Interesting Readings 20 April 2018
India
India needs to fundamentally alter its export strategy
Ajit Ranade spells out the answer briefly. The article however highlights important gaps in Indian exports.
World
What 1985 tells us about a US China trade war
Mint searches for lesson in Regan's Japan strategy for Trump's China strategy. Interesting.
Jeff Bezos letter to shareholders, 2018 and 1997
Worth reading.
Why shorting stocks is not for me - in the words of Charlie Munger.
Sort of explains my feeling. Long ago we shorted a group of Australian media stocks. We took positions when they were trading in $38-42 range (yeah all of them) and then they went up over next 3 months. I being a junior was a bit scared though we had doubled down of these bets. Ultimately Lehman struck and these stocks went down right to $4 approx. Yet, I still remember feeling a bit jittery during those times.
Masters in Business Podcast: Annie Duke on Avoiding "Resulting"
One of the most important podcast you will listen. Annie is a poker player and her views on decisions in uncertainty will definitely be helpful. I want to read her book "Thinking in bets". Poker is much like financial markets - decision making under uncertainty. You can also read For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player by Victoria Coren Mitchell for general view of Poker.
Blockchain Is About to Revolutionise the Shipping Industry
Many people seem to throw blockchain and Distributed Ledger technologies as useful in many domains. For example, in the above one, shipping is considering. While blockchain can solve their problem, that is not the most apt solution. What they need seems to be a centralised processing system with view access to all channel partners.
How China’s Top Leaders Came Into Power
This is an old one but it gives sort of the evolution of Chinese leaders.
World War Watch
F-35 the myths. This four part series answers some of the questions related to F-35. Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4. I am beginning to believe it will be better for India to rely on 5 aircraft configuration for Indian Airforce. Gripen, F-35, Tejas, Su-30, Rafale. If US can offer a manufacturing line for F-35 we should take it. But a manufacturing line for F-16 block 70 does not seem to make sense. Particularly I find F-16 short on avionics and a fuel guzzler of sorts. The main part will be to ensure all aircrafts talk to each other. That will be the biggest problem. Further, the deployment should be multi-aircraft types rather than single types. It means more collaborative training between all pilots.
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