“
The spread of BSE [mad cow disease] in Europe has revealed how secret alliances between agribusiness and government can endanger the public health. It has shown how the desire for profit can overrule every other consideration. British agricultural officials were concerned as early as 1987 that eating meat from BSE-infected cattle might pose a risk to human beings. That information was suppressed for years, and the possibility of any health risk was strenuously denied, in order to protect exports of British beef. Scientists who disagreed with the official line were publicly attacked and kept off government committees investigating BSE. Official denials of the truth delayed important health measures.
”
”
Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal)
“
Only two people can buy at the bottom and sell at the top- One is God and the other is a liar.
”
”
Vijay Kedia
“
Investment is somewhat like cricket, where you change your game plan as per the format.
”
”
Vijay Kedia
“
Stock market doesn't only teaches to make money but it also teaches lot about life, patience, persistence and wisdom.
”
”
Raj Mishra
“
They Should Have Asked My Husband
You know this world is complicated, imperfect and oppressed
And it’s not hard to feel timid, apprehensive and depressed.
It seems that all around us tides of questions ebb and flow
And people want solutions but they don’t know where to go.
Opinions abound but who is wrong and who is right.
People need a prophet, a diffuser of the light.
Someone they can turn to as the crises rage and swirl.
Someone with the remedy, the wisdom, and the pearl.
Well . . . they should have asked my ‘usband, he’d have told’em then and there.
His thoughts on immigration, teenage mothers, Tony Blair,
The future of the monarchy, house prices in the south
The wait for hip replacements, BSE and foot and mouth.
Yes . . . they should have asked my husband he can sort out any mess
He can rejuvenate the railways he can cure the NHS
So any little niggle, anything you want to know
Just run it past my husband, wind him up and let him go.
Congestion on the motorways, free holidays for thugs
The damage to the ozone layer, refugees and drugs.
These may defeat the brain of any politician bloke
But present it to my husband and he’ll solve it at a stroke.
He’ll clarify the situation; he will make it crystal clear
You’ll feel the glazing of your eyeballs, and the bending of your ear.
Corruption at the top, he’s an authority on that
And the Mafia, Gadafia and Yasser Arafat.
Upon these areas he brings his intellect to shine
In a great compelling voice that’s twice as loud as yours or mine.
I often wonder what it must be like to be so strong,
Infallible, articulate, self-confident …… and wrong.
When it comes to tolerance – he hasn’t got a lot
Joyriders should be guillotined and muggers should be shot.
The sound of his own voice becomes like music to his ears
And he hasn’t got an inkling that he’s boring us to tears.
My friends don’t call so often, they have busy lives I know
But its not everyday you want to hear a windbag suck and blow.
Encyclopaedias, on them we never have to call
Why clutter up the bookshelf when my husband knows it all!
”
”
Pam Ayres
“
Rozpoznanie trwało siedem miesięcy, w tym czasie objawy choroby pojawiły się u innych krów w Stent. Ostatecznie stwierdzono, że przyczyną śmierci krowy numer 133 było gąbczaste zapalenie mózgu (BSE).
”
”
Anonymous
“
Na przełomie listopada i grudnia 1986 roku BSE wpisano do rejestru jako nową chorobę bydła, ale informację utajniono.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Każde nowe doniesienie naukowe wzmagało obawę, że upublicznienie go spowoduje nieproporcjonalny popłoch, będzie wykorzystane przez media i opozycyjnych naukowców do wykazania, że BSE jest groźne dla ludzi, co doprowadziłoby do paniki konsumenckiej.
”
”
Anonymous
“
It soon became clear why investors were clamouring to buy a piece of TV18 for Rs 180 a share. The stock market delivered a belated Valentine’s Day squeeze to the company as it listed on the BSE on 16 February 2000. The Financial Express reported that ‘[t]he TV18 stock opened on BSE at Rs 1950, moved to a high of Rs 1990 before closing at Rs 1667.’4 Outlook Money magazine explained what this meant: Last Wednesday’s explosive listing of Television Eighteen’s shares was a spectacular event, even by the standards of a market that has seen plenty of fireworks this past year. Investors who were able to buy shares the company issued in December certainly expected a handsome appreciation from the public offer price of Rs 180. But not a few were stunned when within 15 minutes of commencement of trading in the company’s shares, they were trading at Rs 1990—an astonishing 1006 per cent gain!
”
”
Indira Kannan (Network18: The Audacious Story of a Start-up That Became a Media Empire)
“
HDFC Bank was the first of the private lenders to go public— even before it completed a full year. 'It was a mistake,' Deepak told me. The RBI required the new banks to go public within a year but all other lenders went back to the regulator and got extensions. 'We didn't ask for it. We were too naive,' Deepak said. 'Everybody took time as they wanted to get a premium. We sold at par, ₹10. But I have no regrets.' Deepak pushed for a par issue as the bank had nothing to show. And the disaster of parent HDFC's listing was still haunting him, though that had happened a decade and a half ago. In 1978, India's capital market was in a different shape and mortgage was a new product, not understood by many. HDFC put the photograph of its first borrower on the cover of its balance sheet, a D. B. Remedios from Thane, who took a loan of ₹35,000 to build his house. The public issue of HDFC bombed. In an initial public offering (IPO) of ₹10 crore, the face value of one share was ₹100. ICICI, IFC (Washington) and the Aga Khan Fund took 5% stakes each in the mortgage lender and the balance 85% equity was offered to the public, but there were few takers. The stock quoted at a steep discount on listing. For the bank, Deepak did not want to take any chance. So portions of the issue were reserved for the shareholders and employees of HDFC as well as the bank's employees. HDFC decided to own close to a 26% stake in the bank and NatWest 20%. Satpal was offered about 5% and the public 25%. The size of the public issue was ₹50 crore. 'We didn't know whether it would succeed. Our experience with HDFC had been a disaster,' Deepak said. But Deepak had grossly underestimated investors' appetite for the new bank. The issue, which opened on 14 March 1995, was subscribed a record fifty-five times. The stock was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (now known as BSE Ltd) on 26 May that year at ₹39.95, almost at a 300% premium.
”
”
Tamal Bandopadhyaya (A Bank for the Buck)
“
It was the same industrial logic- protein is protein- that made feeding rendered cow parts back to cows seem like a sensible thing to do, until scientists figured out that this practice was spreading BSE [mad cow disease].
”
”
Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals)
“
Arens’s hilarity at the racist idea of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease being transmitted by cannibalism turned out to be misplaced, however, since it was cattle cannibalism in the form of brain and spinal cord matter from diseased animals being included in cattle feed that led, a few years later, to the spread of BSE in Britain. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease, was a prion disease that also infected a number of humans in the form of vCJD, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and led to a ban on the export of British beef in 1996.
”
”
C.R. Hallpike (Ship of Fools: An Anthology of Learned Nonsense about Primitive Society)
“
One of those 48 studies is the Danish analysis published in November 2020 in the world-renowned journal Annals of Internal Medicine, which concluded: „The trial found no statistically significant benefit of wearing a face mask.“1416 Shortly before, U.S. researcher Yinon Weiss updated his charts on cloth face masks mandates in various countries and U.S. states—and they also showed that mask mandates have made no difference or may even have been counterproductive.1417 The aforementioned website „Ärzte klären auf“ showed a graph with data going until December 4, 2020, which also refutes the effectiveness of the mask obligation.
”
”
Torsten Engelbrecht (Virus Mania: Corona/COVID-19, Measles, Swine Flu, Cervical Cancer, Avian Flu, SARS, BSE, Hepatitis C, AIDS, Polio, Spanish Flu. How the Medical Industry ... Billion-Dollar Profits At Our Expense)
“
Our main problem over the past few days and weeks,’ he said, ‘has lain in trying to connect the various phenomena. In fact, there wasn’t any obvious connection until a jelly-like substance started to crop up. Sometimes it appeared in small quantities, sometimes in larger amounts, but always with the distinguishing characteristic that it disintegrated rapidly on contact with air. Unfortunately the discovery of the jelly only added to the mystery, given its presence in crustaceans, mussels and whales - three types of organism that could hardly be more different. Of course, it might have been some kind of fungus, a jellified version of rabies, an infectious disease like BSE or swine fever. But, if so, why would ships be disappearing or crabs transporting killer algae? There was no sign of the jelly on the worms that infested the slope. They were carrying a different kind of cargo - bacteria that break down hydrates and cause methane gas to rise. Hence the landslide and the tsunami. And what about the mutated species that have been emerging all over the world? Even fish have been behaving oddly. None of it adds up. In that respect, Jack Vanderbilt was right to discern an intelligent mind behind the chaos. But he overestimated our ability - no scientist knows anything like enough about marine ecology to be capable of manipulating it to that extent. People are fond of saying that we know more about space than we do about the oceans. It’s perfectly true, but there’s a simple reason why: we can’t see or move as well in the water as we can in outer space. The Hubble telescope peers effortlessly into different galaxies, but the world’s strongest floodlight only illuminates a dozen square metres of seabed. An astronaut in a spacesuit can move with almost total freedom, but even the most sophisticated divesuit won’t stop you being crushed to death beyond a certain depth. AUVs and ROVs are only operational if the conditions are right. We don’t have the physical constitution or the technology to deposit billions of worms on underwater hydrates, let alone the requisite knowledge to engineer them for a habitat that we barely understand. Besides, there are all the other phenomena: deep-sea cables being destroyed at the bottom of the ocean by forces other than the underwater slide; plagues of jellyfish and mussels rising from the abyssal plains. The simplest explanation would be to see these developments as part of a plan, but such a plan could only be the work of a species that knows the ocean as intimately as we do the land - a species that lives in the depths and plays the dominant role in that particular universe.
”
”
Frank Schätzing (The Swarm: A Novel)
“
If I split India’s listed companies into four equal groups, ranked by their ROCE and revenue growth,4 companies with the highest ROCE (i.e. in the topmost 25 per cent or top quartile) have beaten the BSE2005 by 7.7 per cent per annum. Contrast this with the same top quartile for companies with high revenue growth—they have beaten the BSE200 by only 4 per cent per annum. As you would expect, companies which delivered on both fronts (i.e. a combination of top quartile on ROCE and top quartile on revenue growth) have performed even better on the stock price front—they have outperformed the BSE200 by an impressive 11.5 per cent per annum.
”
”
Saurabh Mukherjea (The Unusual Billionaires)
“
Before wrapping up this chapter, let us look at one of the deadly scams in the Indian primary market history. There was company named ‘MS shoes east’. Shares of this company traded in Rs 150-200 range throughout the year 1994. But towards December 1994 it spurted to Rs 500 without any justifiable rationale behind the raise. Its promoter Pavan Sachedeva and his broker artificially manipulated the stock price to this level. By February 1995, the company devised an expansion plan for an estimated expense Rs 700 crores. It proposed to raise around Rs 428 crores by means of Fully convertible bonds. These bonds were to be sold at Rs 199 each through public issue. The idea was to provoke people to subscribe the issue with a hope of converting this bond of Rs 199 to a share of Rs 500. Well, his brokers was constantly buying the stocks from the open market to maintain the price at that high level. But the situation had already worsened. He had bought too much and had too little money at hand that he could not pay the stock exchange for all the purchases he made. BSE could not give money to the sellers of that security. Things turned out to be serious. You may find it hard to believe - the BSE was shut down for three consecutive days without any business. Before this drama came to light, FCD ('Fully Convertible Debenture) public issue was a big success and it almost stole the show. Delighted by the overwhelming response from the investing community, MS Shoes had announced to close the public issues few days before the stipulated time. The world came to know that the cruel plan of manipulating the stock price was only to push the bond issue successfully. Even the authorities woke up to the problem. The company was issued a notice. And also it allowed the investors to take back their FCD application. Almost all the investors took back. Even the underwriter refused to buy the unsold portion of the issue because the company had voluntarily announced to close the issue before the end date. The ruling was in favor the underwriter. Sachedeva declared himself to be innocent. MS shoes office resembled a mourning house with deserted look. There was one Sachedeva who came to light. There were and probably still are more of them out there.
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
feeding rendered cow parts back to cows seem like a sensible thing to do, until scientists figured out that this practice was spreading bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease.
”
”
Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals)
“
The over-use of antibiotics is also causing more bacteria to become resistant. Today, 70 percent of microbes held responsible for lung illnesses no longer respond to medications.180 The increase in resistance prompts the pharmaceutical sector to conduct more intensive research for new antibiotics. But the discovery of such molecules is a long, difficult and costly process (about $600 million per molecule).181 For many years, no important new antibiotic has come onto the market. At the same time, increasingly stronger preparations are being introduced, which only leads to the bacteria becoming even more resistant and excreting even more toxins.
”
”
Torsten Engelbrecht (Virus Mania: Corona/COVID-19, Measles, Swine Flu, Cervical Cancer, Avian Flu, SARS, BSE, Hepatitis C, AIDS, Polio, Spanish Flu. How the Medical Industry ... Billion-Dollar Profits At Our Expense)
“
For example, in England, prior to the introduction of mandatory vaccinations in 1953, there were two smallpox deaths per 10,000 inhabitants per year. But at the beginning of the 1970s, nearly 20 years after the introduction of mandatory vaccinations, which had led to a 98 percent vaccination rate,195 England suffered 10 smallpox deaths per 10,000 inhabitants annually; five times as many as before. “The smallpox epidemic reached its peak after vaccinations had been introduced,“ summarizes William Farr, who was responsible for compiling statistics in London.
”
”
Torsten Engelbrecht (Virus Mania: Corona/COVID-19, Measles, Swine Flu, Cervical Cancer, Avian Flu, SARS, BSE, Hepatitis C, AIDS, Polio, Spanish Flu. How the Medical Industry ... Billion-Dollar Profits At Our Expense)
“
if you can fit the solution to a complex problem on a bumper sticker, it is wrong!
”
”
Torsten Engelbrecht (Virus Mania: Corona/COVID-19, Measles, Swine Flu, Cervical Cancer, Avian Flu, SARS, BSE, Hepatitis C, AIDS, Polio, Spanish Flu. How the Medical Industry ... Billion-Dollar Profits At Our Expense)
“
Ein Problem mit dem Weltschrecken ist, dass er so gehäuft auftritt. Was haben wir in den vergangenen 30 Jahren nicht schon alles überlebt: den sauren Regen und das Waldsterben, die Überbevölkerung, das Ozonloch und die Aids-Katastrophe, die nach den ersten Hochrechnungen bis heute etwa die Hälfte der Weltbevölkerung dahingerafft haben müsste. Zwischendurch mussten wir noch mit den Nematoden im Fisch fertigwerden, den „tödlichen Eiern“, die es 1993 sogar auf einen SPIEGEL-Titel brachten, der Vogel- und der Schweinegrippe und natürlich BSE, dem Killer im Fleischklops. Man mag es dem einen oder anderen also nachsehen, wenn er nicht gleich ansprang, als es hieß, dass demnächst die Polkappen schmelzen würden. Auch gegen Unheilsverkündigungen kann man abstumpfen.
”
”
Jan Fleischhauer (Der Schwarze Kanal)
“
The long-term risks of intensive farming are not yet known, for it is still in its first generation, but the BSE epidemic was a warning that caution is necessary. Perhaps in the future our industrial meat will come, like cigarettes, with a warning: FACTORY FARMED: EAT AT YOUR OWN RISK.
”
”
John Connell (The Farmer's Son: Calving Season on a Family Farm)