[QUICK THREAD: PERSPECTIVE]
1/11
Make no mistake, I abhor that prancing peacock, I really do. Just not for your reasons. His financial corruption doesn't bother me. His Islamophobia does, but only so much. His lies, again, only to an extent.

[THREAD: WHEN GREECE RULED INDIA]
1/89
Some time in the 7th century AD, Sanskrit writer Bāṇabhaṭṭa did a biography on his patron, emperor Harshavardhana. It was titled Harṣacarīta and is said to be the first biographical work from the subcontinent.

2/89
Besides abundant references to the Greeks (as Yavanas, derived from Ionians), the book recounts a curious incident of king Vatsapati being ambushed by soldiers emerging from "the belly of a sham elephant."

This section may or may not have been lifted from an earlier work.

Lemme share a poem with you. It’s titled Ram and was originally composed in Urdu by a controversial Indian figure about 114 years ago. There’s 6 verses, am sharing each of them along with an English translation.

Verse 1:
[U]
labrez hai sharāb-e-haqīqat se jām-e-hind
sab falsafī haiñ ḳhitta-e-maġhrib ke rām-e-hind

[EN]
Overflowing with the wine of Truth is the cup of India
All philosophers of the Western world have acknowledged India

Verse 2:
[U]
ye hindiyoñ kī fikr-e-falak-ras kā hai asar
rifat meñ āsmāñ se bhī ūñchā hai bām-e-hind

[EN]
It is the result of the elegant thinking of Indians
That higher than the sky is the position of India

Verse 3:
[U]
is des meñ hue haiñ hazāroñ malak-sarisht
mashhūr jin ke dam se hai duniyā meñ nām-e-hind

[EN]
This country has had many people of angelic disposition
On whose account world renowned is the name of India

Verse 4:
[U]
hai raam ke vajūd pe hindostāñ ko naaz
ahl-e-nazar samajhte haiñ is ko imām-e-hind

[EN]
India is proud of the existence of Rama
Spiritual people consider him prelate of India

[THREAD: HISTORY OF THE HINDU TEMPLE]
1/102
Four hours south of Aswan in Lower Nubia, right by the Nile, is a region dotted with temple complexes built more than 3,000 years ago. Some like the temples of Amada, Derr, and Beit el-Wali go as far back as 1500 BC.

2/102
A little further south, not far from the border with Sudan, is another complex dedicated to Ramses II, Hathor, and Nefertari in the village of Ipsambul, better known locally as Abu Sunbul and internationally as Abu Simbel. These go back to the 13th century BC.

3/102
Djeser-Djeseru, also known as the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut in Upper Egypt also dates to 1400 BC. Over 500 years older is the nearby Mentuhotep II, also a mortuary temple. Both were dedicated to the cult of Amun Ra, besides their respective pharaohs.

4/102
Far older is the Ġgantija complex of Malta. Going as far back as 3600 BC, this one comprises of two temples entirely made of stone and enclosed in a stone wall. From the figures therein, it's understood to be a site of some kind of a fertility cult worship.

5/102
Dating from the same period are the limestone megaliths of Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra, both said to have once hosted ritualistic sacrifices as part of the same fertility cult worship as found in the Ġgantija complex. Malta has some of the oldest temple complexes in Europe.

[QT: INDIA, THE GOLD STANDARD OF CLASS]
1/28
Some time last week, an American shared this on LinkedIn. A neutral (note the 3rd-person verbiage) observation of the goings-on in our capital with a legit @AP thumbnail. Of course India had to descend on him like an avalanche of poop.

2/28
This is a quick thread of some of the worst responses out there, just to illustrate the obvious, which in one way makes the exercise pointless. At the same time, such loss of a demography's class must never be out of the spotlight. So am doing it anyway.

3/28
Just before we start, here's a small bummer: I've redacted all identifying information even though it's all in public domain. This is to avoid any inadvertent code violation; Twitter doesn't seem to like doxing and neither do I.

So here we go.

4/28
1. Corporate affairs general manager at a Japanese auto heavyweight.
2. DB architect with a Silicon Valley giant. Sum total of his argument? Farmer leaders lean Left. Interestingly, also disses the IAC shindig the biggest benefactor of which was the party in power today.

5/28
Here's another, this time no less than the COO of one of the biggest electronics retail chains in India. From his English, to his demeanor, to his self-entitlement, tweet naming one thing that isn't oozing class.

[QUICK THREAD: AMSTERDAM'S XXX]
1/11
Most European cities date back to the Middle Ages if not Antiquity, and have an imperial coat of arms. This one's Amsterdam's. What you see in the middle column are not 3 letters but 3 crosses, Saint Andrew's Crosses or saltiers to be precise.

2/11
The reason St. Andrew's Cross looks like that is because the saint was martyred on an X-shaped cross, instead of the more familiar + kind. He was one of the apostles of early Christianity and was crucified by the Romans for heresy.

3/11
The reason this particular cross features on the city's coat of arms is because the apostle in question was a fisherman. And Amsterdam was founded as a fishing village back in 1505. St. Andrew is the most natural patron saint of fishermen around the world.

4/11
Being the official municipal herald, this coat of arms appears all over Amsterdam. Take the city hall building (officially, the Stopera), for instance.

5/11
Or this heritage building, certainly older than 1947 as it didn't include the motto (Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig). The motto was added only in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina to honor the bravery and compassion shown by the city during the General Strike of 1941.

To understand Financial Shenanigans & detect accounting manipulations from Annual Reports with checklist
In detail and lucid terms

Financial Shenanigans
(Part-1)
https://t.co/wa6HSElug0

(Part-2)
https://t.co/Vrva17GvgP

(Part-3)
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@dmuthuk @ms89_meet

10 Biggest Bank Robberies of All Time

Thieves made off with billions in these daring, historic heists.

A THREAD

10. The Dunbar Armored robbery

Stolen: $18.9 million

In 1997,6 men pulled off what remains the biggest cash heist in the history of the United States. The leader was Allen Pace, who turned out to be the worst "safety inspector" the Dunbar Armored trucking company ever employed.

Pace timed the security cameras at the Dunbar facility in Los Angeles so he could avoid them, and recruited five childhood friends to help him rob the vault. They broke in, assaulted two guards on their lunch breaks and loaded $18.9 million dollars into a U-Haul.

They almost got away with it — except one robber got sloppy and lent some of the stolen cash to a friend without removing the original cash straps.

9. The United California bank heist

Stolen: $30 million

In 1972, Amil Dinsio, a professional criminal from Ohio, assembled a gang of six robbers and flew them to California. They rented a town house and planned a heist on a bank where they had (mistakenly) heard President

I sense a few double standards present in the debate over Bidens’ historic Child Tax Credit proposal that would cut the child poverty rate by more than 40%.

My focus here is on a perhaps less obvious one but I think relevant: trust fund kids & the tax treatment of inheritances

Since the mid-1990s, as I’ll walk through, reducing the taxation of large inheritances has been a top, if not the top, tax policy priority of conservatives and Republicans.

In parallel, as I’ll also walk through, there has been a steady stream of research concluding that large inheritances reduce the work effort of wealthy heirs

Unless I’ve missed it, I’ve not sensed the type of concern about the work effects on wealthy heirs among conservative proponents of large tax-free inheritances, which we now see among some conservatives and Republican lawmakers around poor people and a larger Child Tax Credit

In 1997, as part of an agreement with Clinton, who secured wins to make health care more affordable for poor children and college tax credits, Gingrich won “reductions in capital gains and estate taxes that had been principal goals for the GOP.”

The most memorable interview I did this year was w/ Stanley Druckenmiller, who famously made $1B shorting the British Pound.

The trading legend's track record includes a 30-year stretch returning 30%+ a year (without a single down year).

Here are 8 investing lessons🧵

1/ Make concentrated bets in high conviction plays

2/ Concentrated bets can sometimes *reduce* risk

3/ Use a multi-disciplinary approach to investing

4/ Know when to sell (he never uses a stop loss)