Category: Uncategorized

I don’t believe in getting drunk. Or in dope. Or in taking a holiday for that matter. While all these offer good short-term benefits, their problem is just that – they are way too short-term. Once you’ve finished experiencing them, you’re back to square zero. No better off than you were before you undertook the experience. In a large number of cases (piled up work, hangover, etc.) you might even be significantly worse off.

Happiness needs to be sustainable, and the above mentioned methods don’t really guarantee that. It’s like putting a coat of white polish over your white canvas shoes. The dirt remains, only gets covered. You run a few hundred meters and the dirt is there for all to see. Or you can think about it as using a band aid for a really bad injury. Just covers up the surface.

He rushed to my room all excited. “Dooode! How was the exam? Did you do the last question?”

The exam in question was the final exam of a course on Technology and Business. It was a mostly objective paper and at the end there was one subjective question I think. Maybe there were more, but I only remember this one. I had returned to my room half an hour earlier.

“Yeah dude. I think I answered it pretty well”, I replied.

“I so cracked it. I found so many things. There were so many angles to the thing dude. I totally raped the question”, he said.

“Ah! Good you found so many things to the case. I just found one major point and just wrote that. Anyways, what took you so long?”

“Oh I totally cracked it. I used this framework that framework every framework I knew seemed to fit in. I took an additional answer booklet solely for this answer. Wrote some five pages”, he explained. (clearly, both of us were elated about cracking the exam)

“Ah! I should’ve thought of using all those fancy frameworks. Never occurred to me. I found one major point and just wrote that. Three paragraphs i think.? Maybe half a page”.

I ended up topping the course. He now works for McKinsey.

I came in to work this morning to see > 400 unread items on my google reader! The only time it was higher I think was when I took a week off to go to Chickmaglur and Goa.

The weekend was long because our office decided that we deserve a Republic Day holiday on Friday to compensate for the day falling on a Saturday. These Americans just assume all the world is America!

And the weekend was busy also. I went to madras on Saturday (by Shatabdi) to attend the Odyssey quiz. Pota, Shamanth and I all had a bad afternoon as we failed to clear the finals cut off by a long way. Before the quiz, I had roamed around the area around Parrys Corner buying DVDs (more on that later). After the quiz, I met Baada and Beedi for dinner at Cedar.

Spent the night watching the Saarang Lone Wolf Quiz finals, hopped on to a taxi at around 5 am, and caught the 6 o’clock Shatabdi back. Had a haircut, watched tennis (was a great final), met some relatives and slept.

Friday was spent finishing up a lot of sundry bank and investment work. And had to take my mom to some Khadi sale. And there was the match in the morning.

What an amazing game it was. Mired in controversy following the “toiletgate” two years back, it was well worth it. Topalov played beautifully and I just can’t stop myself from seeing that game again and again.

I was looking around for some good analysis of the game, and what better than to see the winner explain the thing himself. I’m posting Topalov’s press conference here. It’s in two parts. He shows you the game and also keeps explaining the rationale behind each move and what he thinks Kramnik should have done and stuff.

Amazing stuff. Of course the purists will argue that this was a well prepared line so it wasn’t “that beautiful” but for someone trying to get back in touch with the game after ages, this is simply beautiful. Enjoy the games (I recommend you just see it here in the press conference; Topalov plays out the entire game)

Culprits leading to the sub-prime crisis
1. Mortgage firms, for doling out mortgages to anyone and everyone. Just to “meet targets”. Without realizing that they are giving loans and not doles.

2. Credit rating agencies – for randomly giving high ratings to mortgage-based CDOs, without really bothering to find out what was underlying. The structures were complex, I agree, and there were some Nth order derivatives. Still, the job of the rating agencies was to get down to the bottom of it and figure out what lies beneath and rate that. Spectacular failure. They were instrumental in spreading the risk around the industry, and increasing the absolute volume of risk.

The effects of the sub-prime crisis have spread well beyond the financial industry, even into sport. FC Liverpool got LBOd about a year back. Two American businessmen, George Gillet and Tom Hicks, bought over the club about a year back. The bridge loan that they had taken to fund the deal is about to expire and they are yet to tie up long-term funding.

The SWF from Dubai, DIC, is ready to step in and buy out the club from these two American jokers. Their CEO Sameer Ansari is a Liverpool fan which means that they should take better care of the club than these Americans who are purely financial investors. And now they are saying they are holding on “for a good price”.

And Baada sends me this. Apparently Hicks says he’ll invest the money he makes from Liverpool to strengthen Texas Rangers.

If Liverpool FC were in Calcutta, you’d’ve had millions protesting to limit FDI in football clubs!

And coming back, it seems to be a bad time for LBOs. Even Tata had some trouble tying up the long term finances for the Corus acquisition. I read that good old SBI had to step in in the last minute to make up the deficit.

And given that my current employer got LBOd a while back, I have reason to fear.

About a year back, Ajay Shah wrote a post on a year of blogging. Makes good reading. Check it out if you’d missed it back then.

Ok this is one of those things i’m not too good at. So I request you to comment on my reasoning.

1. They say that exports should be balanced by imports. That exporting is useless unless you use the FX to import stuff. Now, how does China manage to hold its exchange rate despite the massive current account surpluses that it has? It imports little apart from oil, and exports practically everything. So how does that hit it?

I think what is effectively happening is that China is importing inflation. The inflation that should’ve actually occurred in the US and similar places gets deferred due to cheap chinese goods, and due to the skewed exchange rates, hits in China. I’ve read a couple of reports that inflation is starting to pinch China, and that they are resorting to price controls over there. Sooner rather than later, that might force them ot revalue the RMB, restoring the world order, and adding inflation to the downturn in the US economy.

2. I had got convinced by one article by Ajay Shah in the business standard, and was happy that the RBI had allowed the rupee to appreciate in order to control inflation back home. Now, I read somewhere that since India’s current account is in deficit, the rupee shouldnt’ be allowed to appreciate. That the current account alone should determine exchange rates, and not the capital account – which is in a way reversible flow. I’m wondering if there’s any good way in which we sterilize all the capital account imbalance, hoping that one day when this mad influx of capital ends, it’ll all even out.

So what do we do to take care of this situation? For starters, we need to have effective ways of reducing incoming capital. The control measures we have are half-baked (limiting borrowings, participatory notes, etc.). Maybe I should allow myself to get swayed by Ajay Shah again, and say that we need to cut rates. Even if we account for a fair price of oil, I don’t think inflation is too much, so we could afford to cut rates. And that will in some way balance flows.

3. A V Rajwade, in his article in the business standard last monday, argued that another major source of short term capital inflow is in terms of credit given to importers! Interesting stuff

I know I’ve rambled for most parts. Still fairly confused about this. Anyways let me know your views on this.?

It’s ridiculous that the swamis of the mutts in Udupi are fighting in public like this. They are generally well-respected figures and thousands come to fall at their feet (note: wtihout touching them) every year. In this context, it’s important for these swamis to set an example for their followers.

Instead they go about fighting over some succession issues! Ok these issues are everywhere, but the swamis being the models they should be, would do well to keep things within themselves and present an honorable face to the public.

I’m not sure if these chaps will continue to get the respect of people after all this naatak.

PS: For those without background info, the Puttige swami, who has taken control of the mutt (by rotation) today, had gone abroad a few years back. So the other swamis think he’s “impure” and so doesn’t deserve to head the mutt. And they’ve been fighting. There have been fasts and counter-fasts. They have gone to court. The swamis of the protesting mutts have even boycotted the handover ceremony (which happened overnight yesterday). Kind of behaviour more suited to politicians than to “spiritual gurus”.