Self-made wealth in America Robber barons and silicon sultans Today’s tech billionaires have a lot in common with a previous generation of capitalist titans—perhaps too much for their own good Jan 3rd 2015  |  From the print edition   Economist IN THE 50 years between the end of the American civil war in 1865 and the outbreak of the first world war in 1914 , a group of entrepreneurs spearheaded America’s transformation from an agricultural into an industrial society, built gigantic business empires and amassed huge fortunes. In 1848 John J. Astor, a merchant trader, was America’s richest man with $20m (now $545m). By the time the United States entered the first world war, John D. Rockefeller had become its first billionaire. In the 50 years since Data General introduced the first mini-computers in the late 1960s, a group of entrepreneurs have spearheaded the transformation of an industrial age into an information society, built giga...

You can always improve your cognitive skills and abilities, said experts at BT MindRush. Goutam Das     Bussiness Today    Edition: January 18, 2015 P Murali Doraiswamy, Professor and Director, Mental Fitness Lab, Duke University (Photo: Shekhar Ghosh) The lanky P. Murali Doraiswamy, the Professor and Director of Mental Fitness Lab at Duke University,  walked up to the stage at Business Today's annual conclave, MindRush and " said "One of the things I am going to do is challenge one of the earlier speakers, Peter [Docker]. And tell you why some of the things he said was wrong," he said. Docker is a former British Royal Air Force officer and a pilot - he flew Margaret Thatcher, the late British Prime Minister. He has now metamorphosed into an eloquent motivational speaker who takes forward his friend and author Simon Sinek's theory of The Golden Circle. So, what did Docker say that needled Doraiswamy into a "friendly" ch...

A New Year Wish  NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB   There is a pressing need to focus on imparting technical skills while respecting serial failure The wish is for economies to focus on technical skills, instead of formal higher education. Rich countries with highly educated populations became rich first, with education catching up.What these countries had was down-to-earth practical skills.Germany, ever so robust, has nearly half its youth undergoing some apprenticeship -learning real, useable, things. Beyond a point, education decreases entrepreneurial risk taking -the good kind of tinkering-style risk taking with small downside that has generated wealth since the Industrial Revolution. Just imagine what would have happened if Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Marc Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison stayed in school -and ended up as lawyers or consultants. We know that higher education increases the income of a family but it does not increase that of a country -label ...

Cancer best way to die: Ex-editor of med journal Kounteya Sinha London:   The former editor of the world's best known medical journal -The British Medical Journal (BMJ) -has caused a storm by saying that cancer is the best way to die. Richard Smith says “stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a more horrible death“.He added “ death from cancer is the best. You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion“. “This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky . But stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible...

Jan 01 2015 : The Economic Times (Mumbai) High-Debt Cos Fail to Gain from Bull Runs   Here's a word of caution as you go about picking stocks in a market that some say has run ahead of reality. While it's generally said that holding stocks for a long time would give good returns, there is a flip side to the common refrain in the world of investments. In the last 10 years, Indian equity market has witnessed three bull runs, including the recent one. But, there is a long list of BSE500 companies that have not generated meaningful returns in this period.Companies such as Future Retail, Tata Steel, Ranbaxy , Hindalco, Reliance Infrastructure, Videocon Industries, Jubilant LifeSciences, JP Associates, IDBI Bank and HCL Infosystems have given returns ranging from 34% to 25% in the last 10 years (see chart). This means even the best performing stock of the lot rose just 2% annually . This is despite their sales growing multi-fold. Take Hindalco,...

Sensex Looks Relatively Well-Placed as We Enter 2015 Saurabh Mukherjea CEO institutional equities Ambit Capital   Three sets of dynamics tend to determine the returns of the index, and they seem to be in the right place; Sensex could hit 36000 by FY16-end Neither GDP growth nor earnings growth has any meaningful relationship with the investment returns generated by the Sensex . Investment returns seem to be dependent on three very different sets of dynamics : ( a ) Reversion to the mean; ( b ) The political-economic cycle in India; and ( c ) The US monetary policy cycle. Seen against these three set of `stories', the Sensex looks relatively well placed as we enter 2015. We reiterate our end-FY16 target of 36000 for the Sensex.So, if neither GDP growth nor EPS growth drives the stock market, what drives it? Secondly , are these drivers predictable at all? Over the last 30 years, there has been a pronounced tendency for the Sensex's returns to r...