Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Economist School Briefs

Recently, the Economist published a crash course on understanding the Financial Crisis. That made me search for the earlier school briefs the magazine published in 1999. Those were a series of eight articles on Finance. You can find links to them below
1: Finance Trick or Treat  (Published Oct 21, 1999)
2: The business of banking (Published Oct 28, 1999)
3: Moneyed men in institutions (Published Nov 4, 1999)
4: Stocks in trade (Published Nov 11, 1999)
5: Monopoly power over money (Published Nov 18, 1999)
6: Future perfect (Published Nov 25, 1999)
7: Shared Values (Published Dec 2, 1999)
8: The future of finance (Published Dec 9, 1999)

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

About Cable Networks

With rising inflation and a sinking economy, it is heartening to see that prices of Cable TV, broadband internet and mobile networks are falling or are at least are stable.
I remember paying the first bill for cable TV, which was around Rs. 150 in 2000. Today prices are around 350 (max). Over the 13 years, more channels have been added including some from our neighbouring country India and others from the USA. Moreover, the mushroom growth of Pakistan's own TV channels is astonishing. In 2000, Indus TV was the first private channel to start its operations. But today the number of Pakistani channels has skyrocketed (can't even remember how many or what their names are).
Probably, the Cable Networks are trying to target volume rather than margin. The two top networks in Lahore, Wateen & Worldcall offer similar channels although Wateen's own channels do not feature 60-minute Bahria Town Ads.