Politicians and their recent (great) actions

Before commenting on anything like this first and foremost i know am not the right person to do so, as i hardly turnout everytime there is an election to go and vote. Part of the reason i might say is that i work in a different place and have a permanent residence in a different place. In simple words i think if my vote is going to make such a big difference??? Maybe also becuase i have largely got access to the basic needs thanks to great parents, their upbringing and partly to my own efforts (hey i have come through the great quota system in my home state despite 69%being reserved in quotas. yeah thats how low it is in my state ;-P ).

For the guy who does not have his basic needs satisfied the Government is answerable. However i felt it is answerable to me too considering i am paying more than a third of my income as various forms of taxes. And i am one among the 10-13% (i think this number is right) of the population which pays taxes. From the money they collect from me if they do not provide the requisite infrasctructure then thats pathetic. In essence there is no accountability.

However now to woo the votebank (the ones who diligently go and vote everytime. sometimes more than once in every given occasion ;-P ) the politicians stoop to pretty low levels.

Give free colour televisions (two states in India have done that now - my home state and the state where elections are currently on). On money collected from taxes . hey that i thought was for basic infrastructure!!! After rodi, kapda and makaan, now its tvs too ;-P

Industry busting - well when inflation has gone up because of oil and food in the country, levying a ban on cement price increases seems absurd. That too in a year when prices have gone up by only 4% yoy and when cost of the inputs have gone up higher. If Government is seriously concerned about cement prices then it should bring down indirect taxes. Instead they hiked it and being indirect it is passed on. Hey then thats a double whammy. In my opinion they should take a cue from a neghbouring state of my home state. That state is implementing a low cost housing scheme for which cement consumed is given at subsidised rates while for the general market at market determined rates. Thats logical - give cement at lower rates for those who cannot afford not for those who can.

Next comes steel - thats the next target. When their cost of inputs and prices are determined by global factors a ban on increasing prices might b the dynamics of the industry. They would be operating at a loss (as cost of inputs are signifcantly risen in the global market while prices are being asked to cap here).

These steps will only discourage industry to put up fresh investments in the longer term and hurt employment opportunities and development in long term. The only objective of the Government at the end of all this is to create noise in the public domain that steps are being taken. yes steps are being taken but in the wrong areas - result impact being seen in inflation. Despite all these freezes inflation is still on the rise !!!

This takes the cake however! Waiver on farm loans - phew. Though this seems greatly benevolent it is a repetitive case and only inculcates bad habits among borrowers. Result even the biggest of the public sector banks has said it will stop loans for tractors in the country. Thats proof enough of the point being made. If you tell someone hey every five years i will write off your loans you just keep borrowing then one only encourages a farmer to borrow (just because he is a farmer) and use for other purposes. Because he very well knows he does not need to repay. I would have been happier if there were reduction in interest rates or some such step but waiver on loans thats bad economics.

Coming up - Swanky new airports, My favourite state in India

reminiscences of a stock operator

Well its as usual been pretty long since i came up with my last post. What prompted me to write this one - my dear friend sehgoo writing his new blog reminded me that i too have one and maybe writing it once in a while does make sense.....

Well as usual my pet topic is markets and i thought of writing about the recent book on the same - Reminiscences of a stock operator. Well its an awesome quick read for guys who follow markets! Wonderful and amazed at how Lawrence Livingston did his studies in early 1900s. Wow man hats off to him. Today we got so many tools and we still are not able to analyse anything worthwhile maybe losing oneself in the details rather than the big picture seems to be the case here too.

His logic to trade based on experience is one thing i can really relate to as i have seen my dad pickup some great stocks (which to my so called educated mind seem bad) in the last three years. Also its great to try and understand the psychology and sentiments of the crowd in the market. Also i loved the larry explained in the book 'the tape is never wrong'. We got to read properly. And in most cases we fail to outperform the market in the long term. We may do so in certain stocks but the investment basket never outperforms the market. So very true (atleast in my case).

Other books i am reading half way thru - 'Snow' by Orhan Pamuk (i am going to kill Bala for leaving the book with Karthik at his sister vidya's engagement. Now all are in Bangalore and i am in Mumbai. Maybe i am to blame more as i forgot to take the book before leaving), 'Guns,Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond. Both are pretty interesting reads.

In Guns, Germs and Steel, the one great and fresh idea (atleast for me) he said was that civilisations flourished easier when they spread latitudinally rather than longitudinally. Easy examples - Nile, Yellow and Indus valley civilisations (i forgot the fourth big civilisation of the past. think its persian). Recent examples are USA and Europe. Thats why civilisations were tough to spread from North India into South India and vice versa. Similar case with Africa, South America. The relation is simple if one applied common sense (which is so uncommon) - the climatic conditions are largely similar along the latitudes and highly dissimilar along longitudes. Wow Eureka for me!

Thats it from my side for now. Hope to write soon and hope to fill more on the many movies i see.....

Observations of a Quasi-Gypsy - 1

My last blog was on the 1st of January 2007 and i said i would try writing an entry everyday like diary but as usual new year resolutions remain new year resolutions :-)

However this new year has been pretty much eventful that i have toured a lot of places (mostly on account of work. Yet to reach the self financing status!!!) and have almost lived like a gypsy. You can call me a Quasi-gypsy. Places i visited this year - Delhi (i have lost count how many times), Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Salem (hometown), Karaikudi (Native place), Coimbatore (nearest operational airport to my hometown), Mumbai (where i stay), Ahmedabad, Pipavav and Kolkota.

Some things that i noticed in common - (a) There is so much energy in people to do so much business given the current economic buoyancy (b) Real Estate as a result has once again caught on (c) Movie halls are brimming with huge crowds even though no movie has really ran that well all this year (d) Inflation on ground seems to be much more than whats reported (e) Politics, elections and the aftermath remain as eventful as ever (f) Industries are capacity constrained and we are operating at more than 100% levels, as usual to the utter amazement of all across the globe (g) the short sighted and slow planning of infrastructure which is under strain from day one.

The real reson for this growth i feel is as below. India being an agrarian economy (65-70% of the population supposedly still depends upon agriculture for livelihood) availability of water through the year plays a quintessential role. Thanks to the highly bureaucratic nature of working we still depend upon our Rain God - Varuna (i think!) - year on year to bless us with sufficient rainfall. Thanks to Him, we have seen a continued good bout of rainfall across most parts of the country in the last three-four years. This i feel is the real reason for the sustained 8+% growth in the economy during this period. The multiplier effect of this has been there for all to see.

But whats been interesting when i visited most of the places is that how this has affected the Indian populace or rather the Inclusive growth the current UPA government is talking about.
(a) all the educated bunch of youngstars are more than happy to be coders which pay them handsomely. This group by any imagination forms only around 0.1% of the population.
(b) The second rung which has just managed to speak a little english has enthusistically agreed to be call centre executives (again at a handsome salary). This crowd again forms only of another 0.2% of the population.
(c) The bottom of the pyramid however is hardly employable in any of the service sector. The manufacturing jobs are more mechanised these days and they dont want people either. Construction, agriculture and trading seem to be the mass employment providers.

Also there seem to be two underlying problems with regards to this employment situation in India - a big chunk is difficult to be employed and the other minor group (major by absolute number) is under employed. What we need is for this underemployed group to become entrepreneurial and generate employment for this bottom of the pyramid.

It pains me to see such wonderful minds acting as coders who work like dogs for 20% of the time they are employed and spend the rest 80% on the bench waiting for their billion dollar companies to get them newer projects. This crowd is 'oblivious to the fact' is what i seem to get and the basic reason for this is the handsome package that they get upfront which over a longer term hardly moves up. This does not perturb them either as they seem to end with an onsite employment for an average of two-three months a year which pays them 4-5x the domestic salary. However as people continue to work in these places they seem to be stuck to this industry as no one else wants them and they get frustrated doing the same monotonous jobs.

Why i really hate this is because irrespective of the engineering stream - Civil, Mechanical, IT, Textiles, Instrumentation, EEE, ECE they are employed in this sector while these industries which actually need this crowd does not get enough of them. This constrains the infrastructure building in the economy.

My personal opinion - employ Science/Arts students to work as coders. let the engineers do what they are suppposed to do. But the Laws of capital/Money have their own ways and that dictates economics. we got to accept this fact and see how we can improve.

that brings me to the end of this post and i feel i need to improve on a few things - A gassing arnd factor acquired during the glorified MBA that i got. I got to write to the point and not bore the reader (which largely is me and myself).

Year 2K7

Year 2K7 has arrived and like every other year this year too I have made up my mnd to write my diary regularly. Well though i have not zeroed in on what to write on this new year's day i just thought i needed to kickstart the process and hence i am writing a mail for the sake of it. But the positive side to it is that atleast i have made a start.

I celebrated the New Year's eve at kandivli with my friends Souveer, Karan, Avis, Divya, Honey and Ashish Jha. Was a nice get together as we all met after a quarter or so. Some of them were busy talking about where to make their next strategic shift in their career during the year ahead. Was very interesting knowing each one's point of view especially when most of them were about to be married in this group. It really changes the equation as a lot of them actually came forward with their views. I am happy that i am still sometime away from that situation :-)

Souveer and Ashish Jha were at their witty best as they started taking poor sehgoo's case. But our sher did not give up that easily and fought his way through the session. Some good old memories from college were revived as usual. Then the news of the day came ---- Our own Nariyal Pani man Kris had left for Texas. He had reached and we had a brief chat on the net with him. But the icing on the cake was from the Prince Rajkumar - Our man was working his regular night shift on the new year's eve as one of his colleagues in the project had an accident. Poor guy first new year post marriage and he had to celebrate at his big software firm's campus :-(

Otherwise we got up pretty late on the new years day and went for some shopping for Ashish's marriage. post that me and karan saw a very emotional flick on TV - Baghban. Amitabh was really at his emotional best. I saw it for the first time and realised why this movie was such a huge hit. It made one emotional all the way through.....

Then after that we discussed on some financial modelling and then i left Kandivli for my own sweet South Bombay. but only when i reached south bombay did i wake up to the reality that CAS has been implemented in the island city and hence only free to air channels are visible in the hostel. Finally one drawback of being in South Bombay. But yeah got to live with that. Rounded off the new years day with some shopping at Westside.

Thats about what i did today....keeping my fingers crossed to update the blog everyday....hope something useful comes out....
Cheers!!!

Schumi at the center of another controversy

Well Well Well Schumacher - Thy synonym might well be Controversy!!! i am of course referring to the last weeks' qualifying for Monaco Grand Prix....Monaco is one of the most looked forward to races in the F1 calendar every year for it is not only a street race but has one of the most picturesque surrondings for a race....Twisting and twirling through tunnels, chicanes, below mansions!!! near the mediteranean sea ....one of the most toughest circuits in the race calendar....Another reason why drivers feel that a pole position at Monaco is as good as winning the race (Which proved right this year too!)....

Schumi towards the dying seconds of the qualifying session (when he was leading on the times set and was going for another flying lap; And Alonso was supposedly two hundredths of a second below his time at the Second Intermediate and behind schumi) stalled the car as he lost control on a fast maneouvre of a sharp curve....This brought all the cars behind him to stall and lose their flying laps and teh session to get over...

There were Boos all around calling for Ferrari and Schumi's Head.....That it was a disgrace for a sport to have such a dirty legend......Flavio Briatore, the manager who first saw Schumi win his first F1 Championship and the currrent boss of the Renault team, opined that "He (Schumi) is taking everybody for a ride" or something like that....Then you had every driver calling for him to be abandoned from the sport ....Alonso, the current leader in the championship race, refused to comment....while Montoya, Coulthard, Villeneuve, Kimi also came up with their versions.....

This hype and furore is nothing new to Schumi for his various moves in the past - Some of the renowned ones include....(a)Schumi crashing into Damon Hill to winning his 94 Chamiopnship (1st world Chamiponship).....I wonder what Flavio Briatore commented when his champ won that race....(b) Schumacher trying to crash into Villeneuve in the last race in 97 championship and hitting the sidewall. Simultaneously he was stripped off his second position in the championship....(c)When he overtook Barrichello in the last corner of the Belgium Grand Prix in the 2003 season following Ferrari's unwritten policy of the second driver to always make way for Schumi in a race

Hey but i have some questions for these guys!!! (Not only Coz i am a Schumi Fan)

1) Would they have questioned if it was any other driver? Mistakes do happen when you are racing at such high speeds....Some say a seven time world champion could not have done such an elementary mistake....Hey is he not human!!! he did not even know he was leading the timing charts as he did not have radio contact at that point...

2) What credibility do ppl like Montoya, Coulthard, Briatore and Villeneuve have to question Schumi ???
Montoya that half mad colombian who crashes into others for he has very little patience and a very small brain that rarely works in a race...Villeneuve, the most spectacular non performer (leaving alone the 97 season) that has ever graced the sport and driven a car for more than a decade....How many times has he spoiled every driver's flying lap in qualifying in the 90s.....The world champ (of 97) is credited with the most spins in a race that could have ever been....Coulthard the b@$tard who rammed into Schumi in 1998 when Schumi was just six points behind coulthards teammate Hakkinen in the championships and had six races to go ..... That chap calling schumi a person without integrity....

But despite all this the Champ that he is Schumi started from the p22 (last position in the race grid) and finished a creditable 5th in the race....That too in a track where overtaking is almost next to impossible.....That speaks about the quality of the driver on the racing circuit....That too from the oldest driver on the circuit....Hats off to the Hero!!!Schumi is now 21 points behind Alonso but watch out the sleeping giant has been aroused.....With 12 races to go it aint over till its over....