Missing The Target

9 December 2008.

My outrage is better than your outrage. My pain is more real than your pain and my grief is the biggest and best. Ever. So just don’t mess with me! OK? 

That was the loud and clear message sent out by the India that took to streets, sms, e-mails and online petitions. An urban elite found their activist voices - for a while at least. Now we’re back to work. Because after all working for a cause isn’t real work for most. It’s a hobby or pass time that crops up at an emotional crest. The equilibrium of this lot is in a much lower adrenalin zone. And when at equilibrium a lot more can be digested such as replacing R. R. Patil with Chhagan Bhujbal as deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. He is the same man who was made to resign five years ago because of his name cropping up in the Telgi scam. Telgi is old news so Bhujbal is accepted without any resistance. If 3 years later there is another bomb blast he will resign and a Vilas Rao will be pulled out of the woodwork since public memory would have cooled off by then and his current incompetence would be a blur. Meanwhile Narayan Rane’s tantrum is a disgraceful politicization of terror. A seat vacated as the fallout of an act of terror is a chunk of meat that’s being fought over by a species that do things like fight over pieces of meat.

But there is little or no resistance to this politics.

The Mumbai attacks exposed urban India. Self-righteous, indignant outraged rants bombarded us until the dazzle of assembly elections in 5 states dimmed the candlelit vigils.

Put someone in a crisis situation to see what he or she is made of. How have we come out of that mess?

There’s a lot of hate flying around. I’m sure everyone reading this column has received invitations or sms’s or emails for - Facebook communities - online petitions – mailing groups asking us to condemn and revile everyone from Shivraj Patil to Ram Gopal Verma to Barkha Dutt to Pakistan to “media role”.

We have Mohandas Pai the HR head of Infosys saying that the govt. should allow them (the company or individuals? Am not sure what he meant) to be armed so they can take care of themselves since the govt. has failed! A Salva Judum the nation over?

Simi Garewal informed us of the brilliance of George Bush’s strategy of attack since this is war and we should do the same. She even directed our attention to those dirty slums and jhuggis who are displaying green coloured flags.

Mukhtab Abbas Naqwi pointed to lipstick painted and powder dabbed faces at candle lit vigils calling them no less than terrorists and Shobha De told him she is proud of her lipstick and powder and looks and car and lifestyle honestly earned and enjoyed.

On TV channels the atmosphere looked ripe for a Bush like character to push through a homeland security measure and “India Inc” and aam aadmi would have supported it whole hog.

The Muslim community in Mumbai is overcompensating by refusing to allow the dead terrorists burial on their land. I thought in death everyone is given a decent send off no matter how despicable they were in life.

So the crisis brought India closer together and established us as united, sensitive and humane?

The one sms doing the rounds that I found particularly unintelligent and counter productive was the one that was almost a threat to film-makers warning them against making a movie about “our grief”. It went something like - “Dear Mahesh Bhatt, Ram Gopal Verma, Apoorva Lakhia, Rahul Dholakia. We don’t want a realistic film about  Mumbai attacks and our grief.. etc”.

Ever wondered why after so many years the world has not forgotten the holocaust and will not allow a repeat? Its because of films, music and art. Do you know more about the persecution of the Jews and Nazi Germany thanks to the PhD paper you submitted or because of Oscar winning Schindler's List? Public memory about such events is not shaped by a tale told at a protest march. Its by watching the despicable but brilliant Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List, the delightful Roberto Benigni making you smile and cry at the same time in Life is Beautiful, by sitting through an over rated - The Pianist and by watching naked women and men prance around on stage in the long running musical set in Berlin– Cabaret. So to shut artistic release (yes Ram Gopal Verma and Mahesh Bhatt too is art) because my misery is more real than your misery and should not be subject for entertainment is plain wrong. To make this subject out of bounds is doing an M F Hussein on them. And no it doesn’t make it okay just because they make bad films and the M F Hussein attacks came from saffron clad louts and this clamp down comes from civil society.

Whatever our generation or those younger know about the horrors of partition and riots at the time is because of films and TV shows like Buniyaad, Tamas, Garam Hawa, Gadar, Earth, Pinjar.

If future generations are to recount and remember the horror of Gujarat riots it wont be because of civil societies niceties (they forgave Narendra Modi a long time ago. He is the good M after all according to Ratan Tata whose hotel has been devastated by some bad Ms.) It will be because someone decided to rent and watch a DVD of Rahul Dholakias Parzania, ditto for the Punjab terrorist problem and Gulzar’s Maachis and Munich about the massacre of the Israeli Olympic squad or a Do Bigha Zameen on farmer displacement by greedy high caste zamindars. The grief of those victims and friends and communities was just as real, the pain and outrage just as genuine.

It is art, installations, paintings, literature, poetry and cinema that keep something in public consciousness and part of popular culture. To make that the target of the misdirected hate we see flying around is a disservice to the cause.

And Ram Gopal, Mahesh Bhatt and gang need to grow a spine to complement their thick skin. All of them went into defense mode saying that they would not even dream about making a film on the Mumbai attacks and they feel pain and passion of Mumbai etc etc. I thought the best art and writing came from passion. So use passion for a change and not formula and say you WILL make a film on this event. I’ll watch. I guess asking you not to make a bad film would be asking too much so I wont ask that. But please consider anyway.

Its amazing how quickly we turn the venom on each other at a time of crisis and that’s what separates the women from the girls or men from the boys (this gender political correctness makes sentences unnecessarily long you know). So please don’t waste your time (if you are one of those) sending me the millionth sms or email or facebook invite asking me to hate everyone. I always have.

Change. We Also Need.

7 Novermber 2008.

The US election has caught the fancy of the entire world. From Nigeria to France to Chavez in Venezuela, everyone wants a vote. This isn’t just because the US is the most powerful nation on Earth that influences the rest, its also because of the refreshing and inspiring Barack Obama. He’s new, he’s unconventional, he’s educated, he’s not pedigree, he’s an aam aadmi and he’s dark skinned. Hard as we may try to pretend that race is not a factor, it is. And there is nothing wrong with it. A colored man being president of the USA is symbolically huge and cannot be ignored.

In all this there is much talk of India’s Obama. Rahul Gandhi who is restructuring the Youth Congress said at a press conference in Dehradun that he was trying to create a system that would create “thousands of little Obamas running around”. Editorials, TV shows and Indian voters are looking for an Indian Obama.

Is that possible? And if it is, is it what the TV watching column reading class wants? Is our very complex and fragmented society, which is not even a fraction as homogenized as the US prepared for one such? Caste is a reality in India much as urban India may not know of or acknowledge it. It has divided India in ways obviously apparent and more subliminal. Can one unifying factor solder the fissures? In a country where people don’t even speak the same language, and if you do, how you pronounce the word opportunity (op-or-tunity or op-er-tunity) determines where you will be slotted, ready for one who is new, unconventional, educated, not pedigree, aam aadmi or aurat, and dark skinned? Yes? Are you ready for Maywati? In case that leads to jaw drops and eyes rolling, it’s the standard reaction. It’s the - don’t rock my boat - syndrome.

I quote from Paul Krugmans’s column talking about Republicans this election – “It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting”...”

India is deeply prejudiced and racist. Far more than America. Casteist remarks are something we shrug off. It’s all around us. Is such a society equipped to handle one of “their people” becoming Prime Minister? Because just like Obama is “the other folks” in India Mayawati is “the other folks”.

Lets face it I’ve attended dinners and parties and made small talk with corrupt politicians or corrupt members of their families. Some are so brash or stupid that they actually boast about the deal they struck and the allotments they got as if its an achievement to be proud of. I’d have no problem naming them if I had a camera rolling to prove it. Libel is the only reason their names don’t appear, not out of any coyness or politeness.  People laugh, smile politely or look the other way when such sophisticated corruption is reveled. But God forbid if you are as tolerant of Behenjis alleged indiscretions. So its not alleged corruption that is the source of revulsion. That’s a constant across party lines. Oil for food, fodder scam, Bofors, defense deal payoffs, Tehelka, Taj corridoor - take your pick. They are scams that implicate (none proved in a criminal court) people across parties including Mayawati. Then what is it that makes her harder to digest than the rest? How is she different? It’s simply that she didn’t attend public school, you wouldn’t know what to say to her if you met her at an evening cocktail or champagne brunch on a spring day. Its what makes many in the Republican base and far right fear Obama. And much as we’d like to flatter ourselves we represent that far right of the class and caste divide that doesn’t want to rock the India boat just as we’re getting all comfy in it. Mayawati rocks that boat. Change, she needs.

Mayawati is as close as we get to real change. She represents more of the country than anyone else. This is a woman who rose from a land and social strata where being a woman is as good as being sheep. She has been the first woman Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Most people who read this column have not visited rural UP unless its to stop for lunch at a dhaba while going to see the quaint Kumbh fair. Its hard to explain just how big a deal it is that she has got to where she has. Out of 18 chief ministers in UP since independence she is the only woman. A Dalit. A Woman. Dalits celebrated. Women did not. Because seminar-attending feminists identify more with the cotton sari clad Fab Indian, not a diamond studded poplin salwar suit clad Behenji.

I’m not saying women don’t have it hard in other social milieus. The trauma of one of “our” women being groped while on a rickshaw or in a market isn’t unreal. Neither is obvious sexism in urban workplaces. I’m not being flippant about it but surely comparing that to the life of a woman living in UP bad lands of Mainpuri, Etawah, Faizabad is extreme self indulgence. When a cop is rude to me or a lathi wielding khaki clad lout is offensive at a police check point as I drive home late at night, I feel rage enough to sock him in the face. But if I start comparing that to the angst or rage of a community not allowed access to the village well by upper castes and cops its simply ridiculous.

To come out of that and become the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh is HUGE. The first time Mayawati became chief minister the then Prime Minister Narsimha Rao described it as “a miracle of Indian Democracy” (no he didn’t say this to me, I quote from the book Behenji by Ajoy Bose) such was the shock that a woman like her could have succeeded Tripathis and Misras and Guptas and Pratap Singhs and Thakurs and Yadavs. Mayawati - A name that stood out with no prefix or famous surname. A name without caste since Mayawati renounced Hinduism.

Manmohan Singh has some of those qualities of bringing people together that Obama has. He is soft spoken with no ego as such. He has been gracious and reached out to the Left after a bitter parting of ways which not many would do. Atal Bihari Vajpeyi too was perceived as one such statesman. No ego, soft spoken and the ability to take a 13 party alliance to its 5 years without a threat to his govt. He brought a Narendra Modi and Farooq Abdullah on the same platform. Mannmohan Singh too oversees a 13 party coalition pulling in different directions. Both Prime Minsiters have that ability to unite and bring many divergent views to a table even if its only for the sake of power and not change.

Now cut to rural India.

Manmohan is looked upon as one who united the haves leaving out the have nots. Vajpayi is looked upon as the leader of the party that has promoted and overseen an upper caste dominance within the party and in states they ruled. They didn’t bring cross sections of society together, they brought a longitudinal section together. In India there is a huge difference in bringing people together and bringing political parties together. And it’s a mistake to assume one reflects the other. The divide in India is vertical. The unity of the polity is horizontal. It keeps the top of the pyramid clinging together because change will rock the boat. Change we need. Change we believe in.

Hard as these parties tried they couldn’t stop the Mayawati juggernaut. And when Maywati came to power – no, she didn’t get water, electricity or drainage systems for her shockingly poor voters in Uttar Pradesh. She named parks, erected busts and statues after Phule, Baba Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and herself.

A very valid argument is that shouldn’t 100 crores be spent of drains and nalas and roads instead of busts and parks named after dalit leaders? Absolutely, for you and me. Spirit intact - build infrastructure. But for those whose spirits have been crushed, infrastructure comes second. For a community that has been driven into the earth its not so simple. A symbol of power goes a long way just the way a black man in America goes a long way in how the world will perceive USA.  Where you stand shapes what you consider important. Cleaning up corruption and empowering the marginalized are both imperative. For me the priority may be cleaning up corruption but for a dalit who has not had the courage to file an FIR even when his daughter is raped, corruption has no meaning. Social empowerment is everything even though the two are connected. The fact is that today a cop will think twice before telling a dalit woman to go home after doing what he wishes, should she come to lodge an FIR of rape in rural UP. After Mayawati came to power there is the recorded case of a woman dismembering her rapist’s member when he attacked her for the nth time and going to the police station surrendering both weapons. The one that was used to humiliate and subjugate her for months and her knife, with the belief that now the government has changed and Behenji will take care of her. Change, she believed in.

Confidence- that’s the change one needs to see most. Confidence is something we take for granted. It’s hard to understand that for some it’s a very carefully rehearsed action. It’s not an impulsive reaction. Confident action is as alien to the disempowered as restraint is to the empowered. Someone pushes me - a violent push back is impulse. It’s not a thought out action, in fact we do yoga to curb such violent impulses. Turning the other cheek is a higher form of confidence when its done out of choice. It’s power we take for granted. For those who cant, its new, its thrilling. Its change they need.

The Indian Obama wont be sitting in studios of news channels, he/she will be battling the anarchic melee that is much of India. Its where stakes are higher, where failure could mean death, where battles are far messier and where the party isn’t as pretty. Welcome to the other party. Mob attacks in Noida with a CEO of a multinational being beaten to death, violence in newly industrialized areas of Maharshtra, Bengal, Gujarat. Some newscasters and newspapers ask - is India heading towards anarchy? No we’re not. It was always like this, we just didn’t know it. What scares people most about Mayawati is that she is bringing that party to your doorstep. Change you need?

An Indian Obama isn’t possible in this generation or even the next. Its arrogant and pompous to assume anyone has all the answers and can change a nation as complex as India, overnight or even over a generation. Its not possible to fix everything. As human beings or as leaders the only choices that confront anyone are - can one leave the situation better than one found it? To me homogenizing a situation makes it better. The chances of it getting cleaned up are greater if more people are involved since its in the interest of more to clean it up. Mayawati does that. If she can “level the playing field” an Obama in the next generation can get an open terrain to make a run for it. And leveling that playing field will spoil your and my landscaped garden. Change you believe in?

I’m not saying that Mayawati is the Indian Obama but before we go looking for India’s Obama, think long and hard. A story I read as a kid by W W Jacobs - The Monkeys Paw, taught us, be very careful what you wish for. You might just get it, or him…. or her.

We've Come a Long Way.

14 October 2008.

We’ve come a long way baby. From crony capitalism to cry-baby capitalism. And I love it. 

Some party poopers say the world has changed or is changing or needs to change. That Johnny come lately Barack Hussein Obama is coming up with ridiculous tax plans that assume taxing the rich is good economics and good governance and even Joe the plumber’s saw through his hollow claim. Way to Go Joe! That’s a leaky faucet you fixed real good. He’d be a real drain on our finances. That’s not how the World Bank propounded trickle down theory works and we have the financial meltdown to prove it. See how quickly the disaster has trickled down and in a couple more decades we’ll figure out a way to make the benefits trickle down to Joe too. McCain has rightly hurled the ultimate insult at Barack Hussein Obama – “Socialist”!! That ought to teach him. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is attacking “Wall Street greed and American arrogance” President Sarkozy is asking for a “new capitalism”. In all this madness before any Red Commies jump in and say “Oh we have an answer ready and its called Socialism” please get back to your position at the end of the line. If you’ve recovered from their shrill, irritating and supercilious voices President Sarkozy, please turn your attention to those of us more worthy of an audience since Monsieur Le Président, merci mais nous avon déjà une alternative. And that alternative is “Cry baby Capitalism” Ta da!  And if you don’t agree I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

Markets the world over are tanking and every broker, businessman, fund manager and stock analyst is looking for the bottom, coming across several asses in the process. Butt seriously, no I mean enough bumming around, in behind-sight everyone’s a genius as recession rears its ugly posterior again. If you’re in the financial market the government’s got your back. No I mean really, our rears are covered by the RBI or the Fed or someone or the other. So quit worrying and drink up get back into the market – bottoms up I say. And if you don’t, I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

Alan Greenspan - he who was hailed by most as the wizard who knew it all, the Gandalf to all us Hobbits in the world of finance, is now being attacked by any and every irrelevant, inconsequential columnist who knows nothing about managing money since they’ve never made enough to manage. Die-hard free market economists are suddenly turning protectionists and regulation lovers and if this doesn’t stop I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue. 

Over-reaction is king. No wait, that was profit is king That’s right. It is, and that’s the premise the whole superstructure of American Capitalism rests. To understand the true beauty of Capitalism, the brilliance of profit making and its elegant ways of providing for all allow me two examples.  Example 1: Heard of death bonds? No wait, that’s a crass term, we sophisticates have come up with something far more cool sounding, we call them “life settlements”. Much nicer na? Anyway so the deal is this that we take someone say 65 year old, lets call her Aunty  Adam Smith who has a life insurance policy worth $100,000 which will mature when Aunty Adam Smith is 70. She needs some money today so we in all our benevolence give her 40,000 dollars and take on the policy. She gets the money up front and we collect $100,000 when the Fat Aunty Sings. Not that we are counting on her quick death. Of course not. She should live long and healthy just as long as she kicks the bucket before we lose too much on paying the premiums or the interest. In case any of you are shocked and awed at our magnificent generosity, Hello! We’ve been trading such instruments bunged together as bonds for the longest time on wall street. Was invented by the brilliance that management factories manufacture and send to us every year. All the socialist and liberal lefty types might be put off by this but my free market profit seeking brothers and sisters can understand. Some of our philanthropic brothers in the US have come in for criticism for bundling together such life settlements of an entire African American community which they felt wouldn’t live too long, I mean gang bangers and all you know, minimized risks, hedged their bets and gave back to the community, for a small profit. I mean try and do a community a favour and see the thanks you get. Sheesh!! Those used to welfare will never learn.  I say we go one better and securitize the LIC policies of an entire minority ghetto in Ahmedabad - securitize them, bundle them and create a bond and wait for the next riot. Would that be a grand harvest or what? Imagine the return on that fund? Or better still, the entire kid population at the Dhanbad mines, I mean get a policy out on the kids the premiums would be ridiculously low and in that environment people are lucky if live to be 40. Is that a business plan or what? And if you don’t agree I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

Chomsky had attempted to draw a connection between cutting welfare for single mothers in a certain black neighborhood in New York and the increase in the number of adolescents and teens getting into crime and forming gangs, thus causing an increase in the city’s spend on police patrol cars, cops, guns, ammunition, the works, which was a bigger drain on the exchequer than the welfare itself. Ya right! A theory mooted by lazy non-achieving losers! And next you’ll say that there is a connection between the types who opposed the right to information act and those who pushed for it.  All those who opposed the Right To Information act tooth and nail (and failed, valiant effort though) are hard core free market cheerleaders (Yea! and a whoopee for them!!)  and those who pushed the bill through  are liberal lefty types. Now you’ll try to establish that crony capitalism thrives on non-transparency and these liberal lefty types are lovers of justice. Ya right. Its just a co-incidence, that’s all. And if you disagree I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

Example 2: T Boone Pickens, chairman of the BP Capital Hedge Fund, has bought the rights to drill for water in the Texas panhandle. So he’ll suck the ground water from miles. No permissions needed to be sought from other communities who might also depend on ground water He achieved this when certain favorable policy makers were in power. He’ll spend many more millions to get a pipeline ready to go all the way to Dallas. Now all he is hoping is for a drought in Dallas in the next few years, and he’ll make hundreds of millions. I mean how strong a negotiating position are you in when you’re dying of thirst? I’m not sure if the old geezer will be around to count his stash (he’s 80!) but he would have done a great service to our cause dear fellow crybaby capitalists. It’s not for nothing that he’s celebrated as a true American visionary by his admirers and friends in the government. He was one of the largest contributors to George Bush’s election campaigns. Both. That’s how big his heart is. Redistributing wealth. This is just an effort to level the already level playing field. That’s right, the world is flat, like Mr. Friedman has pointed out, good old Friedman who is the Eminem or Baba Sehgal of economics. And anyway who sells more? M S Subhalaxmi or Main Bhi Madonna. And I have established earlier that profit is king, and if you say that was Elvis, I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

Just one irritating little voice spoiling the new Capitalism is the small greedy whiners making the rest of us look bad. Not you Joe, you’re on our side, others like you. The small investor going Boo-Hoo!! I lost my life’s saving. Boo-Hoo! My pension. Boo-Hoo! My child’s education fund. Boo-Hoo! My hillbilly country cousin’s goat’s medical benefits. Get over it. It was greed that made you dream a dream you had no business dreaming. Leave that to Wall Street - the architects of the new world, the engineers of the brave new economy the ones who can take it in the jaw without batting an eye-lid. Those petty whiners make the rest look bad and if they aren’t done away with and dealt with severely I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

I could go on and on with examples that demonstrates the brilliance of the American Capitalsit model from mining in South America in the 50s to privatization in the 90s but then I don’t want to overstate a case that has been overstated by our friends in mainstream media for eons. But now there’s a new trend. Keynes it seems is back in fashion like those horrible bellbottoms from the seventies that reared their ugly rumps in the mid nineties but went out again (thank God) had once said. - “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most greediest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.” This year they gave the Economics Nobel to that Keynesian economist, Paul Krugman - victims of ideological fashion, the compensation for the poor sods who cant afford REAL fashion at Harrods, Melrose Avenue or 5^th Avenue. But all this will go away soon and if it doesn’t I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.

And for those of you who are wondering why my face will turn blue on holding my breath and not red, its because we never turn Red, even in the face of a suffocating death. Even if you cut me it shall be blue blood, I wont bleed Red and if I do I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and… you know the drill. 

Dot Commers to Full Stops.

7 October 2008

At first there was nothing.

Just a point.

A Dot.

And then there was Dot Com.

 

The rustle of crisp cash

the bustle of investors dash.

Credit registers ringing loud

Young dot commers doing Mamas proud

Every geek’s five minutes of fame

After all it's an ideas game

And if it fails marketing’s to blame.

Every young Turk and his dog

E-merged from the IT fog

Plans that promised millions spun

Quite like a hundred meter run.

 

"A few million sir that’s all it takes

to tell the wizards from the rakes.

Make it BIG. Lets up the stakes."

 

Investors blind as bats they flocked

Like ships at sea in Cyberspace they docked.

And at first even big bucks were clocked.

But then the first ship rocked.

 

A party pooper asked, "But where’s the money?

I've seen millions sink and it isn’t funny

It's about time I got something back.

It’s my turn now, to count the stack.

Dollars have been burnt like fuel.

Account for it kid. That's a business rule.

Newton said every action must react.

Equal and opposite or something like that.

I gave you enough to buy a yacht.

And for that that investment, what have I got?"

 

"Patience sir. We'll bail out soon.

Another round of funding - I promise the moon.

Haven’t you heard of Sabeer the wiz kid.

For Hotmail he got a 400million bid."

 

"I'm not Bill Gates my son.

And he too must regret what’s done.

It's too late, I'm pulling the plug.

I own your house, your suit, your rug.

I'll be back to claim what’s left.

And what you've done is no less than theft."

As one ship sank, as if on cue,

A thousand others went down too.

The world economy shook, spluttered and stopped.

And out of the Titanic the little rats they hopped.

Business ideas that now sound absurd,

took us for a spin with some hair brained nerd.

With laws and rules they went to town

but what goes up must come down.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

Dot Com bubbles finally bust.

 

And then the new fads.

Complex financial instruments.

Lost at sea creating wealth.

The world waits with baited breath

As Fannies and Freddies

in whirlpools and eddies

spin round, drown, heavy, overfed

upturned green arrows trading in red.

Alerts ignored warnings waved

The Tsunami struck, mountains caved

Giants hitting the floor flounder

FDs now seem a lot sounder

Crying for rescue yesterdays mints

Distributing titillating investment hints

Blurring the lines between fiction and fact

They had cute names for each juggling act

Balloon loans, naked short and rollover,

Not now honey and more over

Collateralized Debt Obligations are sunk

Structured Investment Vehicles are junk

Bonds aren’t quite as sexy as James

Derivatives seem like boring games

The sharp crisp image setting free

The fat, lard and oil for all to see

Wanting more to stem the rot

Another 2 trillion is what they got

Swallowing plankton this mighty whale.

The sharks waiting to exhale.

Hello Beautiful! Looking Gorgeous! Vaant Lift Baby?

27 September 2008.

Hah! Move over boring old policy wogs. Asif Awesome Ali Zmooth Zardari, has made the world and USA sit up and take notice of him. Yes ladies and gentleman the charmer par excellence sweeps Sensual Sarah Palin the Republican VP candidate off her feet with a – “Looking gorgeous, now we know why America loves you so much. I can give you another hug if the photographer wants.” A rakish grin and a twirl to that mustache then. Shava Asif! Shava!

And other such priceless clinchers have helped Asif Ali Zardari pull off a foreign policy coup. And Pakistan is great at pulling off coups - foreign policy or not, Baby!

Hah! Albela Asif laughs in the face of dull bespectacled (unless the spectacles are rimless titanium Kazuo Kawasaki’s 704 series that Sarah Palin has made fashionable) foreign relation experts mouthing pedantic drivel with strange stiff accents about paving the way for increased co-operation and mutually beneficial blah di blah. Not this Smooth Sophisticated Sindhi. He makes that extra effort when it comes to cementing foreign relations, at least 10% extra effort. Baby!

Hah! Asif the Artful Aristocratic sneers as nuclear deals are struck and polite and servile fawners marvel at their luck. This is Pakistani politics baby and this is how they do it. In that land of feudal chiefs and politicians prone to primitiveness, protocol is nothing unless its proto-cool, Congress is nothing unless its Con-grace, an official tour is nothing unless its official too-her, white house briefs are nothing! Pakistan’s able and graceful President is rewriting the rules of engagement here. Baby!

Hah!! Asif the Awesome Azam-e-quaid (or something like that) welcomes you to the new face of international relations. Awesome Asif would like to ignore those who say that no one really wants change in Pakistan. No one who matters that is, which is about 500 families who play musical chairs, oppose each other every now and then, make a few visits to jail until they are back living the life and doing their bit to keep status-quo in the larger context. More on that as all go clubbing, Baby! This is how foreign relation type business things are done. This is a long way from going clubbing not so long ago where clubs were carried and a strike out was a good thing. The new style is quite more fun for both parties though, the old way clubbing left the shoulders of men sore and first aid requirement for ladies in case of a too hard strike to the head was inconvenient. But Steely Sinewy Sindhi is more progressive than you imagine, Baby!

Hah!! The Flamboyant Phenomenon of Progressive Pakistan is all set to charm not only Slightly Surprised Sarah but also Market Mantra Memorizing Manmohan. He is his biggest fan he says.  But Annoyed Asif’s magical magnificence does not seem to be working on the Sturdy Sardar because the Radical Reformer has eyes only for a Texan’s Trot and not the Sindhi’s Swagger. The Mild Mannered Manmohan Singh clinching a historic deal that will enable India to go clubbing with the exclusive nuclear club, always the gentleman is subtle and understated in his flirtation with Darn Dashing Dubya as he says bashfully - that all Indians love George Bush very much.

Of course we do – I’ll just get my club. Vaant lift baby?

Free Fall

21 September 2008.

“What happened was a failure of risk management. This is what economists call moral hazard. The risks lie with somebody else and you get the gains”.

“Its regrettable and a huge failure of American public policy.”

“We just can’t let companies become too big to fail”

John Snow - George Bush’s former US treasury secretary.

“The bankruptcy of Fannie and Freddie would have meant Armageddon. Would have meant the meltdown of the financial system. Its one of the cases where the market can not look after itself, too bad we end it here (sic) but at this point it was the only option I believe ”

“It was too big to fail no doubt”

Domenico Siniscalco – Former Finance Minister of Italy. Currently employed as a fellow with Merrill Lynch who was advising the US treasury on the Fannie Freddie rescue plan.

“Paulson really had no choice. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when and he did what he had to do. And its not a popular move but its one that had to be taken.”

Timothy Adams - former undersecretary of the US treasury.

The above quotes were made at a conference of former finance ministers from various countries, in Virginia.  (Interviews available on NPR podcasts)

There’s a whole new meaning to the phrase Free Fall. In one case it gives you an exhilarating feeling as you have no force acting on you other than gravity, tumbling through space rollercoaster like feeling you’ve left your stomach behind. The other free fall is an exhilarating feeling of falling due to greed and clumsiness but getting taxpayers to catch you. It’s free and the taxpayers get a nauseating feeling in their stomachs that they might as well have left behind.

Across the board in columns and discussions there seems to be one consistent point of that what happened was regrettable, its unfair but there was no choice but to come to the rescue of these falling giants no matter how foolish they have been. The alternative, not doing anything and expecting the invisible hand of the market to work, was far too disastrous. This even from die-hard pro market economists and neo-liberals.

Another rather unlikely outcome of this crisis has been the rediscovery of words like moral hazard and greed into economic discourse. Even NDTV’s show The Big Fight asked the question, is greed responsible? And we had brokers and bankers holding forth on a subject that usually Asaram Bapu and Swami Ramdev would be found sermonizing on.

In fact Moral Hazard is not a phrase from a book on moral science or philosophy, it is in economics text books but is almost always forgotten after graduation.

Moral hazard as John Snow explains in the first quote is when gains lie with one party and the costs with another. It’s become an issue right now because both are showing up on balance sheets. But for the longest time moral hazard has been ignored when it comes to industry. Destroying a lifestyle, environmental degradation and poison in ground water, children dying of respiratory disorders near mines the list is endless, have all been moral hazards. But in those cases the costs don’t show up in balance sheets (they would if regulators did their jobs) so its not even acknowledged as a cost. Basically if a cost doesn’t show up on balance sheets it’s termed an externality in business jargon. That’s a different matter different column.

Right now lets stick with why it was necessary to rescue organizations that were brought down by greed or irresponsible risk management or both.

Basically they were too big to fail. The one line repeated by all. Their failure would have meant a meltdown that would have made several economies collapse. Rescuing them will be unfortunate for many, their failure would be unfortunate for many too.

While shooting at the Reliance Jamnagar Refinery years ago we were often treated to Dhirubhai Ambani’s quotable quotes. One attributed to him was – “If you want to succeed, align your interests with the countries interests.”

The modern day cynic is free to interpret that as align your interests with the govts. interests.

There was the famous case of the Amarnath Hedge Fund going bust a few years ago sinking with it many medium and small investors through their pension funds, before that there was the Amarind (or was it Amarynd) fund too that went down taking with it pension funds and school teacher’s savings and the pension plans of several such. There were no rescues at the time, as the moral hazard clause in market economics wouldn’t allow it. In fact no one other than people who’s money was sunk suffered.

So it’s not only a question of moral hazard, there were no rescues there simple because they weren’t big enough, they had not aligned their interests to the countries interests, they weren’t plugged into the mother-board and become part of the circuitry like a virus or entered the blood stream like a healthy tonic (take your pick depending upon your ideology).

Since Fannie and Freddie there have been more bailouts, AIG being the more recent, more are expected. And as pointed out by all, they are all too big to fail. How big does one have to be to get into the too big to fail league? A minimum balance sheet requirement? Assets held? No ball park figure there, its just a question of aligned interests.

Corporate India had figured this out way back and had aligned interests all over the place. You hardly hear a voice, even the most reasonable ones who say the Tata Nano plant can’t be allowed to fail (even if one has to push it through without considering the externalities). Its too big for Bengal, its failure means Bengal can say good bye to any investment ever, or an SEZ in Maharashtra (which Reliance tried to block the referendum to. They went to the high court trying to prevent a govt. poll asking the villagers if they wanted an SEZ on their land), or lignite mines in Gujarat. Failure would be unfortunate for many. Not resolving resettlement issues would be unfortunate for many too.

At the same conference in Virginia where the above quotes are from, India’s former Finance minister Yashwant Sinha was asked how this affects India. He said it wont really since we have regulators who have been doing their jobs. No one here is too big to fail. Almost suggesting we have figured out the answer to John Snow’s problem of how to ensure companies don’t get too big to fail.

Is that true? Its not just banks that can cause such disasters, industry too can and today more than ever both are inextricably linked. And it may not always show up on your balance sheet till its too late. Perceptions are being created that certain projects are too big to fail. Their failure would lead to a bleak future for generations. Is that true? And even if it is, should it be this way? Should we be creating a too big to fail delinquent?

Do we celebrate Indians listed on Fortunes billionaire lists while reports at home (govt. and non govt.) show the rate at which inequalities have grown over the past few years, because we feel our interests are aligned with theirs? We’re plugged into the same circuit?

If the destinies of millions are aligned with the interests of a few who make decision based purely on balance sheets, for who moral hazard is a fading textbook memory and where greed is being discussed rather seriously as the cause of collapse (or stupidity depending on who you speak to), you have a recipe for disaster.

One so hopes George Bernard Shaw was wrong when he said – “We learn from history, that we learn nothing from history.”