Uncle Scrooge's Economics

  The following blog has been inspired by an article which I read in 'The Wealth'.  Charles Darwin was a famous biologist who had written one of the most influential books, "On the origin of Species". One of the most important concepts presented in his book was of the survival of the fittest. The fittest animal, or the animal who has what it takes to survive, will survive. Rest will die one day. Every animal needs to adopt to the changes presented by the nature or else, his death is confirmed. Since my brain is so hard coded with markets, I tried applying the "survival of the fittest" logic to the markets. The results were exactly what I had expected. Modern Europe holds the title for initiating the capitalism philosophy. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industries are controlled by the private sector for profit motives. Basically, more profits and private companies' control is capitalism. The concept of c...

                    Indians have been programmed to have at least one pension fund in their portfolio, since the day they start working. Parents encourage their children to work for the government and then enjoy the pensions. That's why products like NPS are famous in India. Definitely, the pensions continue to help many individuals who have either suffered some financial losses or have lost the sole earner. But one question that always strikes me whenever I see any LIC poster or NPS related ads in the newspaper is, are the pensions really safe? Well, I wish the citizens of the UK had asked this question before investing.  A few days ago, some news broke out which probably stopped the heartbeat of the citizens of the UK. The news stated how the pension fund crisis in the UK has contributed to the financial crisis that is currently going on in the UK. More than 30 million British nationals invest in pension funds. The crisis was so b...

  We all know the business acumen of famous Indian businessmen like Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Sir Ratan Tata, Mr. Sunil Mittal, etc. but I think there is a businessman who, over time, has been forgotten. His business acumen may not be as good as the above-mentioned businessman, but he died as the richest duck with a fortune of more than $32 billion. Yes, I am talking about Mr. Scrooge Mc Duck. Mr. Scrooge or Uncle Scrooge, as he was famously called, was a Swedish businessman who made his fortune by running an oil company, followed by investing the surplus wisely in the markets. He started his career as a normal middle-class Swedish guy who also worked as a shoe polish guy, but he had the dedication to put in the work and pull himself out of that. He says that the worst thing about being a middle class is not the money problem, but a mindset problem. If your mindset is middle class, no one can help you get out of that zone.  Since the beginning, Mr. Scrooge was interested in adventure...

    Famous American writer Mark Twain once said that history never repeats itself, but it rhymes. One needs to know the history before he/she sets out to plan their future. One history that everyone should know is about the financial bubbles that have been present since the 1600s. The first ever financial bubble recorded was of the tulip mania. The event took place during 1630-37. Once planted, it took 3 years for the tulip to completely grow. Suddenly, after 1630, the demand for tulips skyrocketed. Instead of demanding the tulip flower, people started demanding the tulip bulbs. The speculation drove the price of tulip bubbles to an extreme. At the market's peak, the rarest tulip bulb traded for 6X the annual salary of average person. Humans are irrational, and when something good is going on, we tend to believe that it is going to last forever. People during the tulip mania thought the same and took out loans to buy the tulip bulbs. When leverage is involved, the game becomes...