Scholarships

If anything is in vogue in the pedant's world, it has to be the number of scholarships given. Despite being a recipient of a full scholarship throughout my high school, I had initially struggled to comprehend the economic logic behind the giving away of scholarships. After all, how could a private, profit-maximising firm make a seemingly rational decision to waive off full tuition for a large percentage of students? Places like my present school have as much as 20% of the student population on some form of scholarship. But as I sailed through my junior year, I gradually started to comprehend the benefits of those scholarships. First of all, since most schools in my area work as close to perfect competition as can be thought of, most schools are price takers and therefore, all schools have to provide similar levels of scholarships in order to keep the students from leaving. (Although schools like Aitchison are exception as they have gained fame for being tough in giving out scholarships and hence, achieving the title of a highly selective school).The scholarship recipients are usually the brightest, fun-filled people there are. Its no surprise that schools can promote the image of being active in extra-curriculars because thanks to those scholarships, they have state level debaters, actors or whatever. And it doesn't take someone to be a rocket scientist to understand that the scholarships attract the world distinction holders about whom the schools can brag about for the next hundred years or so. The scholars would also be the only ones who wold be likely to get into the top colleges and promote the schools reputation as a 'feeder' school to Harvard, Yale, Cornell etc. All the reasons in general and the last reason in particular go on to attract more students which in turn means more revenue for the school. Thus, a happy ending is achieved: the bright minds get full rides till A levels and the schools can brag about how many of their kids got into an Ivy league institution. Therefore, scholarships are NOT as worthless as everyone thinks.

It seems ridiculously obvious that all those budget touchscreens like Star and Corby seem to be working like magic in bringing wheelbarrows full of cash as revenue for the Samsung guys.Samsung has continued its outstanding performance in Q3 of the year, achieving 35.86 trillion Korean won (about 31 billion US dollars) revenue. The consolidated operating profit is 4.23 trillion Korean won (3.6 billion dollars) indicating that the company has been in excellent form for the past three months. Those numbers are respectively 18.5 and 185.8 percent higher than those for the same period of last year.As usual lately, the mobile division is among the best performers in the conglomerate. It registered 10.71 trillion (9.1 billion US dollars) won in revenue reached which is a 20.6 percent increase year-on-year The operating profit of 1.03 trillion won (874 million US dollars) for the third quarter is a quarter-best for the industry. Above, I post a graph to show the current market shares of leading cellphone manufacturers:it seems my speculations were right about LG and Samsung steadily increasing market share for Samsung's share has increased by 15% quarter-on-quarter to 60.2 million units to 20.8 %,crossing the 20% mark for the first time.

Unemployment rate hits 10.2%, worst since 1983

If there was anything that caught my undivided attention while perusing my online articles, it was this: US's unemployment rate rose above 10% for the first time since 1983 in October, a much worse jump than expected as employers continued to trim jobs from payrolls.The reading, reported by the government Friday, is a sign of the continued weakness in the labor market even though the economy grew in the third quarter following the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression. The government reported Friday that unemployment rate spiked to 10.2%, up from 9.8% in September. It is the highest that this rate has been since April 1983. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.
According to a survey of top forecasters by the National Association of Business Economics last month, the consensus estimate among economists was that unemployment would hit a high of 10% in the final three months of this year and the first quarter of 2010.
This news shows that we, or rather the US has yet to see the worst of unemployment rates given the continued uncertainty of employers.

KSE index shoots up again

For about a week or so, the KSE 100-index has been plummetting to a low of a shade over 8700 but now the latest news is that it has again taken a hike and not only crossed the psychological barrier of 9000 but also ended a little over a 100 points above that. The influx has been caused by an increase in direct investment by foreigners who might have been hesitant to invest in the days before, given the recent wave of terror and the much hyped (not in a good way) NRO. This incident further highlights the importance of stability to a country's economy. Although the pernicious effects of instability are nothing new to Pakistan( the Lawyer's movement, remember and also the effects of every word of Musharraf's speech on KSE highs and lows), it is high time for us to give leeway to the economy to settle and have a smooth growth. Stock market, in particular, is vulnerable to such instability as most of the trading is based on anticipation.

SAT results

Students must be logging in to their collegeboard account as I type this to access their October 2009 SAT scores. Considering the importance of this little test called SAT, I sincerely wish them best of luck. May your SAT score exceed your expectations.Amen

Colgate-Palmolive 3Q profit rises 18 percent

Consumer products maker Colgate-Palmolive Co.'s third-quarter profit rose 18 percent as new products took market share and shoppers continued to pay higher prices for its products.

The maker of toothpaste, dish soap and Ajax cleanser said Thursday that it earned $590 million, or $1.12 per share, in the quarter that ended in September. A year ago, Colgate earned $500 million, or 94 cents per share.Revenue rose to $4 billion from $3.99 billion, helped by a 5 percent rise in prices worldwide. Colgate has raised prices to keep up with higher ingredient costs.Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected $1.11 per share and lower revenue of $3.94 billion.The amount of products sold rose 1.5 percent as consumers appeared willing to spend more for their products. Many shoppers have been trading down to cheaper items to save money. Personally I use colgate and I can understand

Shell Q3 profit falls 62 pct, to cut 5,000 jobs

Just when you feel assured the worst of recession is over, there comes some news which reminds me of the Q1 and Q2 of this year where many reported severe losses.Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, reported Thursday a 62 percent fall in profit for the third quarter due to lower oil prices, and said it plans to cut 5,000 jobs to cope with continuing weakness in the global economy.
In Europe there are few if any signs of demand recovering...in the United States if anything there's some bottoming, improvment in one or two subsectors but not yet firm enough to call a recovery," he said.Shell said net profit was $3.25 billion (euro2.21 billion), down from $8.45 billion in the same period a year ago. Sales fell 43 percent to $75.0 billion.Shell Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said the company is not expecting a swift economic recovery and will this year cut around 5 percent of its work force, some 5,000 jobs, primarily in middle managment.