Merger and Acquisition

Buying and selling goods are the most common phenomenon of business. But many companies are involved in buying and selling of companies. In business terms it is called merger and acquisition. Merger are of three kinds: Horizontal, Vertical and conglomerate.
Horizontal merger means buying the same kind of company or two companies with same kind of business come together under one umbrella. For example Vodafone acquired German telecommunication giant Mannesmann, J P Morgan acquired Chase Manhattan bank.
Another type is vertical acquisition. In this type a company acquires another direction of business. Either it goes to raw material side of goes to forward direction of customer. For example walt Disney acquired ABC television to reach to large size of customer.
Finally, conglomerate merger includes random acquisition of companies. There is no direct link between the parent company and subsidiary or acquired company. For example AT&T acquired NCR .
However most acquisitions are failed like an abnormal marriage . Daimler had to divorce with Chrysler after many years of merger. Other big companies were also in trouble because of unusual merger and acquisition.

Management conferences

Being a business management student,i am always curious about management conferences. Currently, a huge conference is going on in Davos, Switzerland. This conference is more important because of global recession. People are hoping that it can recommend some solution to get rid of the recession.
Many economists, business tycoons are there to propose new insight and thought so that their long experience and expertise can make this planet better in terms of wealth. So lets hope this conference will be corner stone to save our economy.

Global recession

Business has never been such competitive. Big corporate houses are falling down. Legendary Lehman Brother, Merill Lynch, submerged and other are underway. It seems that there is no measure to get out of this recession.
Countries are introducing bail out plan with billions of dollar. These countries are moving towards capitalism to socialism. It has proved that market can not be fully independent. Government intervention is mandatory for smooth operation of economy. Many economist like Milton Fried man sought for free market economy but ultimately Keynesian theory is getting one more approval that government should play vital role to save the economy.

Health insurence facilities

When i cam to Germany, i did not know that i need a health insurance during the entire stay here. When i joined the University and they asked me a health insurance, i was surprised because i already had one from Nepal but they said that it does not work. They need a insurance from government insurance company.
Out of many AOK and TK are the major health insurence companies who provide better facilities in Germany. Others are Allianz, Barmer etc. Health insurence is a burden even for German students who have less chance of working during the student life. And what about foreign students who have limited budget? It is a disaster for them. Though facilities provided are ok but not enough because one has to pay Euro 5 for each medicine recommended by the doctor. Every quarter one has to pay Euro 10 as practice fee for doctor.
So before comming to Germany, one has to bear in mind that he/she has to cover all health insurence which is huge amount.

Dispute over birth place of Lord Buddha

Last week one bollywood film called chandani chowk to china mislead the people by showing some clips that Lord Buddha was born somewhere in India. Whole world know that he was born in Nepal and UNESCO has also certified this fact by listing Buddha's birth place in world cultural heritage.
This was not single offence that India about Buddha. Since many years India has been attracting and misguiding the tourist by saysing and showing some fake places as birth place of lord Budhha.
We Nepalese should always try to inform the world the real fact about Buddha and his birth place and should always try to protect all misleading information in calm way.
Who ever see this blog, please be informed that Buddha was born in Western part of Nepal. The place is called Kapilvastu which lies in Lumbini zone. Hell Buddha and thumb down for Indian authorities who tried to mislead people.

Credit card facility from Deutsche bank Germany

Last time when i was in immense need of credit card to buy a flight ticket to Spain, i heard about the credit card facility to the students by Deutsche Bank in Germany. When i went there i found it very interesting but later knew that the interest charge was unimaginably high. Further when i bought ticket they charged six euro for using this credit card. I did not know that i have to pay extra fee for using this facility except charge by bank.
Any way i am not frequent user of credit card and when ever i need i already have ne. But i am thinking to go for citi bank credit card because it is more student friendly and credit limit is also high.

Ground breaking Economists

Again big word. I was reading a book named inside the economist's mind, a book which includes the interviews of prominent economists of the century. Most of them are noble prize laurate e.g. Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, Franco Modigliani, Stanley Fisher and many more to name. When i was reading the book i came to know that almost all of them are the product of so called elite universities such as Harvard University, Stanford, University of Chicago, MIT, Yale University, Columbia and many more to name.
There are lot of business schools like Insead in France, HHL in Germany, Technical University of Munich in Germany, HEC in France, IMD in Switzerland, Oxford in UK, etc. But most of the economists are from US universities not from other universities. All breakthrough ideas and theories are from US economist and many are Nobel laurates. Other developed countries also have money, capable universities, research institutes but less breakthrough ideas in economics.
I think it is because of research freedom and money. But major reason is the brand name of these universities where all people want to go and only brilliant have access. If you teach brilliant people then ofcourse you will get innovative ideas and theories.