US authorities recently filed 20 people with securities fraud in what is probably the largest inside trading case since the 1980s.

This news may be considered par for the course for greedy stockmarket brokers but what has made this case more titillating is inclusion of a 44-year-old former teenage beauty queen who used more than her business acumen to get a leg up on other traders.

Danielle Chesi, an analyst for New Castle Funds LLC, reportedly used her feminine charms to get insider information on various technology companies. Her tactics were so effective that she amassed an impressive list of contacts that included the former Chairman of AMD and other top executives in IBM and Akamai Technologies.

What’s surprising here is how such well-established and successful businessmen fell for the oldest trick in the book. I guess deep down inside these powerful men are still nerds who are hungry for the attention of the prom queen.

Hi. I’m a Facebook user and I’m a Mafia Wars addict.

I’ve never been big Facebook user until after I actually discovered Mafia Wars. That game really hooked me on Facebook, and in the process I discovered how cool this social network is in finding long lost friends. And Facebook seems to have realized that Mafia Wars and the other games in the site is the ticket to profitability.

Facebook is currently testing a new payment scheme where it will get a cut each time a player buys an in-game item on the site. This will potentially earn Facebook a yummy piece of the financial pie that is already in the hundreds of millions being taken by Zynga, Inc., the creator of the some of the most popular games in Facebook, like Mafia Wars, and Farmville. Another company, Playfish, Inc., which makes Pet Society, is also a part of the pay system being tried out. With the social games market predicted to grow three-fold to $2 billion by 2012, this is the perfect time for Facebook to get in on the action.

The company is testing a payment system to gain a cut each time an online-game player buys a digital tractor, weapon or hat on the site. That would give Facebook a piece of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are being pulled in by Zynga Inc., creator of “Farmville” and “Mafia Wars,” and Playfish Inc., maker of “Pet Society.” The social-games market will almost triple to $2 billion by 2012, estimates ThinkEquity LLC.

Both Zynga and Playfish allow Facebok users to play its games for free but rely on selling virtual goods as part of its revenue. These items are sold through microtransactions. The companies’ success has made Facebook the largest game portal with over 100 million users.

The system being used by the site is Facebook Credits. The payment service will allow users to buy credits that they can use to buy items in different games. This is different from the present system where a player can only buy credits through the game he’s playing and only be able to use it in that game and nowhere else.

With new games coming (Civilization is particularly exciting), it will be awesome if Facebook finally earns some money from the social-network addicts that have made Facebook their virtual home.

There has been a number of vocal Americans who think that this whole outsourcing business is taking away jobs from them and giving it to people in other countries.

I wonder what they’ll think of the news that an Indian company is now hiring Americans.

Wipro, Ltd., one of the largest software services provider in India, is planning to get the services of more workers in the US as a way of gaining more traction in the face of a rebounding technology market.

Wipro CEO and Chairman Azim Premji thinks that getting US employees will help his company gain more local orders and also gain more contracts from the federal government. This is significant given that the US provides the company with half of its yearly revenue.

Wipro plans to hire 500 employees for its new services center. The company declined to reveal where the new center will be located but it already has one center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Those vocal Americans must be thinking of another thing to complain about.

The Beatles is the most successful band of all time and by all accounts the best selling band, too. I think someone made a survey or study and found out that the Fab Four made a gazillion dollars from the sales of their albums.

And now, more than thirty years after The Beatles released its last album, the Fab Four is about to rake in millions for The Beatles’ current owners of its music rights.

According to reports, Viacom — the publisher of The Beatles: Rock Band — has guaranteed payment of $10 million to the song and likeness rights-holders of the band and the payment is guaranteed to increase when it posts good sales figures.

The owner of The Beatles catalog is Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which is a joint venture between Sony and the late Michael Jackson. The two other record labels that have control over the remainder of the music are Apple Corps for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and EMI Music for George Harrison

According to estimates, the rights holders could stand to earn up to $40 million. One of the reasons for this big payday is because of the large amount of songs that are in the game. And this will also likely increase because of the plans by Viacom and MTV Games (who distributes the game) to release album packs every month after the game’s release.

And to add to the windfall, this month also sees the release of the remastered Beatles catalogue. This is going to be raking in money because it is the first time that The Beatles’ work has been remastered and given that new polish.

It’s amazing how a band that has been gone for decades can end up selling so much more again and earning the Fab Four boatloads of money.

It looks like the world economy is beginning to arrest the slide caused by the recession — the worst slump the world economy has experienced in more than 60 years. And proof of it is in the increase in the demand of products. Shipping companies are experiencing profits that, frankly, not as bad as they had hoped. Funny though that at this point, most forecasts are still on recording losses and if a loss is not that bad then it is considered good news. It’s a concept that can be a bit hard to wrap your head around because we’ve been used to a robust economy.

Hopefully, we learn lessons from this recession and start becoming more aware of how everything is related economically. I know I’ll be more conscious about how I spend my money in the future. No more nights out everyday. Every other night will do, I guess.

European confidence in the economic outlook increased twice as much as economists forecast in August, a European Commission report showed today. The U.S. economy, the world’s biggest oil user, shrank less than expected in the second quarter, and France and Germany returned to growth in the same period.

I was watching the news today and thoroughly enjoying myself. What stuck with me though was the report given by the business correspondent regarding the performance of the stock market this week. According to the correspondent, trading in the last few days has been moving consistently sideways with nary an action because, as she pointed out, the fund managers and brokers in Europe are on vacation during the month of August. She said that bigger movements are usually expected during the fourth quarter.

I just find this amusing. With the world suffering from a global recession and with stock owners sweating buckets because of the uncertainty of these times, these brokers can still find the time to frolic in Europe’s hot vacation spots. Ibiza and St. Tropez, anyone? How they can actually relax with the financial fate of a lot of people lying in their hands I’ll never know. But I’m guessing copious amounts of alcohol may be involved.

A friend of mine recently showed me the infamous HiPhone — the China-made iPhone clone that you just have to see to believe. It may not have the newfangled technologies that Apple’s iPhone may have but the HiPhone’s manufacturer really did a good job of imitating the whole look of Apple’s Jesus Phone. It will really dupe anyone especially seen from afar.

Which brings me to the whole point of this post. We all know that China is the world hub for imitation goods. Name the fake item and most likely it was manufactured in China. I think it would even be fair assumption that the whole underground economy of the country is firmly entrenched in bogus and fake goods. But what most people fail to realize that manufacturing counterfeit goods actually have a far more significant effect than just fueling China’s underground economy and the proliferation of fakes around the world. By reverse engineering all sorts of stuff, the Chinese are actually learning what makes each quality item tick, what makes it expensive and ultimately be able to actually learn the skills to manufacture something just as good (if not better, in the most extreme circumstances). I respectfully submit that this thriving industry of fakes is going to be the real force that will make China the undisputed world economic power.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s simple. What would stop the Chinese from actually learning the secrets and taking advantage of the technology transfer that happens when a big manufacturing company transfers its operations to China? What would prevent them, for example, to learn the ropes of aircraft manufacture from established leaders like Boeing and Airbus if these are contracted to Chinese factories? I won’t be surprised if, in a decade or two, we’ll start seeing Boing 868s and AirTaxi B400s flying the friendly skies.

Borat reflects the more austere fashions of cash-strapped Cannes

But this year, it looks like Cannes is also going through its own belt tightening measures to reflect the crisis that has cast a pall on the world economy. It’s safe to say that the business of entertainment is tiptoeing through this crisis just like other businesses.

Advance bookings for the film festival shows that there is a 15 percent drop in attendance. What this means is that there will be far fewer distributors on the lookout for films to buy and far fewer investors who would want to put their money on a movie — stocks in trade of the whole Cannes festival.

Things have become so surreal that Steven Spielberg is practically panhandling looking for investors for the now independent Dreamworks Studios, one of the more successful movie companies in Hollywood. Just the thought of Spielberg — arguably the most successful director in Hollywood history — begging for spare million dollars from investors sends shivers up my spine.

Because of the still bleak economic outlook, Hollywood is now adapting by lowering film budgets, down to 20 percent in some cases. This could mean Michael Bay may have to limit the cars he destroys in his next action movie from 60 to just 50 — the horror! But more alarming though is that there may be movies that may not see the light of day because the projected returns may not just be worth it. For this, the real losers are the art films and the independents that already make do with minuscule budgets and non-mainstream appeal.

Art does suffer during an economic crisis.

Chrysler tries to beat total collapse by getting aid from the government in the form of $4 Billion dollars last January is again getting protection with the blessing of the White House by filing for bankruptcy. The globally charismatic President Obama whom people simply cannot get enough of carries a sense of something everywhere he goes, call it charisma or call it the change he is promoting in the government but many favor his style, well not all. There will always be detractors for as the eternal Continue reading »

From Arizona, not that customs officials didn;t appreciate art but the find they got was truly one to behold, 90 pounds of marijuana stuffed into the frames of several paintings that was supposed to be smuggled into the US. The daring ploy to smuggle the drugs almost succeeded till a nosy dog put his nose on something within the designated art that was enough cause for further examination and viola, x-ray reveals the marijuana leaves contained within the frames, sending the man into custody wasting seemingly very good art and very good frames. Just goes to show you that the need for cash makes people do stupid things.
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