Random Thoughts

I found this interesting graph on The Economist . For some reason, it is difficult to find data on salaries and revenues of European soccer leagues, teams and players. On the contrary, similar data is readily available for American professional sports leagues. As a big Serie A fan, I am disheartened to see the Italian league losing out on the revenue race. Serie A is not only trailing in terms of money, but also talent and level of competition. The English Premier League and Spanish La Liga are clearly the best in Europe with Serie A being third. Despite the large revenue, the German Bundasliga is probably a distant fourth. Why is that? My suspicion is that Germany does not have the appeal of an Italy or Spain. May be the fact that Bayern Munich is leaps and bounds above all the other lubs in Bundasliga has had an adverse effect on the league as a whole. In England, you have four teams( Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal) always closely competing for the top spot.

Does cost always correlate with quality? That would obviously depends on the commodity in question. People have researched this topic as it pertains to water(bottled vs. tap, bottled vs. bottled) , wine , and vodka . Blind tastings for water, vodka and wine have largely concluded that the average person can't detect the difference between most cheap and expensive brands. The answer to whether expensive wine, vodka, and bottled water are really better has been an emphatic no. But, the mere thought of drinking something expensive elicits a better sense of enjoyment. Of course, connoisseurs have developed a more refined taste for what is good and what is not. But for the average Joe, expensive=better is simply a placebo effect. I am a heavy coffee drinker and I have evaluated whether my preference for certain Starbucks blends over generic brands (Folgers, Maxwell House ...) was real or an object of my imagination. It turns out it is real. I can tell apart generic brands from

During the housing bubble from 2001-2006, the vacancy for rental properties went up from about 8% to 10% as people chose buying over renting. With the large number of foreclosures and tight credit markets, more people are wisely renting homes instead of buying. Once the inflated home values drop to their intrinsic prices, I expect people to start buying homes again. Of course, the economy and job market would have to be healthy and credit would have to be available

Most people remember the Dot-Com bubble of the 1990s that peaked in 2000 before bursting in 2001-2003. Considering how the NASDAQ composite lost more than 60% of its value by 2001 alone, the country was about to go into a recession. The 9/11 attacks made things worse too. As the impact of 9/11 and Dot-Com bust were about to pull the country into a recession, another bubble came to the rescue. It was the housing bubble that deferred a sure recession and kept the US in an era of faux prosperity. It gave Bush a reason to soldier on with flawed economic policies as the housing bubble gave the impression that the good economic progress of the Clinton years were being sustained through Bush's years. This time though, there does not appear to be another bubble ready to bail the US out of the recession it is in. After suffering through the I.T. and housing bubbles in just a decade, I don't think investors and people in general will be adventurous enough to create another bubbl

As I was looking through the Department of Homeland Security's report on refugees and asylees , I came across this amazing plot: What accounts for this huge decline in refugees entering the US? I seriously doubt it is the decline in the number of people seeking refugee protection because the world has had quite a few humanitarian and political crisis. People I talk to tell me that countries like Canada and Australia have been more accommodating of refugees throughout the world with the help of UNHCR. Has the US been reluctant to fully participate in such programs? The explanation given on the report is as follows: 9/11 has certainly had an impact, but the numbers have been declining since the 1990s. Asylum admission , on the other hand, had been rising in the 1990s and declining since 2001. Number of people granted asylum in the US is now half the number of those given refugee status. In the 1990s, the ratio of refugees to asylees was much larger. I will certainly tr

I am going to start posting interesting graphs from the web and discuss them in a new section called GRAPHS. The first installment comes from The Economist . Boy, Americans have not felt great about their country's direction for most of the last 8 years. The current economic crisis which could easily last for another two years will only add to people's blues. I think a possible Obama presidency could give this country a mild jolt of happiness and optimism. But, as long as this country remains mired in its unsustainable ways, the blues are here to stay.

I found some data on the market share of OS 's, browsers , and search engines by the major players. I was particularly interested in the market share of Linux in the OS realm. The data is collected using web hits for the month of June 2008. First the OS data. Operating Systems Assuming the data is reliable, it is surprising that Linux's market share is less than 1%. Considering how much more user-friendly Linux has become, the many distros that are available for people's choosing, and the great stability Linux has achieved, it is disappointing to see it failing to make serious inroads. May be vendors need to provide customers the option of buying machines with Linux pre-installed. Better yet, computer vendors should provide the option of buying a computer without an OS. Search Engines The other piece of data I was curious about is the search engine market shares. Google is clearly the leader and its dominance will probably continue for some time. I expected MSN