Kristi Noem: Caught In a Latin Loop

When in doubt, keep shut is a sound principle but it is surprising how many politicians forget the golden words. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem raised the bar for bloopers during a Senate hearing when she said “habeas corpus” is a constitutional right that allows the government to remove people from the US. It was left to Senator Maggie Hassan to explain that “habeas corpus” actually requires the government to present a valid reason for detaining and imprisoning people, pretty much the opposite of how Noem saw it. It might be that since Noem’s brief is to detain alleged illegals, that is how she read the term.

The Big Picture

Alappuzha, Kerala, May 25, 2025: Coastal Calamity A Liberian cargo ship carrying more than 640 containers, including 13 reportedly with hazardous materials, sank off the coast near Kochi, raising serious environmental concerns about oil spill and drifting debris. The Indian Coast Guard swung into action, warning locals to stay away from the debris on the shore and fishermen to avoid getting close to the capsized vessel. On May 29, the Kerala government declared the incident a state disaster.

Ideas
Remittance

Donald Trump’s new tax legislation has created a storm in the US. The bill imposes a 3.5 per cent levy on international remittances on non-citizens. This will include green card holders and those on H-1B visas, two categories which include a vast number of Indians in the US. The bill had originally set out a 5 per cent tax, but this was reduced to 3.5 per cent when it went for a vote to the House of Representatives. Such a levy will hurt Indians in the US who send home a considerable chunk of their earnings.

India is considered to be the country that receives the most remittances in the world. According to data published by the World Bank, India received a total of $129.1 billion in remittances last year.

Historically, the six Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait were the biggest contributors of remittances to India. But this has been changing rapidly in recent years, as the share from countries such as the US, UK, Singapore, Canada, and Australia have surged. According to Reserve Bank of India’s data, the money sent home from these five countries overtook those from the Gulf countries, and accounted for more than half of all remittances India received in the financial year 2023-24. Of this, the US was the largest contributor, accounting for 27.7 per cent of the total remittances, up from 22.9 per cent of the total in 2016-17, and 23.4 per cent in 2020-21. This change is of course reflective of India’s changing migration patterns, and the changing nature of India’s workforce, with more highly skilled Indians entering the job market in countries like the US.

Money Mantra
Cutting Through the Jargon
How to read annual reports and stay ahead of the curve

AN ANNUAL REPORT is often dismissed as a door-stopper that only accountants read. Yet, for anyone who puts money to work, an annual report, while tedious, is a must read. Start with the “Independent Auditor’s Report”, because a single paragraph here can overrule all the glossy optimism that follows. If the opinion is anything other than “unqualified”, or if the auditor highlights “material uncertainty relating to going concern”, you already know the investment case rests on shaky ground.

Even when the opinion is clean, the “Key Audit Matters” section describes the judgements that kept the audit team awake. These hints tell you where management discretion is widest and deserve a mental bookmark for later cross-checks.

Move next to the cash-flow statement. Profits are an accrual con­cept; cash is incontrovertible. Over several years, a well-run business converts at least 70 paise of every rupee of EBITDA into operating cash. If receivables or inventories devour that cash, the company may be using channel stuffing or carrying obsolete stock. Capex outlays, acquisition payments and lease liabilities then reveal whether that cash actually returns to shareholders or disappears into perpetual expansion.

The industry section of the “Management Discussion and Analy­sis”, or MD&A, then zooms out, placing the company in its competi­tive landscape. Because management can be sued for misstatements, even optimistic CEOs usually acknowledge macro headwinds, regulatory changes and capacity additions that threaten pricing power. Read this narrative after the numbers so you can test whether the prose matches the arithmetic.

Approached in this sequence—auditor’s opinion, cash flow, segments and related parties, MD&A—the annual report stops being a chore and becomes a story that you, the investor, assembles. Master it and you hold a flashlight that cuts through most of the market’s noise. (By Ramesh Singh)

Viral
No Joking Matter

The door of an aircraft carrying the French president Emmanuel Macron to Vietnam had only just opened, when two hands reached out and struck him on the face. Macron looked stunned at first. And then, upon noticing a camera recording him, he composed himself and waved, before disappearing into the plane. The hands belonged to Macron’s wife Brigitte. And this unguarded moment instantly started an online chatter. Macron has been the subject of much viral news in recent weeks. One of them, which took place over two weeks ago, was over a piece of tissue lying on a table during a train journey Macron was taking with the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Kyiv in Ukraine. Some social media accounts had described the tissue as a “bag of cocaine.” Macron has tried to stem the online chatter after the video from the plane went viral, describing it as an instance of “bickering and rather, joking around,” something, he said, “we often do.” But that hasn’t helped much.

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