The US, the freest of free markets, has nationalized Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). In doing so, the US has earned the sobriquet USSA (United Socialist States of America), says Jawahir Mulraj. Meanwhile, Russia  is using  market forces to deploy its gas supplies to Europe as a political bargaining chip to silence dissent over its incursion into South Ossetia!

Ken Rogoff, former Chief Economist at the IMF, warned that ‘the financial crisis is at the halfway stage. I would go further to state that the worst is yet to come’. His prediction that a large financial institution would collapse led to a fall in global markets.

The title of this column is inspired by a brilliant Jack Nicholson movie called ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’. Friday saw the opening ceremony of the Olympics at the Birds Nest stadium in Beijing, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao must have been proud of its spectacular success. The Chinese political leaders who were determined to showcase their country’s success and worked towards that nationalistic goal must now be flying with pride.

The UPA Government finally, and convincingly, won the trust vote in Parliament, with the help of the Samajwadi Party (SP), after the Left parties had walked out of the alliance. It seems that there may have been a ‘kismet konnection’ between the two, for both were at daggers drawn earlier.

When asked, as leader of the largest constituent of the UPA Government, to become the Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi refused, displaying statesmanship and sagacity. Better yet, she astutely nominated Manmohan Singh, a man known for his erudition and honesty, as Prime Minister.

Last week we saw sale of promoter’s stake in Ranbaxy, India’s largest generic pharma company, to Dii Ichi Sankyo of Japan. Ranbaxy, set up in 1961, was valued at $ 8.5 b. in the deal. During a prior week I had attended the analyst meet of Punjab National Bank, which, after 119 years, has grown to become the largest but one (after SBI) public sector bank.