Not every leader can–or should–be an innovative leader. Full article.

Newsweek finds yet another person to blame for this recession – Baby Boomers. See graph below of US population by age.

“The Baby Boom lasted from 1946 to 1964, and
some 78 million American children were born during that time. As this
cohort ages, its sheer size overshadows the rest of society.”

The worrying trend:
What happened in Japan in the 1990s was
a demographic shift into retirement, where a large portion of the
population went from a lifestyle of earning, saving and spending to a
lifestyle of not earning, living off assets and spending less. This
resulted in less demand for investments like stocks, less demand for
housing, and less demand for material ‘things’ — and the prices of all
these fell.

In one of the comments a user says “Let’s see, both my husband and I started working for cash before we
were even in junior high (he had a paper route, I babysat). Funny, I
don’t see any kids working in stores now, or many doing paper routes
either.”

The thing is there is no more of the paper route job. And the “working in stores” job is being done by adults out of college since there are no more jobs for them.

I dont think kids these days are slackers, or obsessed with navel gazing on twitter. They just dont have the opportunities that existed, since those jobs are gone.

QIP plans of the large real estate companies in India.

HDIL (about Rs 3,000 crore through QIP and Rs 850 crore through
promoter warrants), Parsvnath and Akruty (Rs 2,500 crore each),
Anantraj (Rs 2,000 crore), Sobha Developers (Rs 1,500 crore),
Puravankara (Rs 750 crore) and Orbit Corp (Rs 500 crore through QIP and
an unidentified amount through promoter warrants).

The Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) data for Week 21 for Mumbai, New
Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore is out. Radio Mirchi continues to lead in
Delhi and Kolkata. Red FM has regained its lost stance in Mumbai, Big
FM continues to rule in Bangalore.

I am going to boil down a 6 page article (its awesome) on How to grow a super-athlete to one quote. This I believe holds good for kids, adults and others.

”

Deliberate practice means working on technique, seeking constant
critical feedback and focusing ruthlessly on improving weaknesses”.

The mobile phone market is going to start looking like the pharma industry is. A bunch of “generic” drug makers sold OTC at cheap prices and another set of very expensive prescription drugs. Nokia’s on route to become the generic maker and Apple, RIM will compete the high end. No wonder I compare the iPhone to Pfizer’s Viagra. It was not until later that Cialis (Blackberry’s Bold) came out, but Viagra had won the mindshare by then.

Of course people try to convince me the Palm Pre is going to change it all.

My answer, Yeah Right. If the Palm Pre does well, then expect Nokia to buy them out quickly. Else its yet another and an also ran.

Rob says that the single most important question in your career should be “Are you a producer or a consumer“.

“But if you realize that one of the pleasures in your life is to read
about code/startups/entrepreneurs/music, then embrace that you are a
consumer. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not bad as long as you
realize that you are not working towards an end beyond your own
edification, which again, is not a bad thing.

Likewise, if you’re someone who has an unquenchable desire to produce something,
then stop reading about other people, and start doing it yourself.
Seriously, don’t read another blog post, tweet, or issue of Fast
Company until you’ve made a visible move towards that goal you so
desperately want, but think that reading and dreaming about will
somehow make it come true. Once you’ve made that single action towards
advancing your idea, you can come back and read a few more posts.”

I think its not a simple “either you are a producer or a consumer” discussion. Most people are more of one than the other, but being a producer requires more commitment to consuming for sure. Most producers cannot consume in a vacuum and the ability to consume what’s relevant is important.

Personally I have reduced my consumption primarily because I have too many “useless” interests. I am thrilled I found this out and am taking a proactive step towards reducing my “junk reading” purely for the sake of spending time on reading. It makes you more “learned” but its a big time commitment.

From NYTimes.

1. Of the 16 best selling cars & trucks in America 10 are American vehicles. The Camry is the best selling car, but the Ford F 150 is the best selling vehicle (outselling the Camry by about 75% more)

2. GM and Ford both dropped far less than Toyota OR Honda in Dec 2008 ( I suspect its because of incentives).

3. Chevrolet is the only brand in the top 16 cars with positive change in sales year over year.

Paul Krugman on beating the recession:

1. Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the
Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply
by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a
sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve
chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf:
“You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t
do it again.”

2. John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective
under depression conditions and that fiscal policy – large-scale
deficit spending by the government – is needed to fight mass
unemployment.

Strange how 2 economists have influenced the entire US thinking on macro economics, but its true.