Pay Tax Returns With Txt

Sweden is putting in place the infrastructure for citizens to pay taxes by text this May. The government already knows everything about Swedish taxpayers’ income from a range of sources – banks, employers, financial institutions, and condo boards all have to file details about salaries, loans, funds, and properties each January. Taxpayers now need only sign their forms via text if they accept the calculations as per the filing. Even ahead of Sweden is Estonia, who apparently became the first nation to vote online in the general elections in 2005. Now the government is working to help citizens vote using their cell phones.
More from news.com.

Money Diaries

Interesting experiment by Remit “I will teach you to be rich” Sethi. He collects real stories from people about their spending habits over seven days, anonymized them and posted them on a blog. There are stories about people young and old and their life around money. How some of them are living beyond their means and others, who have managed to find the balance. Great little trawl-through for people looking to understand human behavior and how as a species, we are all so similar, and so different. Enter here. Also look up his book, “I’ll teach you to be rich” here.

Indian Banks Are Humming

The Banker Magazine has a round up on the health of Indian banks, as it believes that our nation, unlike many others, have avoided a financial meltdown. Most other Indian banks appear to be cruising along too, posting strong third-quarter results for 2008. HDFC Bank, one of the strongest in the private sector, reported a net profit of Rs. 6.2bn ($121.5m) for ‘08 third quarter, a year-on-year growth of 44.8%. Similarly, Axis Bank, another leading private sector bank, reported a strong 63.2% year-on-year increase in net income. In the meantime, publicly owned State Bank of India, the largest bank in the country, showed a 35.5% year-on-year growth in net interest income, while another leading public sector bank, Punjab National Bank,reported an 85.8% year-on-year increase in net profits. State-owned banks account for nearly 75% of the industry’s assets and private sector banks about 20%. Some of India’s 30-odd foreign banks have also announced stellar results in 08. While HSBC Holdings announced a 68% drop in net profit, its Indian operation reported a 26% increase in pre-tax profit. And Standard Chartered’s Indian business was one of the main contributors to its overall revenue, with its wholesale operation growing by 16% and its consumer banking arm by 13%. More in The Banker.

Stick Me Up Card

An outfit called Blaze Mobile has come to the rescue with a way to jump-start our economy with a wave of wireless spending. Yes, just slap one of its nifty stickers — embedded with a radio frequency identification, or R.F.I.D., tag, that is linked to a credit or bank account – on your phone, and you can shop to your heart’s content, wallet-free. More in NY Times Blog.

25 People To Blame For The Financial Crisis.

Time magazine has a rogues gallery photofeature that looks at some of the key players whose actions created the financial crisis as we see it. From the former US President George W Bush, to the former Chairman of the Fed,
Allen Greenspan, to the Governor of Iceland’s central bank David Oddsson. It an interesting list of people some with good intentions, others who were bad managers and the third lot who were just plain greedy. Go here for Time.

Copper. The New Gold Standard.

The Gold Standard, as the Wikipedia says, is a monetary system in which a region’s common media of exchange are paper notes that are normally freely convertible into pre-set, fixed quantities of gold. Now there are reports that gold could be losing its sheen as the most valued metal. Sometime ago there were reports, check out this discussion thread from 1998, that Warren Buffet was buying up silver, up to 20% of all the newly minted silver to be precise. Now, this story from The Telegraph UK talks of China investing in various metals, particularly copper. China’s State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons, says The Telegraph. John Reade, metals chief at UBS, said Beijing may have a made strategic decision to stockpile metal as an alternative to foreign bonds. "We’re very surprised by Chinese demand. They are buying much more copper than they will need this year. If this is strategic, there may be no effective limit on the purchases as China’s pockets are deep." Read more here.

Urban Outfitters

Not all ideas we talk about in this newsletter need to be digital. Here’s a cute one from Urban Outfitters. A make anything card. Try it. Simple and smart.

Amazing 3d Immersion Technology.

Amazing 3D immersion technology. From the ideo blog

Copyrights In Logoville

An interesting little fight has broken out in the graphic design world. Designer Jon Engle has been sued by illustration agency Stock Art for using work that he had put up on Stock Art for sale in designs that he did for others. There are many versions to this story online, but this best describes what happed to the designer and the $18000 StockArt lawsuit.

Pink Slip Marketing

The season of recession and job losses has kept marketers busy. Hyundai cars in the US was the first off the block with their assurance program launched early in January, where the company promised to take the car back in case the person who bought the car on a loan lost his job. The much lauded program helped the company sell more cars and according to this story, not a single car has been returned because the owner lost his job. Saturn cars is taking potshots at the Hyundai program with an initiative of their own, where they don’t take the car back, but pay up the loan for nine months, if the purchaser were to lose his job. There are other innovative ones that have caught our eye. Like the new one from Virgin Mobile. Where, a subscriber gets a three month break if he or she is laid off. The insurance industry is never too far when it comes to new ideas, and even they have lined up some interesting ones, like this loan protection plan for people who are vulnerable and could lose their jobs. Going beyond protection, ad agencies have been throwing pink slip parties (not a new idea apparently, the first ones happened in early 20th century) for people who have lost their jobs. The hope is that these networking sessions could help the unfortunate ones link up and find avenues for employment.