The 5 Items That Will Get Cheaper in 2012

Source : TIME :DAN KADLEC| January 4, 2012 |

What will 2012 bring? Economic recovery or a double dip? A new President or … a double dip? Another tsunami? Revolt in Europe? No one can say with certainty. But here are 10 trends that consumers can take to the bank.

According to the shopping website dealnews, these five items will get cheaper this year:

• Wine Bottles priced at $30 or more are languishing on store shelves. To move stock, retailers will offer discounts.
• Car rentals Agencies have a glut of vehicles sitting idle on the lot. They will offer discounts to get those cars on the road.
• iPad 2 Technology always gets cheaper. This year many computer-related items like perfectly usable eBook readers and tablets will come down in price ahead of the iPad 3 release.
• 3-D TVs This relatively new technology will hit critical mass this year, and with many new designs and makers in the game, prices will fall to an irresistible level.
• Homes Home prices fell about 3% last year and should fall that much again this year. But the smart money is getting ready for a rebound after that, expecting prices to rise by 30% over the following 10 years.

Here are 5 items that will get more expensive, according to dealnews:

• Airfare Fewer flights will lead to higher ticket prices. American Express predicts prices in North America will rise 5% for economy seats and 7% for business class.
• Food Wholesale food prices are rising, and the costs are being passed along to consumers. Food costs rose 6% last year and will rise again in 2012. These increases will be felt most at home, not in restaurants, where the costs are easier to absorb.
• Gas
 Fuel prices began inching up just before the holidays and are expected to again reach $4 a gallon at the pump.
• Shipping 
The U.S. Postal Service will raise rates by 4.6% next year while both FedEx and UPS are hiking small-package rates by 4.9%. It may be the end of common free-shipping features for online shoppers.
• Municipal fees
 To make up for budget shortfalls, local authorities will jack up the levy for everything from dog licenses to vehicle registration and parking. Look for local cops to write more tickets too.

The Man Who Lost $2 Billion in 2011

Source : SiliconIndia, Thursday, 05 January 2012, 01:27 Hrs 

 Warren Buffet lost about $2 billion in 2011, as reported by Andrew Frye of Bloomberg. The fall in Buffet’s stocks was recorded by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index.  

Though Buffet, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, claims to be at the top of the stock market, even during harsh times, last year saw a dip in his stocks. The loss of about $2 billion was mostly due to Berkshire’s fall of 4.7 percent, in stocks, last year. The fall in Berkshire’s stocks last year comes as a surprise as this company has exhibited an increase of 17 times its value since its inception and an increase of 4 times in its index. David Rolfe, Chief Investment Officer (Berkshire Investor Wedgewood Partners), said that Berkshire is a “strong performer” in “tough markets.”

Buffet held the first share-repurchase programme in the last 40 years. Also, the stock prices of Berkshire fell at an all-time low in the 3^rd quarter last year. Berkshire also underwent insurance claims in connection with natural calamities and derivatives affecting institutional portfolios. David Sokol, former Chairman, President and CEO of NetJets, closely associated with Berkshire, and his resignation from his company, due to allegations of insider trading, further affected the stocks of Berkshire. Berkshire also owns the largest percentage of share in Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), a bank head-quartered in San Francisco. WFC’s value dropped by 22 percent last year, thus, sinking $2 billion of Berkshire.

The main reason behind the declining stocks of Berkshire is ‘insurance losses’. Charles Munger, Vice Chairman (Berkshire) said that the insurance losses of Berkshire were mainly due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in the earlier part of 2011. According to Financial Report, there was a 58 percent drop in the profits of Berkshire in the 1^st quarter of 2011, when compared to that of 2010, due to the natural calamities in Japan. This was due to massive losses in the forex trading of Berkshire. The insurance losses went as high as $1.7 billion dollars due to tsunami and earthquake in Japan, floods in Australia and earthquake in New Zealand.

Despite the losses, Berkshire registered a net profit of $131 million last year. This number, however, is very small when compared to the net profit of $1.2 billion in 2010. According to data collated by Bloomberg, Berkshire’s Price-to-book-ratio on 31^st December, 2011 was around 1.2, which is greater than that of 1.1 in 2010. Also, the Book Value of Berkshire increased by 1.7 percent amounting to $160 billion in the 3^rd quarter of 2010.  

Citigroup Sues Hedge Fund Manager in Singapore Over Gold Losses

Source : Bloomberg :Andrea Tan:January 04, 2012, 8:06 PM EST

 Citigroup Inc.’s Singapore unit sued Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager Raghavendran Rajaraman, seeking to recoup $1.03 million in trading losses the bank says he incurred after gold fell from a record high in September.

Rajaraman had $19.2 million worth of gold in his account on Sept. 23 which the bank sold, along with other collateral, on Sept. 26 “in the face of a rapidly deteriorating market,” leaving a $1 million shortfall, according to a Nov. 18 lawsuit filed with the Singapore High Court. The first closed hearing is scheduled for Jan. 27.

Gold plunged 11 percent in September, the most since October 2008, after futures reached a record $1,923.70 an ounce on Sept. 6. The bank liquidated Rajaraman’s account after it reached a so-called forced sell level and got his authorization, according to court papers. Gold for February delivery in New York was at $1601.30 an ounce at 9:55 a.m. Singapore time.

Rajaraman works with hedge fund 3 Degrees Asset Management and was a currency options trader with Citigroup in Singapore until 2007, according to the lawsuit.

He hasn’t filed his defense and didn’t return three calls to his mobile-phone. Richard Healy, Rajaraman’s lawyer at Oldham, Li & Nie, declined to comment.

“We intend to pursue the case and it’s inappropriate for us to comment further,” said Citigroup’s Singapore-based spokesman Adam Abdur Rahman.

3 Degrees Plan

Rajaraman isn’t a 3 Degrees employee, Moe Ibrahim, founder of the hedge fund, said in a phone interview. “There was a plan to launch a fund together but it never came to fruition,” Ibrahim said.

Citigroup breached its agreement by closing his account without prior notice, according to an Oct. 7 letter from Oldham, Li & Nie to the bank’s lawyers including William Ong at Allen & Gledhill LLP.

“As a direct consequence of the bank’s breach,” Rajaraman suffered a $1.7 million loss, representing his collateral, according to the letter. He incurred a further $1.03 million loss as the bank prematurely liquidated the account instead of waiting for 24 hours after the account reached the force-sell level, Rajaraman’s lawyers said in the letter.

The case is Citibank Singapore Ltd. v Raghavendran Rajaraman S826/2011 in the Singapore High Court.

Developing Mindful Leaders

Source : Harvard Business Review: Polly LaBarre :December 30, 2011 3:32 PM

Conventional leadership development programs need an overhaul. 

Harvard blogger Polly LaBarre explains why

Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as “leadership development,” which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs—absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks “hi-pos” and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions—which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.

What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?

In other words, what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?

That was the question Todd Pierce asked himself in 2006 after years of experimenting with the full menu of trainings, meetings, and competency models in his capacity as CIO of biotechnology giant Genentech. He had just scoured the development reports of some 700 individuals in the IT department and found that “not one of them had an ounce of inspiration. I remember sitting there and saying, ‘There’s got to be a another way.’”

At the time, Pierce was benefiting personally from work with a personal coach and had recently woken up to the power of the practice of mindfulness. He called in a kindred soul,Pamela Weiss, a long-time executive coach and meditation teacher, to help design an experiment that would cast out the traditional approach to leadership development to focus instead on helping people grow.

“If you want to transform an organization it’s not about changing systems and processes so much as it’s about changing the hearts and minds of people,” says Weiss. “Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings.”

Pierce and Weiss distilled a set of principles that form the basis of what became the “Personal Excellence Program” (PEP), now heading into its sixth year inside Genentech (Pierce left the company this fall after 11 years to join salesforce.com). Together, these pillars offer up a short course in unleashing human capability, resilience, compassion, and well-being (and they’re unpacked in even more detail in Weiss and Pierce’s entry).

1. Developing people is a process—not an event. “Development is all too often considered a one-time event,” says Weiss. She and Pierce designed PEP as a ten-month-long journey that unfolds in three phases, with big group meetings, regular small group sessions, individual coaching, peer coaching, and structured solo practice.

2. People don’t grow from the neck up. Too much training focuses on the the mind—it’s about transferring content. “We talk about the head, the heart, and the body,” says Weiss. In fact, they do more than talk about it—they enact it every day at the start of every meeting. The “3-center check in” is the gateway drug to mindfulness. As Weiss describes it: “You close your eyes for a moment and you notice, ‘What am I thinking—what’s happening in my head center,’ then you notice, ‘What am I feeling—what’s happening in my heart center.’ then, ‘What am I feeling—what’s happening in my body.’ It’s a way in which people start paying attention and practicing mindfulness without ever practicing meditation.”

3. Put mindfulness at the center (but don’t call it that!).Weiss and her team were careful to keep the language of specific belief systems and religions out of PEP. The program revolves around three phases: reflection on and selection of a specific quality or capacity you want to work on (patience, decisiveness, courage); three months of cultivating the capacity for self-observation; and the hard work of turning insight into deliberate, dedicated, daily practice.

4. It’s hard to grow alone. “People grow best in community,” says Weiss. “People don’t grow as well just reading a book, getting an online training, or just taking in information. There’s an exponential impact in having people grow and learn together.” That’s why the PEP “pod” (small 6-8 person group) is the main vehicle throughout the year.

5. Everybody deserves to grow. Pierce felt strongly that PEP should be available to people across the board—not just the usual “stars”—and that it should be voluntary. “The program is by application and not declaration,” he says.

As PEP heads into its sixth year at Genentech, some 800 people have participated in the program. (Weiss added a graduate curriculum and a student training program to create “PEPtators” as few people want the journey to end.) The impact has been nothing short of transformative for individuals and organization alike. When Pierce took over the IT department in 2002, its employee satisfaction scores were at rock bottom; four years into the program, the department ranked second in the company and is now consistently ranked among the best places to work in IT In the world (even in the wake of Genentech’s 2009 merger with Roche Group—always a turbulent and dispiriting experience).

Pierce attributes that to “the emotional intelligence of people and the capacity to change” developed in PEP. But don’t take his word for it. The data-obsessed Pierce commissioned a third path impact report on PEP. It came in glowing: 10-20% increase in employee satisfaction, 50% increase in employee collaboration, conflict management, and communication; 12% increase in customer satisfaction; and nearly three times the normal business impact.

“Through PEP we have created a smarter, more agile, and more responsive organization,” says Pierce. “The reduction of suffering, the capacity to deal with difficulties, the level of engagement—these things are very powerful and you can’t call a meeting to get them or give people stock options and have them. These are skills and qualities you have to cultivate and practice.”

So how’s this for a new year’s resolution for hard-charging leaders: turn every ringing, pinging, tweeting, and blinking thing off—especially your mind—and just breathe.

L-1 visas to Indian IT cos decline

Source :Pankaj Mishra & Shruti Sabharwal, ET Bureau | Jan 3, 2012, 10.09AM IST


For the first time in many years, the number of short-term US visas given to Indian professionals has declined, giving credence to complaints that America is making it difficult for software companies such asInfosys and Tata Consultancy Services to send employees to their biggest market. 

Approvals for L-1 visas, on which Indian software companies rely to send their most skilled professionals on assignments to the United States, were 28% lower at 25,898 in 2011, data from an independent public policy think tank based in the US show. On the other hand, such visa approvals rose by 15% for applicants from the rest of the world, leading to concerns that India is singled out for attention. 

"This shows an enormous gap in visas issued as well as approval/denial rates between posts in India and the rest of the world, raising policy questions as to whether this great disparity is the result of a conscious policy at US posts in India," the National Foundation for American Policy wrote in its report. 

Among the advisory members of the foundation is Columbia University economist Jagdish N Bhagwati, an advocate of global free trade. Most people in the software industry believe there is a deliberate policy of discrimination against Indians but they are wary of voicing their opinion publicly for fear of antagonising the American government. 

Som Mittal, the president of software industry lobby Nasscom, said even American companies such as IBM and Accenture have been affected because the high rejection rates prevent many of their Indiabased staff from travelling to the United States. 

"For us, it adds to our uncertainty and costs," he observed. 

40% of Work Permits Under L-1 

About 25,000-35,000 Indians travel to the US every year to work on assignments for software companies. Up to 40% of work permits are usually under the L1 category meant for professionals with specialised skills such as project management. 

India's $70-billion IT services sector is facing increased scrutiny from US immigration officials and other federal authorities, especially after an American employee of Infosys accused the company of abusing short-term work permits issued under B1 visa category to do software code writing. 

The US has also doubled visa fees under the H1 and L1 categories that most Indian companies use. The Indian government has been urging the US, which accounts for more than half of Indian IT exports, to ease up on visa rejections but it does not appear to be making much headway. 

"The release of the L1 visa data makes it difficult for US government officials to argue that nothing different is going on in India," the foundation wrote. The US State Department has been denying that anything is amiss with L1 visa approvals in India because the country gets the lion's share of such work permits. However, the foundation termed that line of argument "questionable". 

"The fact that India has a large and growing pool of skilled professionals tells us nothing about whether when employers apply for L1 visas, the individual cases of such professionals are decided properly." Already facing an uncertain economic environment, companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro are now being forced to adopt technologies such as telepresence to compensate for the presence of an expert at the customer's site. 

For Indian technology companies competing for contracts in the US, every visa denial counts, and can mean loss of business. An executive at a mid-sized company cited the example of a million-dollar short-term project which it lost to a local competitor because it was not able to get its employee an L-1 visa. The rival got the job done through an Indian expert based in the UK. 

Eshan Joshi, a former head of employee compensation and immigration at Infosys, said the US needs to create a new category of visas for services to bring clarity and also meet special needs of the technology sector. The increasing complexity around work permits causes short-term hiccups for technology services vendors scrambling to back critical projects with their best talent, said Joshi, who is now an independent human resources consultant. "It makes executing projects very difficult, but not a fatal issue for business in the long term. Companies need to reduce dependence on such work permits."

Made in India, faked in China- $5bn loss

Source :IANS | Jan 1, 2012, 02.54PM IST


 Chinese manufacturers are increasingly "faking" popular Indian products of consumer goods giants such as Dabur and ITC, undermining the legitimacy of brands and causing losses worth as much as $5 billion annually, officials said.

"A lot of counterfeit Dabur products are made in China. We have conducted at least 20 raids in China but no proper action has been taken by the Chinese," said Ashok Jain, general manager of finance at Dabur India, the country's fourth largest FMCG firm.

He said such fake products manufactured in China with "Made-in-India" tag are supplied across the world, mostly in India and African countries.

"It causes huge damage to the brand. Those fake products are obviously not up to our standards and supplied at very low prices," Jain told IANS.

Dabur, which has nearly $4 billion market capitalisation, operates in key consumer product categories like healthcare, skin care, hair care and oral care. The company's revenue last fiscal was $910 million.

Pradeep Dixit, a senior official of ITC, a $33-billion conglomerate, said the popular FMCG brands of the company were counterfeited by unscrupulous firms and supplied in domestic as well as foreign markets.

"Our popular cigarette brand is faked and supplied widely in the states like Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh," he said.

"China is a big problem everybody is facing," said S.K. Goel, chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs, told IANS.

Goel said the big international brands like Nokia, Adidas, Reebok and Nivea were also widely counterfeited in China and supplied in India and other parts of the world.

Chinese manufacturers are also faking drugs, endangering lives of patients. Fake drugs, carrying " Made in India" tags, supplied from China were recently detained in Nigeria and other African countries.

K.K. Vyas, Delhi's deputy commissioner of police (crime), said the police have seized and confiscated a lot of fake and counterfeited products of popular brands in the national capital recently.

Vyas emphasised on the need for enhancing punishment for unscrupulous manufacturers and importers. "Punishment needs to be enhanced. Also there is need that judiciary addresses these issues quickly."

"Counterfeiting is a big menace. It is hurting everybody - consumers, industry and the exchequer," said Anil Rajput, chairman of the anti-smuggling and anti-counterfeiting committee of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Recently, FICCI formed a panel called "FICCI-Cascade" that expands into a committee on anti-smuggling and counterfeiting activities destroying the economy. Chaired by Rajput, the committee is working closely with the government to curb this menace.

According to a report by think tank Indiaforensic Research Foundation, the total loss to the economy annually due to crimes such as counterfeiting, commercial fraud, smuggling, drug trafficking, bank fraud, tax evasion and graft is estimated at Rs.22,528 crore.

Savings bank a/c number portability on anvil: Finance ministry

Source : ET :PTI | Jan 3, 2012, 05.23PM IST

 The finance ministry is working on savings banks account number portability, which will allow a customer to retain his account number while changing his bank.

"We want to do it (savings a/c number portability). Right now there are some technical problems...we have identified them. We will overcome them soon," financial services secretary D K Mittal told reporters here.

He was speaking after a meeting in the ministry, which among others was attended by economic affairs secretary R Gopalan, finance secretary R S Gujral and chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu.

He said banks would have to work on identification code, know your customers (KYC) norms and core banking solution ( CBS) for implementing the savings bank account number portability.
The move would help customers change banks, without the need of going through the KYC norms again. Last year, the government had allowed portability of mobile numbers and health insurance policies.


In October last year, the Reserve Bank had deregulated interest rates on savings account deposits, following which few private sector lenders have hiked rates to as much as 7 per cent.


Mittal further said capital infusion in PSU banks would be completed by the end of this fiscal. "We will complete the process of bank recapitalisation by March 31," he said. The government has already announced that it is committed to providing adequate capital to public sector banks, so as to maintain their Tier-I capital at 8 per cent.


The government has made Budget provision of Rs 6,000 crore for capital infusion in PSU banks in the current fiscal.


State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, IDBI Bank and Syndicate Bank are some of the lenders which will be benefited by the capital infusion initiative of the government.