Uncle Scrooge's Economics

  Capitalism is brutal. To stay competitive in the long term, a company needs to have an enduring competitive advantage, or an economic advantage. The term "economic moat," popularised by Warren Buffett, refers to the ability to maintain a competitive advantage over its competitors in order to protect its long-term profits and market share. Just like a mediaeval castle, the moat serves to protect those fortresses and their riches from outsiders. Remember, competitive advantage is essentially any factor that allows a company to provide a good or service that is similar to those offered by its competitors and, at the same time, outperform those competitors in profits. A good example of a competitive advantage would be a low-cost advantage, such as cheap access to raw materials. Very successful investors such as Mr. Buffett have been adept at finding companies with solid economic moats but relatively low share prices. For us investors to find a company with an enduring competit

                                                                                                                                                                                                        We have heard the phrase "too few hands chasing too few goods" before. Finally, I found out that those "too few" hands were of this gentleman. Wearing a tailor-made Armani suit and smiling like a 6-year-old, this man really owns the world. Managing over $650 Billion in assets (more than India's forex reserves), having a collective AUM (asset under management) of more than $1 Trillion, aggregating over 100 million sq feet of land in India, and having sizeable stakes in companies like Google, Amazons, and the Meta's of the world, this man and his company is so powerful that it can actually do whatever they want. The name is Stephen Schwarzman, and he is the founder of none other than, the Blackstone Group. The group is an economy in itself. It all started with a d

      "It is often said that what you take from the Ganga, you must return to the Ganga," says the billionaire boss of Vedanta Resources. Dressed in a sober blue suit and rectangular-framed glasses, Agarwal is a towering figure in India. Not just because he is 6 feet tall, but also because the self-made billionaire's London-listed natural resources conglomerate, which turned over $11.5 billion last fiscal, is the sixth biggest in the world (by EBITDA). And with a personal fortune of $3.2 billion, he is ranked 97 on India's richest list in FY 2022.   He has pledged most of his billions for philanthropic causes and hence refrains from being called a billionaire. He has promised to give away 75% of his fortune, a decision he took with his family in 2014. He says,"Money is important. It gives you confidence. But I never came from that background, so it makes me uncomfortable".  In his early years growing up in the constricted lanes of Goria Toli in Patna, Bihar

                                                 THE STORY OF CHARLES.T. MUNGER  Charlie Munger has a net worth of over $2 billion as of May 2023. He is famously called as a ''book with legs" and the "fastest brain out there" by his closed ones. He is 99 years old and has seen pretty much everything under the sun. He has a brain power of a 30-year-old, endurance of a 25-year-old, smile of a 10-year-old, and eating habits of a 6-year-old. His life story, if transformed into a movie form would fetch millions, if not billions in revenues. His story depicts how being emotionally distant can help you achieve whatever you want out of life, no matter how abysmal the situations are. Till date, I have scripted some 40 blogs but this one would always be closest to my heart, no matter how much views I get. Just reading his autobiography would be worth a few MBAs. Trust me on this one.  So, let me enlighten you all with an unbelievable story of rags to riches of my father in

We have all heard about Mr. Buffett and the magic he has created in the markets. But there is one investor who even Mr. Buffett admires. The name is Peter Lynch. Peter Lynch is a legendary fund manager who compounded money at 29.30% at Fidelity Magellan Fund between 1977 and 1990. Today, Peter Lynch is 79 and still runs his family office. Mr. Lynch is the epitome of a rational, humorous, and logical person. No matter what your educational background is, you just can't get bored while listening to Mr. Lynch. Here are some of the valuable lessons he has shared through his speeches, books, and interviews.  1. "GO FOR A BUSINESS THAT ANY IDIOT CAN RUN - BECAUSE SOONER OR LATER ANY IDIOT PROBABLY IS GOING TO BE RUNNING IT". "  What Mr. Lynch means over here is to invest in companies that do not require a lot of brain power to run. Don't get me wrong, but he is talking about companies that are too easy to understand and run yet have the economic moat to stay competitiv

As a kid, I always wondered why  every toy I bought had "Made in China" on it. No matter what I bought, the smallest of the smallest and the biggest of the biggest had "Made in China" scripted on them. As a kid, I ignored it, but as I grew up, I came to know how this "Made in India" tag dominated the world. And it wasn't just India; no matter which country you were in, every country had Chinese products. How did one of the poorest countries of the 1950s and 1960s become one of the manufacturing superpowers? One of the secrets was effective and shameless cloning. The COVID lockdown was an eye-opener for all countries that were completely dependent on China for manufacturing. Many countries understood that small havocs in China could cause big meltdowns in their own countries. Let's start from the beginning. The year was 1950, and China was a complete slum. 90% of the population lived below the poverty line, and food was a luxury. The population was