At infinity any public company will become a bank

At infinity (or maybe just a couple of centuries later), any successful publicly listed company will willingly or unwillingly turn into a bank.

If you give any board of directors of a publicly listed company ample time, they will eventually open a bank if not turning that very company into a bank.

Simply because this is what we love to do (create wealth) and a bank is the pinnacle of a 'money-based' world. Here, on planet Earth, Money is the common denominator and practically anything can be described in money terms.

Don't get me wrong, doing all sorts of business is fun but in the business of making money, there is no better place than a bank. It's quite effortless compared to other businesses. Basically all you have to do is to borrow money on some terms and lend that same money on some other terms favorable enough for you to profit on the spread between the 2 terms.

In doing so, the first commandment of every business, the profit motive, can perpetuate.. until the day you hit the fate of the Dodo or even worse Lehman Brothers (1850-2008).

Strange world, isn't it?

2011 Japan Tsunami - a small-scale model of the apocalypse

It's extremely hard to witness a 10m Tsunami caused by a 8.9 quake hitting the east coast of Japan, the most experienced country in terms of earthquakes and tsunamis, a Japanese name for high powerful waves, and yet stay completely helpless as it occurred. Tons of houses, cars, airplanes washed away, airport completely covered, gas pipes at refinery burst into flames and then a 4-reactor nuclear plant got compromised for several days when almost each reactor released high amounts of hydrogen while authorities were trying to cool them with any water they could find, in that case seawater. These hydrogen which in turns exploded outside the reactor-core, blowing off the roof, weakening and exposing the reactor-core and in one case made 2 holes in the reactor-core thus releasing considerable amounts of radioactive materials in the air.

This is the 5th biggest quake since recent memory and believe it or not the earth axis got slightly disturbed, and one day became slight shorter.

The stock market in Tokyo plunged 10 % and world markets wiped off $620 billion in 2 days.

Around the world people start to question nuclear plant's safety and reconsider nuclear energy as a sustainable energy source.

Now this vivid living model will surely help us imagine how other catastrophes really happened in earlier human history e.g at Alexandria in Egypt and Atlantis if Plato is right, somewhere below Spain in the Mediterranean sea.

Since the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami, I had a feeling that I have seen the worst but no, we had the 2010 Haiti earthquake, now the 2011 Japan Tsunami and yet the worst is yet to come..

Everyone now knows that whenever there is a Tsunami alert, huge waves of more than 2m high are about to hit the shores and every time we fear for those thousands of islands which are less than 2m high and are in the way of the coming waves. All the thousands maybe millions of people living on these islands are being ignored by the international community and are just waiting to be engulfed by any Tsunami which may arise. I guess this will be the next catastophe we will witness on live television - a whole island with all its inhabitants being engulf in a Tsunami à la Atlantis while the international community watch helplessly and tweets about it.

I am devastated!

The Dictator Buster

Who would have thought that social media could play a vital role in toppling over a dictatorship of over 30 years? Even the founders of social network sites haven't seen that coming. After Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya, people have been using social media as a means to voice their concerns and coordinate their efforts in bringing democracy to their country.

Social networks sites like Twitter, facebook and youtube have now become the latest tools in bringing power back to the people. Governments in both developed and under-developed countries are not used to that kind of silent coordination and collaboration of their people. With the magnifying effect that these sites have on people public gathering and protests, law enforcement agencies are more often overwhelmed and powerless against its own people.

Android - The New Windows

Apple did it again, this time in the mobile phone market. Back in 1984 when Steve Jobs launched the first personal computer, it was an impressive, closed and expensive piece of technology. A couple of years later, Microsoft launched Windows on top of its already popular MS-DOS and this GUI being flexible and less expensive was very quickly adopted by all leaving Apple behind with only the small high-end market.

This time, back in 2007 Apple revolutionized the mobile phone industry with the iPhone, again a closed system with a restrictive App Store but then in 2009, Google launched its Google Phone based on Android - a mobile OS similar to iPhone OS except that it is open source; therefore anyone can see the source codes, customize it and develop apps for it. Since then the popularity of Android has not stopped growing and at times even surpassing iPhone sales in 2010.

With popularity comes vulnerability! As was the case for Windows desktop, when an OS has 95% of market share, it becomes the designated target of viruses and all other spywares and malwares. So will Android when it will dominate the mobile phone market, and Android being open will make it more vulnerable to such threats. Some have already forecast the year 2011 as the year of smartphone malware.