Adios... Mrs.Bhutto! Could you have made a difference?

Could it be that Benazir bhutto's death made her a larger idol than she ever was in real life. "There goes the last hope of democracy for pakistan..." the papers say, but was she really that important in the larger scheme of things in that tumultous country?

Benazir deserves praise for having been the first woman prime minister of a muslim country, especially in a country that is still yet to shake off it's feudal and male chauvinistic past. She was perhaps more connected to the west than any of her peers. But did she mean much to pakistan?

She clung on to the legacy of her father and took on the leadership of the people's party as a defacto leader. Benazir spent more time outside the country than at home with her party or people. Her two terms as a prime minister were cut short with corruption charges. She never had a chance to prove herself either on the foreign policy front or the domestic front, largely because she never had that much time on her hands and nothing significant happened on the foreign policy arena when she was in power.

Feminists from the west may romanticize the notion of a woman leader going in and reforming the bad practices of an islamic society. But benazir's record does not prove much. She had big things on her agenda, but could not deliver anything substantial on the laws concerning the treatment of women in pakistan.

Benazir was indeed the voice of moderation, and a voice at that. All she could have done, had she survived and won, would have restored a semblence of democracy, with the mischevious elements of pakistani society going about thier business as usual. The real power in pakistan, as they say always rested in the hands of the army, with the political process being a facade to all the chaos that's called pakistan.

Why ...... Iowa?

It's that time of the year when all the presidential candidates from both parties line up to impress their party men from this little midwest state, all because it hosts the first caucus. you'll see candidates lining up at diners with million dollar smiles, shake hands with farmers and do whatever they have to get the vote on.

The earlier states that host primaries are always known to have swayed the rest of the country. Think of how different things would have been if Howard dean were president. Although he was clearly the right candidate the last time around, he went crashing down once iowa trashed him. Not than John Kerry was any bad, but he clearly wasn't as good as Dean. What made the difference in that case? Iowa.

But Why iowa? Come on... the state is not even representative of the whole country, being 92% white, 3%black, 3%hispanic,1.5% asian... Iowa represents a slice of america from some time in the long past.

It's true that the caucus system of voting is unique, atleast the democratic party's version, and makes for good tradition. But should tradition be adopted at the cost of common sense?

Why can't the entire country have all the caucuses or primaries done with in a single day. That would prevent states like iowa from having that unnecessary influence and level the playing field for everyone.

Now that's unlikely to happen. There may be an advantage for some players with having this farmland state going first, so they won't go along quoting tradition as the reason.

Just as why it's likely to be a long time before the elections move from a tuesday to a weekend, when the country can vote all at once, the tradition of this little state dominating the presidential election will continue for a long time to come. So will the farm subsidies that give the world a reason to doubt america's commitment to free trade.

Early morning ads to Find god.... !

ahh... the time that we're caught in? Churches advertising on morning radio... asking you to start the new year 2008 by bonding again with god. No, it wasn't one of those evangelical channels, but a regular news channel. There have always been such ads on commuter trains , but to hear it on morning radio with a opportunist market oriented strategy of using the new year for proselytizing people , gives a whole new meaning to conversions.

Well, the catholic church can't be blamed with it's recent loss of market share coming f rom child abuse law suits. They seem to be doing whatever any company would do to gain market share....Chalk out a branding strategy and a marketing plan to capture new audiences. With churches being the million dollar machines that they are now... what could stop them. Talk of Business practices being applied to religion.

If the world catches on to this. What could be next? The mullah's placing ads over middle east... asking people to send their kids to madrassas... Or some fake swami in india advertising on MTV.. asking people to check him out.

Here come.. The sheikhs in shining armor

Middle east money is nothing new to wall street. The petro dollars always came back to feed M&A frenzy, and hedge fund adventures. But of late.. it's more in the open and it almost feels like the rich sheikhs of middle east are coming in to protect their investment.

There are glaring headlines around. The abu dhabi investment authority coming in to citi group's rescue at it's bleakest times by buying up 7.5 billion dollars of equity. The Kuwaiti's buying up 50% of dow chemical's plastic division. And unknown investors from the middle east ponying up 11.5 billion dollars for UBS AG's equity, especially when UBS's balance sheet is the most murkiest from the subprime mess.

Its true that all the assets come cheap now with a cheaper dollar. Save for them gorging up on what's available, there must be a protection play involved.

After all, the middle eastern oil churners don't want to let their biggest market, the united states to go through a recession. Especially with the dollar going the way it has been, they wouldn't want it to go further down. Well, they cannot afford to for their oil revenues are stored in dollar denominations.

Of course, they would do anything that they can to protect their favorite investment, even if it means propping up companies with bad balance sheets so the markets continue as though nothing happened.

They may also be leveraging themselves for the far future when oil would dry up. Borse dubai taking up 20% of Nasdaq and Qatar buying out 20% of london stock exchange. This can only be a measure to integrate better into global markets.

Maybe, when the oil dries up and the world starts using bio fuels, the sheiks would live off the spreads from investment deals with the middle east transforming itself from a oil maker into a financial trading powerhouse. What next? a macau or las vegas styled desert gambling oasis. maybe!!!

Can you stop this Flood... Mr.Paulson?

There's gossip around that Hank Paulson's Treasury shall come up with a plan to save all those 1.5 million home owners who face painful payment resets on around 400 billion dollars of mortgages expected through the end of 2007 and 2008.

All the major lenders are supposed to be involved, and the plan is to freeze the ARM loans for a couple of years.

Of course not everyone shall be rescued. Apparently, it's the "Middle tier" who are still solvent that shall be rescued. As for those speculators, and those who weren't even supposed to be in those bloated homes, if not for the tricks played by the lenders and appraisers, shall be left to fend for themselves.

Mr.Paulson seems all out to save as much as he can before the mortgage crisis spreads virally through the economy. But tell me Mr.Paulson, will the rate freeze save anything? will consumers still spend in spite of those stop gap measures? will it really stop a recession? It's true that it will perhaps delay the pain, but someone has to suck up the losses... and it should not be the federal government with the taxpayers money.

Maybe this great free market economy should be allowed to correct itself, like it always has through periods of "irrational exuberance" as Mr.Greenspan would say.