The so-called financial wizards have fallen

Investment bankers like Morgan-Stanley had left no stone unturned to convince us that they are financial wizards and know everything that is happening in the financial markets around the world.

To think, that they used to have their own rating systems and many a manufacturing companies have been quoted striving to ensure that they got a good rating with these so-called financial wizards.

The fall of the US financial markets and way Lehman, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley etc. have lined up outside US Fed's office has surely revealed their true nature. It has become evident that these people were just riding the wave and knew little or almost nothing about the actual conditions of the financial markets.

It seems that they were just cashing on the gullible people's belief. All their claims of deftness was just a marketing ploy. They efficiently used technical terms and literature to confuse the common man into believing that were on the top of things.

These so-called financial wizards have been the ones to fall the hardest in the current financial crisis.

Printer manufacturers can help control pollution

In an era where waste management is a big issue, would it not be in the interest of everybody if printer manufacturers like HP were to come forward to encourage refilling and encourage reuse of the printer cartridges, toners, ink tanks etc and provide proper ink, toners and refill kits?

Today, printer manufactures are actively engaged in using technology to restrict consumers from being able to refill the cartridges used in their printers. This is, obviously, done to force to users to buy the expensive "original" cartridges by the manufacturers.

For the users this means...

• Increased cost of printing per page.
• Piling up to avoidable waste in the form of empty cartridges.

The empty cartridges are contributing to the huge plastic waste that is compiling around the globe. My little office has 2 HP inkjet printers for the last 3 months and there are already 8 empty cartridges lying around waiting to be disposed.

The use of refilling not only drastically brings down the per page cost of printing, it also reduces a major waste management problem significantly. Besides this, if original solutions are available from the manufacturers, themselves, consumers like me will not have to use alternate low quality solutions from the grey market.

I strongly believe, it is high time governments take a pro-active step and convince the printer manufacturers to promote refilling in a bid to help reduce the wastage generated in the form of printer cartridges.