Thankless freeloaders ...

"There's one in every family, Sire ... actually two in mine" says Zazu (The Lion King, 1994). But its all galore in our economies, be it US or Indian. One refuses to reduce credit rates, others give bonuses. One could never do enough to please these Dalal Street / Wall St. Idiots!!! Neither their employees nor the government!!!


References:

Cabinet Secy to meet bankers in April for easing credit

Govt says interest rates must come down

SEBI gone EXOTIC!!!

SEBI = Speculative Endeavors Broadening Initiative



Reference:

Now, exotic derivatives in the works

Return of what is not deserved!!!

Hope this is a beginning of a whole new area of corporate social responsibility, wherein, instead of shareholders determining bonuses, a government committee or external regulator would have the power to determine so. But it is not happening in the near future. Its just my wishful thinking. Since when did I start to think that the people had power with them; they wrote it off long time ago to the ones that earlier ruled them, and now purport to be elected, and continue to govern them!!!




Reference:

Edward Liddy asks AIG executives to repay bonuses

Make your pick: AIG Nero or Marie-Therese AIG!!!

& this happens each day in India and no one regulates, least of all even mentions it in the news!!!! Satyam is the mere tip of the iceberg. So complacent are we regarding our "plenty" that it would soon become scarce.


References:

Obama angered by AIG bonuses

AIG Faces Rising Tide of Public Anger Over Bonuses

First straw ...

The below is just one of the measures to boost employment in the U.S. India could also do the same by proposing tax incentives for companies that indulge in R&D rather than merely support services, thus leading to actual creation of value and wealth. Technologies like fuel-cell, ocean current energy, wind energy, electric cars, infrastructure projects that harness solar energy (by building thermal and solar panels into plate glass on structures), road current differential technology (harnessing electricity from roads run on by vehicles), etc. could be the new age employment generators, besides making the earth a cleaner and safer place to live.



References:

No tax cuts for outsourcing: Obama

Obama disappoints Indian inc.

Sympathy only for the devil!

Resorting to the Homeowners & Bank Protection Act, 2007 the US government now has brought about a total moratorium on foreclosures by lending institutions of home owners who have been diligent in repayment of their home loans. This shows the political will behind straining out the actual bad debts incurred by lenders due to speculative lending and actual defaulters who have been severely hit by the economic downturn.

India on the other hand continues to harbor and promote speculative lending and investment by allowing unrestricted FDI inflow (without an regard to nascent demand creation by way of employment generation), total ignorance towards sustainable energy generation (by concentrating only on social fallout driven nuclear power), allowing F&O in many sensitive commodities such as Essential Commodities (wheat, sugar, etc. as scheduled under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955), F&O and derivatives of currency, especially the $-Rs. and without forcing private banks to bring down interest rates that are still 3-5% higher than the rates of 2006 - early 2007, still allowing corporate tax evasion through tax haven jurisdiction (when what the Indian exchequer needs is liquidity for social spending); just to name a few. Besides fuel prices as of now can further be reduced, except only when the government wants to pull an ace up its sleeve just before the Parliamentary elections.

R&D on fuel cell can not be furthered and there have been no tax incentives for manufacturers such as Honda and Reva to roll out cheap yet effective electric/hybrid vehicles so as to reduce out flow of $ and also to generate employment at home (not to mention the need for cleaner than CNG public transport, namely, electric buses!). Our energy independence would not only serve for economic insulation, but would also ensure real and actual growth in scientific, manufacturing and various other related sectors.

Indian government seems to have sympathy only for the devil!


References:

Obama pumps in $75 billion to save US homeowners

Jan. 30, 2009 HPI Daily Wire

operation successful ... patient died ... how Idiotic!!!

Idiotic it sure is ... well unless a retrospective cap is not on the table, there is no use of devising a plan without teeth that can bite. All private sector remunerations need to be regulated, under and by a Remuneration Regulation Commission in public interest.



Reference:

Goldman, JPMorgan Won’t Feel Effects of Executive-Salary Caps

Idiots ... hit the floor!

And if they want more, pay them in stock non-alienable until the Government is paid back the debt.



References:

Obama caps executive pay tied to bailout money

Obama’s cap on CEO pay strives to end era of excess

Obama Caps Compensation at TARP Companies at $500000

Of Pink Houses and move towards Gandhian village economy ...

Sustainability of growth has to begin at home. What will the American work on the production of if all that the US does is import. Starting from agriculture, US needs to strengthen its vines and agro produce, thereafter its auto followed by consumer durables and FMCG sectors. Unless the Americans are employed soon enough, they will be no demand for what the keep on importing. It would be selfish on the part of the EU and Canada to want the US to import at such a time.

Not so long ago, M.K. Gandhi called for making village as the unit of an economy. It would automatically, among other things, create employment and facilitate domestic production, specialization and consumption.

After all, there is a limit to offshoring, you see!!


References:

Canada warns US over protectionism 'contagion'

US House's Hoyer:"Buy American" worries justified

Europe and Canada warn US over 'Buy America' clause

... and what about Dalal St. Idiots?

There sure needs to be rationalization of pays across the board. There should be government set norms for pay scales common to both private and public sector companies, institutions and organizations. A license raj in salary structure should be the key to a more egalitarian distribution of accumulation of wealth by both public and private corporations. Am I making sense or has Obama lost it?

It would then mark an end to:

1. fat salaries for IIM graduates;
2. fat offers to IIT graduates;
3. fat proposals for NLS-spawn graduates;
4. CXOs being traded;
5. mainstream efforts, profiteering and indulgence of the education system ...

... and our education system would then focus on creative, diverse and constructive channels of learning, not driven by vampiric accumulation of personal profit, but would be a real creator of value that would then flow into the commercial domain.



References:

Obama getting tough on 'Wall Street idiots'

Democratic Senator for pay cap on Wall Street 'idiots'

Senators propose pay caps on executive bonuses

McCaskill on corporate executives' pay: 'These people are idiots'

Obama Ally Introduces Bill to Cap Salaries of CEOS from TARP ...

Citigroup drops $50M plan to buy company jet

Citigroup cancels corporate jet

Put the money down ...

When a sinking ship goes down, and all are jumping off only the insane (or Captain Jack Sparrow) jump on it. But our money is not going to be returned by the Kragon from the netherworld. So why invest? The logic fails me totally. Its a volcano that has burst and is now cooling down; far from spewing out any returns, its a station to where a train don't come. Speculative investment is and should not even be considered an investment but merely a wager or gamble with public money. At least PSUs need not gamble with public money, now at this time of crisis when we need to play our cards close to ourselves.



References:

LIC to pump in Rs 4K cr more in stock market by March

LIC policyholders likely to see their bonuses diminish

Bailout not for the rich!

There is nothing surprising if this is not what is also running through the minds of Indians when each time the government announces a bailout and the next week nothing happens in real terms to uplift the employment situation. We too need a change!!!



Reference:

House angry at bailout; Obama team makes pledges

Future secure, present unsure ...

Short term profitability at the cost of long and medium term instability is inversely proportional to both consumer and employee interest, that we all know. There is also no need to rev up the insurance industry right now when there is need to reduce exposure of customers of ULIP schemes to market instabilities. Has there been not enough onslaught in the name of fictitious speculation ...?


References:

IRDA eases solvency margins for Ulips

IRDA cuts solvency margin for ULIPs by 20%

ULIPs likely to be cheaper by 10-15 pc

One hand giveth ... the other hand taketh away...

So here we are ... wondering whether the prices would go up or down, whether fuel would be cheaper, or our electricity bill slimmer. Who knows, we are but at the hands of the almighty ... Government, is it for us or we for it. Energy, infrastructure and manufacturing would be hit. So how does this compare with reducing inflation, or in as much as even an attempt at reducing it‽


References:

Government unveils stimulus package

Railway hikes freight rates for cement, coal & coke

Rail freight rate hike derails benefits of excise duty cuts

Sensex pares gains, ends up 197pts

Is the spirit of '69 back in the USA? ...

Aid to the ailing labor intensive industries rather than the Wall Street cloud money lenders, sharpening of energy policy to gain self-sufficiency ("energy independence"), facilitation of stem cell research, environmental protection (in Utah), and more is to come. Its been heard once before, has it not? This civil rights lawyer has a different resume from the ex-military, oil barons of yesteryears. Hope the path he takes is different as well. We need a difference creator not a line-tower, albeit at the cost of the industrialists but certainly for the one who toils from the sweat of his brow ...

Reference:

Emanuel Urges Speeding Up Aid to Auto Industry

The Methodology of Bailout ...

Applying medication ONLY where it hurts. Try this:

1. keep the bailout restricted to employee pay slips,

2. freeze hiring and firing,

3. reduce management remuneration by 50-60%,

4. eliminate corporate tax evasion (both exemptions and through tax heavens) in order to bring on record all known assets and liabilities of the corporation,

5. utilize the liquidity resulting from points 1 and 3 above to reinvigorate the corporation,

6. handout additional funds only if liquidity in point 5 is insufficient.

So where does the problem lie? ... Honor v. State Craft

HONOR: Fighting in battle, [the king] should not kill his enemies with weapons that are concealed, barbed, or smeared with poison or whose points blaze with fire. (see Laws of Manu Chapter VII, Verse 90).

STATE CRAFT: Use of poison, spies, spread of discord, lies and economic sabotage is justified (see Kautilya, who judged the means by the result, a result he sought for the general good of his kingdom .. or was it so? for the Kingdom or for the Kingdom?).

Such is the difference between an honorable and a pragmatic approach. Pragmatism has replaced courage, self-interest has taken the place of sacrifice and honor is now a term only in dictionaries. And rightly so has the usage of pragmatic as meaning "officious; meddlesome; interfering" and "dogmatic; opinionated" been forgotten and become archaic. (see pragmatic definition |Dictionary.com)

One often wonders whether there is an actual problem to begin with or is this just a global take on large scale corporate restructuring in the garb of a global crisis resulting in laying-off of workers employed by corporations who one fine morning realized that their plans of the past had all gone wrong and that they could not sustain their swelling profits to swell any longer and thus are now "being forced" to dispense with human capital like non-living matter.

Wrong assessments galore ... ?

Finance Minister, Prime Minister and RBI Governor. Educated in Oxford, Cambridge and the like. Even Krugman could be wrong despite the Nobel prize. (When Krugman spoke of closing weak banks in India)

Economics is the most dangerous two edged sword wielded by nations and international bodies alike. Personal gains are the only aim; besides the sincere effort to make the present effort look better than the previous solution. (... Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss ...)

Is there a perfect solution or are we to be hung by the very governments that we create? Are these very governments going to tax us (just because we voted for them) and serve the interests of those who have retrenched us?

The the taxpayers' money is being risked on salvaging private interests of corporates (see Effort to halt financial crisis costs governments two trillion pounds, "... the huge cost to taxpayers of bailing out the financial system is likely to be felt for many years -and possibly decades - into the future") while corporations effortlessly evade being taxed by the governments that rescue them (see UK Banks Should Shut Tax Haven Units, Cable Says (Update1)), just because those corporations fund our political system and political parties in it. It seems like quid pro quo for election and kick-back money as distinguishable from tax we pay to the government for services it would or might render us, that is not to be quid pro quo. Is it fair? Is it just? Is it honorable? Or just state craft?

It's not enough ...

Not Enough Money in the World: The Real Monster in the Meltdown Closet

RBI's Rs 20000-cr package not enough, say mutual funds

Reforms are not enough anymore, Hungary needs stabilisation too ...

Brown urges more global reforms - bank stabilization "not enough"

Structural changes not enough to solve SANS problems: BND

Europe' Bank Bailout: Is It Enough?


Well said by The Who in their album Endless Wire

It's not enough
Whatever you give

A little bit more
You always need
A little more man
A little more seed

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

I gave you cash
I gave you love
All that I heard
Was "It's Not Enough"

I work so hard
It gets so tough
Whatever I give
Never feels like enough
It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

When I'm on my knees
I keep taking your stuff
Make sure that you know
It's never enough

You said you'd go as far
As to turn to my friend
Who once warned me of you
Said you'd hasten my end
Because I have lent
Every ounce of my juice
My essence is spent

You'll always want
A little more pink
I'll always need
A little more ink

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

However I praise
However I puff
Though you may smile
It won't be enough

Right at the end
When I start to bluff
An' the lift's going down
An' I start acting tough

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It's never enough

I'll find someone else
To finish filling me up
I'll smile and admit
You were never quite enough

Like Brigitte Bardot
In Godard's Les Mepris
I can't love you enough
To make you complete
You appear in my dreams
With some new courtier
You need me there to see
What you need to convey

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It'll never be enough

No hysterical scene
You will never play rough
I'm the one who will scream
But it won't be enough

It's never enough
It's never enough

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It'll never be enough

I'll never hold you
How can I scold you?

It's not enough
It's not enough
Whatever I give
It'll never be enough