Can I still make money from the Bitcoin?

Crime, speculation, wealth, greed and drama are all words that were associated with the Bitcoin in the year 2013.  This currency captivated millions of people around the world as we watch in awe at its souring highs and also its big lows in 2013.  We saw in the space of one year this currency be valued at $10 right up to $1,200 surpassing the value of gold at its peak before it crashed way down to $500.  Today depending on the exchange it can vary between $380 up to $680 at some points.

We truly watched anxiously as Bitcoin owners became millionaires and millions of dollars were transferred on the black market.  While the creator of Bitcoin was a secret his identity was soon unravelled as being Satoshi Nakamoto.

Those that had the opportunity to buy into this currency were reluctant, but millions were quick to follow this saga.  Why?  Mainly due to its volatility and uncertainty but as we can see those that did get eaten into the craze enjoyed the rewards.

Whereas the government can decide when they print more money and how to distribute it, Bitcoin does not have any dependence on a bank or even the government, Bitcoins are created through mining.  This is a difficult process which means solving a number of maths problems on specialist Bitcoin software.  The power required to run this software is significantly higher than a regular PC which is why many computers are usually linked together to form a group.

One year on and Bitcoin is now enjoying a stable and much more mature future.  It is becoming more legitimate and is being pushed towards the mainstream adoption of this currency.

But would you buy a Bitcoin?  For those that waited and watched Bitcoin as it was created and went on a rollercoaster ride may be considering to buy this currency now and store it in a safe place.  But how does it work and where can you spend this?

To put in simple terms this is the internet’s version to money which is why it is often referred to as “crypto currency”.  Although the coin can be sold it cannot be used twice.  But very similar to paper money it can be kept in a wallet.  These are digital wallets which can be stored in a secure cloud environment or they can even be given in a physical form.  Unfortunately if the cloud wallet is hacked or you were unfortunate to lose your private Bitcoin key you will no longer have access to this Bitcoin.  This is worth bearing in mind if you are considering buying into this currency.

You can use this currency to buy things from an array of merchants that accept this currency or further still it can be exchanged for cash through a direct buyer or an exchange.  The choice is yours.  Furthermore you do not need to know the complex nodes and hashes in order to get involved in this currency.  There are lots of people buying and selling through exchange.

Celebrities that have more money than sense

If you were worth millions of pounds, what would you buy yourself?  Consider yourself as a mega famous film star then you may be tempted to purchase a trip to the moon or using teen heart throb, Justin Bieber, as an example, a very expensive Halloween prop.

We have dug deep and found some of the most elaborate celebrity purchases but these are just a few of the most extravagant buys:

Babyonce

Daughter of Beyonce and Jay Z, Blue Ivy Carter is only a mere few months old and she already has everything that a girl could ever wish for and this includes a crystal bath tub.  Yes you heard right, little Blue Ivy has been showered with some of the most expensive gifts that people would only ever dream of receiving in their entire life.

Another outrageous gift includes a sterling silver Tiffany brush to be put in her two thousand square foot nursery.

Ashton Kutcher

The estranged husband of Demi Moore forked out $200,000 so he could be the 500thcustomer of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo.  He has yet to set a date of when he is going to fly towards the final frontier.  It was originally advised that space flights would start in the year 2013, so let’s hope 2014 is the year that his dreams come true.

Tamara Ecclestone

She may be the daughter of Formula One Bernie Ecclestone but she has been reported to spend a large amount of money so that she can have a bath in style.  Her luxury bath tub is said to carry an $800,000 price tag due to it being made out of rock crystal.  The cost associated with turning the crystal into a bathtub is what makes this so expensive and out of our reach.

Donald Trump

Someone else who loves to splash out on bathroom items is Donald Trump who spent millions renovating his Boeing 757 which he purchased from Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen.  He was quick to improve this aircraft with gold covered seat belts, a Rolls Royce engine and even gold plated faucets.

George Lucas

Probably one of the most bizarre purchases has to be buying your own fire brigade.  The brain behind Star Wars has a brigade that consists of twelve full time fire-fighters, a couple of volunteers and two fire trucks.

Jennifer Aniston

We have to admit that Jennifer always looks amazing whenever she walks down the red carpet but what is her secret?  Not only does she spend $385 a week on pre-made meals that have been approved by her dietician but she spends significant amounts of money on eyebrow shaping and yoga classes.

Justin Bieber

We quickly mentioned early on that Justin Bieber spent over $5,000 on a Halloween costume.  He commissioned a Los Angeles based jewellers to create a gold grill that was custom made for him.  The mouth piece may have looked full of bling but is an expensive fashion accessory.

As you can clearly see celebrities do have more money than sense.

Do calories always tell you the truth about foods?

We have heard it all before; calories are the ultimate ingredient to determine whether weight loss is a success or simple failure.  It is common sense that if we consume less than is burnt then the pounds will quickly disappear, just like last nights’ Pizza hut.  Simple stuff?  Well not really, while calorie cutting does work to some extent it does not work as much as you might think it would.  It is worth noting first that calories are not equal.  If you were to choose the right kind of calories you can eat less without feeling hungry but if you choose the wrong calories then your food will leave you feeling less than satisfied and potentially craving more.

So will I lose weight if I simply eat less?? 

Yes in the short term if you cut down your calories you will lose weight but these results will not be lasting.  The word on the street is that the majority of people who go on a “diet” will end up putting more weight on that what they lost.

Did you know that in order to lose one pound you need to cut 3,500 calories out of your diet?  So depending on what your current size is if you were to consume between 1,400 calories to 2,000 over the course of a day you will lose a total of eight per cent of your total body weight over a period of three to twelve months.

So are there so many diets that fail?

Unfortunately there is not one single answer as what works for one person may not work for someone else.  First of all we are all human and diets are very hard to maintain over a long period of time.  Secondly our bodies can work against us.  Once we have lost a certain amount of weight our metabolism will slow down so that you have to eat less just to maintain the current weight that you are at.  It is our body’s way of ensuring that we do not starve.  So when you think that you are working hard at your diet and not getting the results you feel you deserve, this is often the reason why.

Furthermore many people get too excited and will at the beginning cut out too many calories.  At the beginning of the diet while the food cravings are intense these will soon wear off, there is evidence to prove that over the long term a low calorie diet will curb hunger.  In addition to this if you choose to diet without exercising you will lose muscle mass and this will slow down your metabolism even further.

Where do our calories come from?

As previously mentioned calories are not equal and those calories that are from fat or even refined carbohydrates will certainly end up on your thighs.  So consider if you had the choice between a doughnut and a chicken sandwich which both had the same amount of calories, which would you choose?  Nutritionally the sandwich is the winner and even in terms of your weight the doughnut should not be contemplated.

The simple trick that will help you save 89% on the latest gadgets

Indian nationals save thousands using this trick

A brand new, simple trick has led to thousands of people in India buying the latest gadgets at a fraction of the retail price. Thanks to this new site, having the latest phones and tablets is now a reality without having to spend an arm and a leg.

MadBid are buying a big bulk of the India warehouse closeout and liquidation stock at rock bottom prices and pass on the huge discounts to their customers. This means they can afford to sell brand new iPhone’s for as little as $40 and still make a profit!

Neeraj Mitra paid $90.54 for his brand new iPad 3 mini (name and image have been changed for privacy purposes)

Neeraj Mitra, 29 from Mumbai started using MadBid 2 weeks ago. “I just couldn’t believe it when I won the iPad Mini 3 with Hama accessories, I’d only been bidding for about 5 minutes when the auction ended, I was ‘over the moon’ as they say, I couldn’t stop smiling, I’m still smiling now and will still be smiling tomorrow.”

How quickly do MadBid get new released models?

Because of the way MadBid source their products (mainly liquidation auctions) and the high discounts they want to pass back to their customers, it takes a few weeks for them to get the latest products after the release dates but the prices definitely make up for it. A source working in one of the largest high street retail shops told Daily Times “The new craze is to shop online now. Our shops are getting emptier by the day and competition has turned into a war zone. Savvier shoppers have started using services like MadBid.com and we simply can’t compete with their prices.”

MadBid has become such a threat to mainstream retailers, they are trying to shut the site down. Another source from the same company reported “MadBid.com is a disaster for high street shops and even the major online outlets. The more people who find out about the site the more money retailers will lose. My managers are very worried about this site.”

Madbid is an innovative, bid shopping website that provides you that rush, with or without the purchase. Snagging a bargain comes down to two options, luck or choice, and both can save you a fortune if you get in there at the right time.

MadBid shoppers

We have tracked down hundreds of MadBid shoppers who all said they would never return to the conventional shopping methods. We spoke to one of their users who bought brand new Mini One car worth over $12,000 for just $6.83 in a MadBid auction! Sandeep Anantharaman said “I just couldn’t believe it, my £6 Mini was a dream come true.”

You can try MadBid right now!

Joining MadBid is really quick and easy and totally free. Simply click the link here and enter your details and confirm your account and you’re in.

How to revive India's corrupt and debt-ridden power sector

Hard and unpopular decisions are needed - not just another round of financial repackaging to sort out the discom mess, says Vinayak Chatterjee.

India's electricity distribution sector is a national embarrassment, brought about by decades of turning a blind eye to the misdemeanours of this sector. 

The unholy trinity of the conniving State Electricity Board (SEB) employee, the unethical and self-enriching domestic and industrial consumer and the politician patronising theft, corruption, sloth and freebies has brought the power sector to its knees.

A portrayal of the extent of decay is vividly presented in the Hindi documentary film Katiyabaaz (available on YouTube) that released in India on August 22, 2014.

Minister of State for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal, after having sorted out the coal and other sundry crises, is now faced with his biggest challenge: sorting out the discom mess.

And what a mess it is!

The thermal power sector is operating at a decadic low of 59 per cent plant load factor because discoms do not have the money to pay for buying more power.

Resorting to load-shedding is therefore the only practical way for discoms to stay operationally afloat.

This means that vast parts of the world's third-largest economic power goes without electricity for more than half the day.

As on March 31, 2014, SEBs had accumulated losses of around Rs 3.5 lakh crore. Experts say roughly 40 per cent of these losses are due to technical and commercial losses and the rest due to tariffs not keeping pace with rising costs of supply. According to the power minister, distribution utilities lose Rs 64,000 crore (Rs 640 billion) every year.

Discoms' collective debt is Rs 3.17 lakh crore as of June 2015 and increasing.

The central government has identified about Rs 1 lakh crore of this debt to be at risk, and ready to become the next tsunami of non-performing assets (NPA) to hit the already beleaguered banking system.

The Reserve Bank of India issued a red alert in June that the risk of discom NPAs was "very high".

It is common knowledge amongst energy sector aficionados that a slew of concurrent measures is needed to attack the cancer eating away the vitals of the energy distribution system.

One is network strengthening and rejuvenation. Thankfully, the central government's schemes of revamping rural networks under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana and urban area networks under the Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) are steps in the right direction, and are adequately backed by central funding.

Next, a 'smart metering' revolution needs to sweep through the country so that not a single power consumer is left 'unmetered'.

Depoliticising state regulators and associated tariff determination is critical. Further, all subsidies have to be to the account of the state government, and not on the books of the discoms.

Finally, 'carriage and content' needs to be split; where a recent report by the Forum of Regulators has laid out a three-stage implementation plan, which is likely to take five-seven years to implement. Hopefully, the 'Power for All' initiative being presented to various states, will be the platform to press for overhauling the distribution sector in real terms.

To Goyal's credit, he is certainly spending a large portion of his time with the states battling the 'Discom Dilemma'.

However, what is being crafted as a key intervention appears essentially to be another round of financial repackaging.

The discoms' debts are proposed to be transferred to the state governments concerned, which will issue bonds against these.

The Union Cabinet is shortly expected to endorse this. If the state defaults on servicing these bonds, the Centre would step in and commandeer parts of financial grants/devolutions to the state.

It is hoped that this additional pressure on the finances of the states will force them to implement tough distribution sector reforms.

That is indeed a fond hope. Transferring debt from a 100 per cent subsidiary to its parent is at one level financial jugglery masquerading as reform package.

It is evident that the Rs 10,000-crore (Rs 100 billion) 'Montek Bonds' of 2002 and the Rs 2-lakh-crore-plus Financial Restructuring Package for discoms of 2012 were not accompanied by proportionate changes in the efficiencies of the discoms.

Whilst banks and some central power sector lending public sector undertakings are thus being insulated against this potential tidal wave of NPAs, they may be compelled to subscribe to these new 'state power bonds' at an interest subvented rate of eight-nine per cent against typical bank loans at 12-13 per cent.

Clearly, state governments are being lured with this bait to sign up for this round of resetting.

So it is imperative that this latest round of financial 'barking' (at best, a short-term palliative) is accompanied by 'biting'. These bites have to be tough, hard and politically unpopular decisions.

What could these be?

Clearly, a 'sunset goalpost' where specific states are told that in a five to seven-year time frame, they need to achieve some pre-agreed technical, commercial and regulatory parameters, that is, an effective notice today to shut off all central government and banking sector funding for such states in future.

This, they can choose to achieve by revitalising their existing discom organisations or institute appropriate models of private sector involvement, including input franchisee, licensee or operating management.

Further, the central government can immediately consider setting up the much-discussed proposition of a National Power Distribution Company (NPDC) that begins to effectively challenge the hegemony of state-owned discoms.

More importantly, the NPDC can equally well fulfil other pressing objectives of picking up stranded capacity, price-pooling, and open-access.

We do not wish to have the next version of Katiyabaaz to be made at the national level.

The story of India's external debt

Foreign exchange reserves as a percentage of India's total external debt were 73 per cent at the end of December 2015.

 

 

India's external debt profile appears to have improved somewhat, if the data for the period ended December 2015 are taken into account.

The overall external debt stock stood at $480 billion, showing a small one per cent increase over $475 billion as at the end of March 2015.

Compare it with the external debt level at the end of December 2014, and the increase is a little higher at 4.66 per cent.

This is the smallest increase at least in the last five years - when the average annual rise in external debt has ranged between eight and 18 per cent.

Look at it from a longer-term perspective, and the situation will indeed appear relatively stable on this front.

Foreign exchange reserves as a percentage of India's total external debt were 73 per cent at the end of December 2015.

They may be well below the comfortably high levels of over 100 per cent seen between 2003-04 and 2009-10, but at the same time they are also nowhere near the precariously low levels of seven or 11 per cent that India experienced during its worst balance of payments crisis in 1990-91 and 1991-92. 

Similarly, the government's principal and interest payments liability as a percentage of export earnings, or the debt service ratio, has also stayed at a low level of 7.5 per cent in 2014-15.

Compare this with the 30-35 per cent debt service burden from 1990 to 1992 and you will see the reason why there is a reduced level of stress for those who manage the country's balance of payments.

Even the level of external debt as a percentage of India's gross domestic product or GDP is now at less than 24 per cent, while it had reached a high of 38 per cent in 1991-92.

The story of India's external debt, however, changes a little if you take a close look at its changing composition in the last 25 years.

Three clear periods with distinct trends emerge, particularly with regard to the accumulation of India's short-term debt.

From 1990-91 to 2003-04, short-term debt with original maturity of one year or less kept declining, both as a percentage of foreign exchange reserves and of total external debt.

In 1990-91, short-term debt was as much as 146 per cent of India's foreign exchange reserves and it declined to as low as 3.9 per cent by the end of 2003-04.

Similarly, the share of short-term debt in total external debt declined from 10 per cent in 1990-91 to 3.9 per cent in 2003-04. 

The second phase begins from 2004-05 and ends with 2012-13. This is a period when short-term debt sees a spike.

From levels of 12.5 per cent of foreign exchange reserves and 13.2 per cent of total external debt in 2004-05, short-term debt rose to 33.1 per cent and 23.6 per cent, respectively, by the end of 2012-13.

Remember that this is a period in which economic growth had picked up a healthy pace, clocking an annual average rate of eight per cent.

This was much higher than the 5.7 per cent annual average economic growth seen in the 14 years between 1990-91 and 2003-04.

The third phase begins in 2013-14 with short-term debt once again declining.

In this period, the share of short-term debt in foreign exchange reserves as well as total external debt has fallen consistently from 30.1 per cent and 20.5 per cent, respectively, in 2013-14 to 23.3 per cent and 17 per cent by the end of December 2015.

Annual average economic growth in this period (including 2015-16) is estimated at around seven per cent. 

Note that the three periods pertain to three distinct phases of political governance.

In the first period - between 1990-91 and 2003-04, the governments of P V Narasimha Rao, H D Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral and Atal Bihari Vajpayee rescued the country from an economic crisis and placed it on what turned out to be a broadly irreversible path of economic reforms.

In the second phase, the government of Manmohan Singh rode on the reforms initiated in the previous decade and a half, but used the resultant growth and higher revenues to unveil a series of measures to increase entitlements by way of rural jobs and education among other things.

The third phase began just before the Narendra Modi government was formed and is now focused on the need to usher in greater reforms and revive industrial growth.

It is difficult to establish a correlation between the trends in short-term debt in these three periods and the distinct governance style followed by the governments in those respective periods. But the broad trends cannot be ignored.

Take a shorter time frame of five years and the trends are even more interesting.

If short-term debt is falling as a percentage of total external debt, what has kept the overall debt profile growing is obviously long-term debt. But here also the composition of long-term debt is seeing a slightly disturbing change. Its reliance on multilateral loans is declining - from about 16 per cent in 2010 to about 11 per cent now.

Even the share of export credit in overall debt is falling from over six per cent to barely three per cent - an indication perhaps of how the exports sector has fallen on bad days.

But the big change in India's long-term debt profile is with regard to its commercial borrowings and deposits from non-resident Indians or NRIs.

Commercial borrowings accounted for 27 per cent of India's total external debt in 2010 and they have risen to over 38 per cent by the end of December 2015.

Similarly, NRI deposits accounted for 18 per cent of external debt five years ago. Today, they have a share of 24 per cent.

The growth in short-term debt has slowed, but commercial borrowings and NRI deposits seem to be booming.

Whether that is a healthy shift, only experts and time will tell.

What went wrong with the people's car called Nano

Somebody in the company should have the courage to tell the new boss that it would be a futile exercise as the 'people’s car' has tried to don a 'cool' avatar at least thrice in the past with pretty cold results, notes Shyamal Majumdar

A few months after taking over as the Group chief executive officer of Tata Motors in 2010, Carl-Peter Forster had said the company needs to strengthen its capability to deliver high-quality products and to build its brand reputation.

Two years later, his successor Karl Slym said the perception of Tata Motors in the market as a passenger car maker needs to improve and the brand needs an image makeover.

Cut to March, 2016: Guenter Butschek, the new managing director and CEO who has an onerous task of turning around the fortunes of a company that has seen domestic passenger car sales and market share more than halve in the past two years, said in his maiden interaction with the media, “We really need to consider how we position the brand.”

The statements of the three CEOs in the past six years suggest pretty much the same thing — that customers still don’t know what a Tata car stands for.

This is despite the company’s recent efforts to drop its earlier reluctance to regularly churn out new products to keep the excitement going.

Things may finally be changing on that front. Even though the recent Zest sedan and Bolt hatchback (launched in August 2014 and January 2015, respectively) have done little to help revive demand -- domestic sales of Tata Motors cars fell from 352,000 in 2010-11 to around 140,000 in 2015-16 and the company has a share of only 3.5 per cent in a segment that comprises half the passenger car market in India -- the newly launched compact, Tiago, could be a game changer with its initial disruptive pricing that is expected to shake up the small car market.

On the anvil are a next generation SUV, a premium hatch and a premium sedan.

That’s good news for Mr Butschek who has made all the right noises so far, except one jarring note -- he has hinted at yet another “next generation” Nano which is expected to do away with the “cheap car” tag.

Somebody in the company should have the courage to tell the new boss that it would be a futile exercise as the “people’s car” has tried to don a “cool” avatar at least thrice in the past with pretty cold results.

Three years after its much-hyped launch in 2009, Tata Motors refreshed the Nano, launched Nano Twist in 2014 and then came out with the GenX, which was termed by senior company executives as a make or break moment for the company.

The attempt was to bury the cheapest car tag and also to lure the first-time buyers.

At the end of it all, the Nano remains a cautionary tale of misplaced ambitions and a drag on profit, with sales of 22,138 units in 2015-16 compared to 74,527 in 2011-12.

Despite the relatively better performance of GenX, it now sounds a bit strange that when it was launched in 2009, rating agency Crisil had predicted that the Nano would expand the Indian car market by as much as 65 per cent.

Harvard Business Review was bang on when it said that you have to get a lot of things right to successfully bring a product as novel as the Nano to market.

First, you have to conceive of something people will actually want.

That’s really three steps -- thinking up something that’s wanted, identifying who actually wants it, and working out the details of how and under what circumstances they will use the product.

You have to devise a way to produce it reliably and profitably at the price those people will pay.

And you need to communicate a clear, targeted value proposition, differentiated from competing offerings.

The Nano has had trouble with just about every one of those steps, HBR said.

So, Mr Butschek would do a great favour to Tata Motors (which is otherwise doing fine with the commercial vehicles business and Jaguar Land Rover, and can hope to cash in on the slew of new car launches in the domestic market), if he can go off the beaten track and think in terms of discontinuing the Nano brand.

He could take heart from the fact that even Ratan Tata’s enthusiasm for his creation has dimmed a bit.

Mr Tata had suggested in an interview to CNBC that the Nano be launched in a new avatar in another country like Indonesia, where it doesn’t have the “stigma” of being “'the cheapest car”.

The reason to discontinue the Nano brand is simple: it is seen as a laggard and it is not easy to reposition a laggard with cosmetic changes. And as they say, ego has no place in business