It is important for every person to save for one’s retirement as one can expect to live for twenty years after one retires as life expectancy of an Indian is going up steadily due to lower infant mortality and better medical care. There is a complete absence of social security safety net for most Indians today, even for those working in Government sector, there is no inflation adjusted pension available anymore. I have tried to simplify the advantages and disadvantages involved in investing your savings in various asset classes. I have deliberately left out two of the most popular forms of investment among middle class Indians 1) Life insurance 2) Real estate Let us consider life insurance first most of us confuse insurance as an instrument of savings, it is not. We have this wrong view because of the tax breaks given to income tax assesses by the Central Government. Insurance is a product that mitigates risk and is sold by the rich to the middle class and is always skewed in the favour of the insurer rather than the insured. A substantial portion of the total money invested by you goes towards paying agent’s commission and premium for insuring you for the risk of mortality. The balance left out is invested in government securities and other securities. Hence the amount of money invested out of the total premium paid is less than half paid by the insurer. The return on money invested by the policy holder is less than half of the money he would have earned either in bonds or fixed deposits. A person who needs insurance is a person whose family will need support in the event of his untimely death. Alternately insurance is required for a person who has debt in form of mortgage and does not want to burden his family in the event of his passing. The product which covers these risks is called term insurance. One should not buy insurance to avoid taxes as there is better tax saving tools available. Real estate is also considered as a good investment by several retail investors but nothing can be further from the truth. Nobody makes money by buying plots in the middle of nowhere. The easy availability of mortgages from the nineties and the tax breaks given by the Central Government on housing loans has created an unparalleled boom in the residential market. There is now a painful correction process under way in that sector. The price of land is reflexively connected to availability of money. The lower the cost of money, greater the returns in real estate. Buying plots in the middle of nowhere is similar to buying lottery tickets as investment. Land cannot be liquidated immediately into cash at a short notice to meet urgent requirements. Cost of maintenance and protection of real estate from illegal occupation is prohibitive and time consuming. Verification of title deeds to the property is a complex process and needs sound legal advice. You should have a house to live and another to collect rent as rent is equivalent of inflation adjusted pension. The return on investment generated in the three different asset classes over 25 years would be in the following order 1) Equities 2) Gold and finally 3) Debt instruments. I enjoyed writing this book as a companion volume to my first book. It is my fond hope that you enjoy reading this book.

    Why doesn’t the government simply print more money so that everyone has enough? Who decides that seventy Indian rupees equal one American dollar? How do you figure out what to price a glass of lemonade at the Diwali mela? Are economists really as boring as they look? For answers to these and other mystifying questions, look no further than this fun book! (Psst! You may even catch your adults sneaking a peek inside!).

    Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century makes a powerful case that wealth, and accumulated wealth, tends to stay where it lands: and with the passage of time, just gets bigger…and bigger.But how many of us who bought or borrowed the book–or even, perhaps, reviewed it–have read more than a fraction of its 696 pages? How many more shuddered at the thought of committing $40 to such a venture? And how many of Piketty’s groundshaking concepts have gone unappreciated, all for want of intellectual stamina?Deliverance is at hand in the form of Pocket Piketty, written in clear and accessible prose by an experienced economist and teacher–and one whose work was relied on by Piketty for his masterpiece. In this handy and slim volume, Jesper Roine explains all things Piketty.

    He explains why the United States is now the "borrower and spender of last resort," makes the case that this is an untenable arrangement, and argues that global economic security depends on the ability of emerging economies to develop robust financial systems based on domestic currencies.Sharply and clearly argued, Wolf’s prescription for fixing global finance illustrates why he has been described as "the world's preeminent financial journalist."

    Yet the projects he envisioned laid the foundation for the nation's development once it became independent. More extraordinary still, these institutions continue to set the pace for others in their respective areas. For, among his many achievements are the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which has groomed some of the country's best scientists, the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, which marked the country's transition from trading to manufacturing, his pioneering hydro-electric project, and the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, one of the finest in the world. In these as in other projects he undertook, Jamsetji revealed the unerring instinct of a man who knew what it would take to restore the pride of a subjugated nation and help it prepare for a place among the leading nations of the world once it came into its own. The scale of the projects required abilities of a high order. In some cases it was sheer perseverance that paid off "as with finding a suitable site for the steel project. In others, such as the Indian Institute of Science, it was his exceptional persuasive skills and patience that finally got him the approval of a reluctant viceroy, Lord Curzon. In For the Love of India, R.M. Lala has drawn upon fresh material from the India Office Library in London and other archives, as also Jamsetji's letters, to portray the man and his age. It is an absorbing account that makes clear how remarkable Jamsetji's achievement truly was, and why, even now, one hundred years after his death, he seems like a man well ahead of the times.

    Yet they should be asking what the global economy will look like in the years to come—where will the long-term risks and opportunities arise? These are the questions that Daniel Altman confronts in his provocative and indispensable book.The fate of the global economy, Altman argues, will be determined by deeper factors than those that move markets from moment to moment. His incisive analysis brings together hidden trends, societal pressures, and policy endgames to make twelve surprising but logical predictions about the years ahead. And his forecasts for the future raise a pressing question for today: With so many challenges awaiting us, are our political and economic institutions up to the task?Outrageous Fortunes tells which industries will grow, which economies will crumble, which investments will pay off, and where the next big crisis may occur. Altman's carefully reasoned text is an essential guide for the road ahead.

    This book is written in a simple manner for readers to understand the various terminologies and working process of the financial markets. If you are looking to understand and enter the stock markets but don't know from where to start, then this book is for you. The basic concepts are same for Indian and overseas markets so it will help you understanding both. It will help you as a reference guide for investing in stock markets. Specifically it will help you in:- 1. Know basic terms and conditions of the stock market. 2. Know products and services associated with the stock market. 3. Know how to kick start in stock markets. 4. know Do's and Don'ts in Stock Markets. 5. Selecting a broker. 6. How to make your first trade. 7. Additional mental mastering technique that will help you to achieve more on markets as well in life. 8. Insight of a trader/investor who has more than 10+ years of experience in stock markets. 9. Illustrated examples for more clarity on topics.

    As of January 14, 2016, this is an unverified document. NOTE: this document has been reformatted for the Kindle. It can be searched, bookmarked, annotated, etc. It is not a dump of the PDF.

    

    

    Discover:• Why thousands of British state schools and NHS hospitals are owned by shell companies based in offshore tax havens• How British companies like Vodafone strongly influence tax laws• Why multinationals like Google and Starbucks can operate almost tax-free in the UK• How the taxman turns a blind eye to billions in illegally evaded tax in secret Swiss bank accounts• How footballers like Wayne Rooney use image rights companies to reduce their tax liabilityUnpicking the tangled mess of loopholes that well known multinationals, bankers, and celebrities use to circumvent tax, this is a bold manifesto for a system where we all contribute out fair share.

         Since 2006 and the election of the 1st Harper government, the vision of Canada's future as an energy superpower has driven the political agenda, as well as the fast-paced development of Alberta's oil sands and the push for more pipelines across the country to bring that bitumen to market. Anyone who objects is labeled a dreamer, or worse--an environmentalist: someone who puts the health of the planet ahead of the economic survival of their neighbours.     In The Carbon Bubble, Jeff Rubin compellingly shows how Harper's economic vision for the country is dead wrong. Changes in energy markets in the US--where domestic production is booming while demand for oil is shrinking--are quickly turning Harper's dream into an economic nightmare. The same trade and investment ties to oil that pushed the Canadian dollar to record highs are now pulling it down, and the Toronto Stock Exchange, one of the most carbon-intensive stock indexes in the world--with over 25 percent market capitalization in oil and gas alone--will be increasingly exposed to the rest of the world's efforts to reduce carbon emissions.     Rubin argues that there is a lifeline to a better future. The very climate change that will leave much of the country's carbon unburnable could at the same time make some of Canada's other resource assets more valuable: our water and our land. In tomorrow's economy, he argues, Canada won't be an energy superpower, but it has the makings of one of the world's great breadbaskets. And in the global climate that the world's carbon emissions are inexorably creating, food will soon be a lot more valuable than oil.

    Every week brings fresh news stories about businesses exploiting their staff, avoiding their taxes, and ripping off their customers. Every week, public anger at the system grows. Now, one of Britain’s foremost entrepreneurs intervenes to make the case for putting business back firmly in the service of society, and setting out on a new path to a kinder, fairer form of capitalism.Drawing on four decades of hands-on management experience, the founder of Richer Sounds argues that ethically run businesses are invariably more efficient, more motivated and more innovative than those that care only about the bottom line. He uncovers the simple tools that the best leaders use to make their businesses fair, revealing how others can follow suit. And he also delves into the big questions that modern capitalism has to answer if it is to survive and to thrive. When should – and shouldn’t – the state intervene in the workings of commercial enterprises? What does business as a whole owe back to the wider community? Is the relationship between leaders of big corporations and politicians too cosy, and, if so, what is to be done about it?At heart, The Ethical Capitalist is a plea for a new sense of moral purpose in business. If that takes hold, Julian Richer believes, we might just save capitalism from itself.

    Strangelove’s Game will do for economics what Sophie’s World did for philosophy and E=mc2 for physics.With the infectious enthusiasm of a great teacher and a novelist’s eye for a colourful parade of often bizarre and idiosyncratic figures, Paul Strathern gives us a vivid account of the world of economics through the lives and minds of those who contributed to the growth of economic thought from the Middle Ages to the present.The familiar and iconic names – Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes – turn out to be fascinating characters, as do a host of lesser-known figures – from Luca Pacioli, a medieval monk who used a ball game to stimulate thought about probability theory (and gambling) to John von Neumann, the manic genius who invented game theory, worked on the atomic bomb, and was probably the model for Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. There are pessimistic priests, visionary socialists, crackpot academics, and an alleged murderer who controlled France’s finances.Paul Strathern sets their lives and thoughts against the dramatic backdrop of great events – the South Sea Bubble, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the Great Crash. His lightly worn erudition makes Dr. Strangelove’s Game amazingly accessible, leaving readers enriched and enlightened.From the Hardcover edition.

    In its name, wages have been frozen, benefits have been slashed and public spending squeezed. The pain of a financial crisis caused by bankers and speculators has been borne by ordinary people all over the country – and by the poor and disabled most of all.