAX REVENUE

President Barack Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan, according to senior administration officials.

The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes the new taxes, nearly $250 billion in reductions in spending on Medicare, the federal health care program that primarily benefits the elderly; $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barak Obama

Obama's tax plan is aimed mainly at the wealthy and draws sharp contrasts with congressional Republicans.

It comes just days after House Speaker John Boehner ruled out tax increases to lower deficits. It also comes among a clamor in his own Democratic Party for Obama to take a tougher stance against Republicans. And while the plan stands little chance of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support.

The core of the president's plan totals just more than $2 trillion in shortage reduction over 10 years. It combines the new taxes with $580 billion in cuts to mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion from Medicare.

The administration also counts savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The deficit reduction plan represents an economic bookend to the $447 billion in tax cuts and new public works spending that Obama has proposed as a short-term measure to stimulate the economy and create jobs. He's submitting his deficit fighting plan to a special joint committee of Congress that is charged with recommending deficit reductions of up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

ECONOMICS STATISTICS REPORT

STATISTICS REPORT

These strong reading coming from 1.7% increase in auto production in August and a 4.5% jump in July. factory production increased 0.3%, matching the increase seen in July. High-tech production increased 1.5% in August after a 0.9% drop in July.

The diffusion index of industrial production increased 59% in August (see Chart 3), the highest since January. The operating rate of the nation’s industries rose to 77.4% in August from 77.3% in the prior month.

The Empire State survey and the Philly Fed survey for September present weak factory conditions, with index measuring new orders showing a decline. These factory surveys contradict the pace of activity depicted in actual production numbers. The nationwide factory survey results for September will be published on October 3.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August increased 0.4% in August after a 0.5% increase in July. Higher prices food and energy prices have raised the overall CPI in the past two months. The energy prices index increased 1.2% in August after a 2.8% gain in July, while food prices have risen 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, in July and August. Gasoline prices at the whole sale level have dropped in the last three months but retail prices are yet to reflect the decline of the past two months.

On a year-to-year basis, the CPI had risen 3.8% in August. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% in August, putting the year-to-year increase at 2.0% (see Chart 6). The year-to-year readings of both economic price gauges are above the Fed’s preferred non-official threshold of around 2.0%.

ECONOMIC TIMES AWARD

Economic Times Awards 1998:

        Company of the Year INFOSYS

ET Awards 2008

• Business Leader of the year: A M Naik, L&T
• Business Woman of the year: Shikha Sharma, ICICI Prudential
• Entrepreneur of the year: Dilip Sanghavi, Sun Pharmaceuticals
• Global Indian of the year: Arun Sarin, Vodafone Group
• Business Reformer of the year: Kamal Nath, Union Commerce and Industry Minister
• Policy Change Agent of the year: E Sreedharan, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation
• Company of the year: Tata Steel
• Emerging Company of the year: Welspun Gujarat Stahl Rohren
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Ashok Ganguly, former Chairman, HLL
• Corporate Citizen of the year: Dr Reddy's Foundation

ET Awards 2009

• Business Leader of the year: Anand Mahindra, Mahindra Group
• Business Woman of the year: Vinita Bali, Britannia Industries
• Entrepreneur of the year: GVK Reddy, GVK Group
• Global Indian of the year: Ram Charan, management guru and thinker
• Business Reformer of the year: Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar state
• Policy Change Agent of the year: Jean Dreze, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
• Company of the year: Hero Honda
• Emerging Company of the year: Idea Cellular
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Keshub Mahindra, Mahindra Group
• Corporate Citizen of the year: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

ET Awards 2010

• Business Leader of the year: Aditya Puri, HDFC Bank
• Business Woman of the year: Zia Mody, AZB Partners
• Entrepreneur of the year: Narendra Murkumbi, Renuka Sugars
• Global Indian of the year: Nitin Nohria, Dean, Harvard Business School
• Business Reformer of the year: Kapil Sibal, minister of human resources development
• Policy Change Agent of the year: Aruna Roy and Arvind Kejriwal, — the founders of Parivartan
• Company of the year: Larsen & Toubro
• Emerging Company of the year: Cadila Healthcare
• Lifetime Achievement Award: RC Bhargava, the non-executive chairman of Maruti Suzuki