Manki (Muthu Kannan)

2 lines I try to keep in mind while on social media: • Yes, I’ll put off judging that man who sold his Christ. God only knows what’s hidden in those weak and drunken hearts. (from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky) • Somebody’s wrong on the internet. (xkcd.com/386/)

I wrote a new blog post: “Find your niche.” blog.manki.in/2026/06/find-y…

I have just published a new blog post: The evolution of our family’s emergency fund open.substack.com/pub/moneytidbi…

பயணம் செல்லும் வண்டியிலே தலைமேல் ஏன்டி பாரம் பாரம்! பாரங்களைக் கீழே வைத்தால் சுமந்தே வண்டி போகும் போகும்! படத்தை உருவாக்கியது: Google Gemini

TL;DR Korea is seeing outflows cos they cooked hard. We are seeing outflows cos we are cooked. And taxes play only a small part in all of this. FIIs fleeing India for Korea and Taiwan because of our tax code is a convenient excuse, but it misses how global capital works. FIIs aren't fleeing taxes; they chase performance cycles and structural moats, and then optimize on taxes amongst other things. Look at the actual data: • South Korea: record-breaking capital outflows as shown in the Bloomberg chart. • Taiwan: moderate net-inflows, overwhelmingly to TSMC. The hierarchy of investing has always been you invest to make money first, then you optimize for taxes. If the first part fails, the tax rate is irrelevant. Taiwan and Korea have higher STT and lower cap gain taxes than India. What does matter in tax code is stability. A constantly shifting tax code punctuated by retroactive tweaks creates risk. A risk that can't be predicted or hedged. Investing is already hard enough to then add this additional burden. So why the record outflows in Korea? Because Korea is coming off an absolute DRAM earnings bonanza. Samsung and SK Hynix have ripped so hard on the AI wave that fund managers have hit concentration limits and are forced to trim positions. Investors allocate based on value, cycles, conviction and position limits. Stop blaming the tax code for an allocation shift. Build high-conviction companies at justifiable valuations, and global capital will happily show up, pay the tax, and stay put.

@letsjustvin @am_p_k Motivated politicians have convinced a large group of people that Hindi is being imposed. The politicians know that 1. Us-vs-Them always works, and 2. These people will hardly think beyond what they are told. Pure separatists they are.

@am_p_k @mkannan Again the three language policy says you can learn whatever language you want but needs to be Indian :) your anger is totally misplaced .. if you can calm down and think about it it would make sense

Chennai needed a new airport So the DMK guys all bought land in Parandur and declared the airport to be built there. Then DMK lost elections TVK guys realized they don't have any land there So now they will buy land in some place like Chengalpet, Vikravandi, Arani or Ambur and announce the new Chennai Airport there Then they will lose the elections That airport also will be stopped There is a easy solution to all of this So why don't all political parties come together in a session, decide on a place for the airport, buy land there, then announce airport? Win win for all no?

@am_p_k @letsjustvin > until at least one Tamilian lives until at least one Tamilian that's brainwashed by motivated politicians lives. FTFY

@letsjustvin @mkannan Saying that I won’t be accepting something if it’s forced is called entitlement Yes then I’m entitled and India won’t have Hindi as national language until at least one Tamilian lives Go and cry a river !

@letsjustvin @am_p_k They won't want to learn Hindi because they are insecure.

@am_p_k Lololol it’s an Indian language.. why wouldn’t yiu want to learn Hindi? Just genuinely asking ? No you don’t need to be insecure about Tamil.. Tamil is one of the oldest languages and is a treasure for us Indians and everyone is proud of it.. but why reject Hindi

Important post from Meta engineer Arnav Gupta on all the AI-led layoffs. "The layoffs will continue till we learn to use AI" is his title and Gemini(!) correctly identified it as coming from, "The beatings will continue until morale improves". x.com/i/status/20518… As he explains well, AI has increased costs massively for all tech companies. Our own AI bill is skyrocketing and to add insult to injury, server prices have gone up 200-300% in a year because the AI infrastructure boom is consuming all the advanced memory chips. So these layoffs are the economic response by tech companies to control the main cost they control (people) to pay for AI and servers. Of course most are spinning it as the result of the "AI productivity miracle" but reality is more cost control than a productivity miracle, at least not yet. Now let me go back to using AI to generate even more code, so that we don't fall behind all the other guys generating massive amounts of code 😅

Open letter to Indians in America. -- Dear brothers and sisters from Bharat: Like I did 37 years ago, you arrived in America with no money but with a good education and cultural heritage from Bharat. You achieved outstanding success. America was good to us. For that we must remain grateful - gratitude is our Bharatiya way. Yet today, a significant number of Americans, may be not the majority but not too far from it either, believe that Indians "take away" American jobs and our success in America was unfairly earned. You may think the next election will fix this, but your choice would be between people who hate our Bharatiya civilisation and people who hate civilisation itself. That is the "hard right" vs "woke left" battle. You are mere bystanders to that conflict. Meanwhile there is one thing that is true now and will be true in the future: the respect Indians command world-wide will substantially depend on the fortunes of India herself. If India remains poor, the woke left will give us moral lectures with pity and the hard right, different moral lectures with scorn ("hellhole") and we must not confuse either with respect. Respect in today's world, along with prosperity and security, comes from one source: a nation's technological prowess. India produces sufficient brain power to achieve that prowess but alas we exported so much of that talent, particularly to America. As we develop that prowess in India, our civilisational strength will assert itself. As difficult as it is for many of you to contemplate this, please come back home. Bharat Mata needs your talent. Our vast youthful population needs the technology leadership you gained over the years to guide them towards prosperity. Let's do it with a missionary zeal. Respectfully Sridhar Vembu

Opus gets it. As a strategy becomes crowded it’s expected alpha disappears.

@RKSingh_Chauhan @SEBI_India @FinMinIndia @nsitharamanoffc @nsitharaman @MotilalOswalAMC @MotilalOswalLtd @MrMotilalOswal @PMOIndia Nothing is stuck. You can sell today and receive your money in 3 days. Until you sell, you do continue to hold S&P 500 stocks (and benefit from the growth).

Thousands of Investor's money has been stuck with the Motilal Oswal S&P 500 Index Fund due to this Fund has been suspended.Why?Can expect any justification from the @SEBI_India @FinMinIndia @nsitharamanoffc @nsitharaman @MotilalOswalAMC @MotilalOswalLtd @MrMotilalOswal @PMOIndia

From ‘The Joy of Tax’ book: Every time a politician says they are spending taxpayers’ money they are making [a] statement that is simply untrue. Tax is not taxpayers’ money. It is the government’s money. It is the government’s rightful property. It is absurd to claim otherwise.

@jassneetsingha The #1 priority of all bank branch staff is to sell insurance. They don't know anything beyond that. This is true about pretty much every bank branch in India.

Axis bank I’m genuinely disappointed. Walked into an Axis Bank branch just now to check for a Burgundy upgrade. The folks sitting there had no clue about the eligibility criteria. “Sir, you need to open a new account.” “Sir, give a ₹5 lakh cheque.” I’m like… what? I literally had to pull out the Burgundy eligibility PDF and show it to them. And even after that — straight denial: “Sir, this is not in our system.” 🤦‍♂️

@saravanast ‘நட்புப் பூண்டனர்’ என்பது ‘நட்பைப் பூண்டனர்’ என்பதால் அதை ‘கொக்குப் பறந்தது’ என்பதிலிருந்து வேறுபடுத்த வேண்டுமா? 🤔 (அதாவது, வேறொரு விதிப்படிப் பார்க்க வேண்டுமா?)

@mkannan விடை சரி. ஆனால் விதி தவறு. தலைப்பு என்ற சொல் வன்றொடர்க் குற்றியலுகரம். வன்றொடர்க் குற்றியலுகரச் சொற்களுக்குப் பின் வல்லொற்று மிகும். எடுத்துக்காட்டு: கொக்குப் பறந்தது; அச்சுப் பிழை; நட்புப் பூண்டனர்.

நான் பார்த்த பல தமிழாசிரியர்களே இந்த லட்சணத்தில் தான் பதில் கூறுவார்கள் என்பதால் Gemini-யைக் குறை கூறுவதில் அர்த்தமில்லை. தமிழ் ஆர்வலர்கள் யாராவது தமிழ் இலக்கணம் தெரிந்த AI உருவாக்கினால் என் போன்றவர்க்கு உதவும்.

Dead cat bounce?

@prashantnhn @jassneetsingha @volklub @TorqueIndia @Xroaders_001 @throttleandtech Safety = 2 wheeler riders wearing helmets. Nothing else matters.

@jassneetsingha @volklub @TorqueIndia @Xroaders_001 @throttleandtech There were plans to enfore strict guidelines on the rear seat belts too, not sure what happened to that? In India - majority of the time , our traffic police is busy minting money from out of state vehicles, safety is not even a priority for anyone here.

India should enforce child car seats by law. In most developed countries, it’s not optional — it’s mandated: 🇺🇸 United States: Up to ~8 yrs / 4’9” 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Up to 12 yrs / 135 cm 🇫🇷 France: Under 10 yrs 🇩🇪 Germany: Up to 12 yrs / 150 cm Clear rules. Strict enforcement. In India, it’s still treated as optional. Time to move from awareness →enforcement. Because safety shouldn’t be a choice.

@jassneetsingha @volklub @TorqueIndia @Xroaders_001 @throttleandtech Let's start by doing the basics right. Illegal lights and illegal horns are installed on virtually every commercial vehicle. Stopping those will improve road safety significantly.

@AjitDayal2 @Quantum_MF A few months ago, when SEBI allowed gold ETFs to hold derivatives, I saw a news report where Chirag Mehta explicitly said Quantum will stick to holding the physical metal only. Such differentiating merits about many Quantum funds are not communicated effectively.

Gold should be gold. The physical kind. That is my belief. @Quantum_MF should send out a formal message to clarify. Thank you

Dear restaurant owners: We all hate the QR code menus. Stop. -everyone