Lesson # 52 : Breaking Bad George Soros Style

So we all would have come across the name George Soros at some point of time be it in magazines, in the newspaper or on television. Here's an overview of how he broke the bank of England one fine day. A brilliant bed time read for want to be billionaires.

Precursor be born in a country like Hungary and then migrate to Great Britain after the second world war.

Step 1 : Go to a bad ass college to the tune of the London School of Economics and then hang out with the coolest set of people out there. The person in reference is Karl Popper.

Step 2 : Travel here and there go have a few misses at Wall Street and get the tag of a cheap financier.

Step 3 :  Set up a fancy named hedge fund something like “Quantum” and then hire minions and a lot of them to do a lot of technical analysis for you.

Step 4 : By the year 1980 make around 17 million pounds and ensure that the fund is valued at thrice that number.

Step 5 : Watch, Analyse and Get information out of every son of a gun who is willing to speak.

Step 6 : Make an informed decision study the fundamentals, technical’s or just get it out of people with power.

Step 7 : Borrow the sterling to the tune of 6.5 Billion pounds randomly. From friends, neighbours, fellow investment bankers. Anyone who cares to hand it over.

Step 8 : Convert it into a safer currency one such as the Deutsche Mark or the French Frank.

Step 9 : Wait

Step 10 : Watch from the luxury of a 5 star hotel as things fall in place and widen your smile like the Grinch.

Step 11 : At the same time put money in equities as you know anything you do right now is going to work out.

Step 12 : Watch Again

Step 13 : Holy crap! That’s two in a row.

Step 14 : Imagine yourself as Scrooge Mc Duck and swim in a pool of money.

Step 15 : Be an ass, realize you are mortal and hand over a part of it to charity.

Lesson # 51 : Greed for lack of a better word is good

It's been 26 years since Wall Street first hit theatres but today more than ever Gordon Gekko's words ring true in our ears. His iconic speech when he is about to take over Teldar paper serves as a reminder of how money centric society has become.

For those of you who have not watched the film I would suggest you to get out of your caves and go to your local video store and rent the film immediately. Still here's the entire speech if you are too lazy to get up and go for a walk.

It's ironic as to what we have come to. Society judges a man not by the intellect and thought process or his character but by the jingling of money in his pockets. The days of wisdom have come to pass and men are judged by the brand of clothes and watches. They are judged not by who they are or what they stand for but by the people who stand by them and the cars they drive and the gadgets they own. 

An entangled matrix of greed and wealth has come to be formed. It's come a lot later than when Gordon Gekko predicted it. Perhaps we have started feeling it's consequences today. Greed seems to be a never ending spiral and no matter how far we travel along it it never seems to end.

More fittingly the reason for this can be scientific as well. A study of the theory of relativity will provide evidence that assuming everything is relative greed would also be a part of that wholesome set.

Thus, greed will never get satisfied not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Meeting one target will force us into an abyss to achieve another target. One million, Two million and so on. It's a never ending spiral and it's not going to stop. 

And so let's take solace in the fact that even though we are not stupid or foolish we are ignorant beings who will still believe and follow in Gordon Gekko's footsteps for

"Greed is Good and the number is more"

Lesson # 50 : The battle of the Cokes

So the story goes thus sitting in a group of about 10 people my mind wandered off to the age old question of why the fountain coke tasted much better than a bottled or a canned coke? Then I started to think of another question at the same time. In a country like India compared to the time of local restaurants serving fountain coke or pepsi today a majority of the food and retail chains offer bottled coke. And that brought me to think of another pertinent question as to whether McDonald's which happens to not only have the largest fast food retail chain network in the country has perfected a recipe for global world dominance. A few seconds later I realized I may have gone too far. But as I walked past Domino's, Pizza hut and other chains I realized it just may be too crazy to be right.

So I thought of writing this article more out of amusement and because well honestly I haven't posted on The Blog in a long time. 

Let's start out with a history of the soda fountain.The term soda water was first coined in the year 1798 while the first Soda fountain was invented by Simon and Rundell of Charleston in South Carolina in the year 1810. The revolution and evolution of the soda fountain came in the year 1903 when Doctor Heisinger patented the front service fountain.

Having touched on the history aspect there's an old quote

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

The whole concept of the soda fountain arrived from tradition this can be verified from the fact that the soda fountain was actually an attempt to replicate the mineral waters that bubbled from the earth. So the question is firstly is there a difference in taste?

Yes there is and while there isn't any research that I could find to back this there were however evidences for the same. 

The reason for a difference in taste of a fountain soda and a bottled coke is something like this. In a bottled or a canned coke the syrup and Carbon-dioxide are mixed in a fixed proportion. Whereas for fountain soda each establishment that has a fountain soda can alter the amount of syrup and carbon-dioxide that enters the coke hence not all fountain cokes will taste the same. 

Moreover, ice mixed with fountain coke creates a separate taste as it dilutes the syrup in most cases. 

So that being done let's look at it from an economic perspective. Is the hight cost of a fountain coke justified? 

Put simply it's difficult to judge so let's do a relative comparison.

Criteria	Fountain	Bottle	Can
Volume	249 ml	600 ml	330 ml
Price	55	30	25
Price per ml	0.22	0.05	0.07
Premium Paid	340%	-	40%

Once I completed the table I stood up walked to my kitchen drank a glass of coke. It tasted better now. 

So to conclude

Taste will be relative and you cannot say whether fountain is better or bottled coke or canned coke. It's a matter of perspective and each individuals perspective shall vary.

Also, it is without doubt that I can say that out of the three assuming you are receiving a common product it is highly stupid to consume fountain coke.

Happy Drinking

On behalf of Doodle inc

(Udit Raj Sabharwal)