2010 Agenda.

This year I believe that as a country we have certain agenda’s which we need to address so that we can grow as individual and as a nation. Country first, growth and golden future for all the Indians should be our agenda for the years to come; Growth should be spreading equally across all the social-economical level and should be visible. The issues that are hampering our growth as a nation and as an individual, there are some issues which are prevailing from last many years and some are the new entrants.

1. Terrorism: Terrorism has been a set back factor for so many years and not resolved till date there must be some way out to solve the issue, I don’t know but probably it can be solved through dialogues and an amicable solution can be derived.
   
2. Employment: After the downturn major of the working professional suffered an economic set back in terms of increments, package and growth and some of them even lost there jobs. The professionals who lost there job are still not able to grab a good job till date. It’s time to create new employment opportunities for the people especially for the people in unorganized sectors for which no one have a clear picture of the level of un-employment.
   
3. Poverty: “A country is poor because it is poor” Vicious circle. We as a country should work for eradicating the poverty by promoting entrepreneurship, creating ample employment opportunities, improving public distribution system etc. Given a statistics of some percentage of India not having even one full course meal, how can we take this country to the next level?
   
4. Inflation: We all Indians has never felt the heat of inflation as badly as we are facing now a days and on top of it we already have un-employment and poverty as major issue. If the children (who are our future) are not having a nutritious diet then the future is at stake.
   
5. Student’s safety: We treat our tourist with respect because we believe that “athithi devo bhavo” a guest is like a god. But our students and citizens are getting a step brother treatment in other nations. The people there are for study or business and directly/ indirectly adding to India’s bottom line growth. Assault/ ill- treatment to Indians outside, is Assault to India and is an national issue and need to be addressed immediately.
   
6. Go Green: We as a country have grown a lot and still we have inspirations for growth and industrial revolution. We all did this at a cost of something, and that something is nothing but the nature. We need to preserve the environment for the generations and should adopt and promote all the ways and means to “Go Green”.
   
7. Exam fever: Exam fever is taking a toll on students, not able to digest there failure or bear the pressure of exams, suicides are common among the students. There should be some way out to encourage students; counseling by parents, teachers and children welfare organization can help to ease out the examination pressure.
   
8. Deep penetration: Schemes meant for upliftment for poor, needy and targeted audience doesn’t reach to them but the middlemen get benefited, some methodology should be devised, so that the needy should be benefited and should reach/ availed by the targeted audience.
   
9. Natural Calamities: India being agriculture based economy; our attitude and seriousness towards agriculture is a concern, we all have an understanding that excess or deficit of water is devastating but the actions we have taken to address this issue are not sufficient enough.
   
10. Sex ratio: According to the Census of India, 2001, the sex ratio of India stands at 933 which is an marginal improvement from the 1991 Census (927 females for every 1000 males) “Woman Empowerment” should be an important agenda in development efforts

image source: 2010calendar.org

Commonality between companies and individuals.

When i was publishing my previous article on How to retain talent I observed something; that commonality exists between the individuals and the corporate thought process, the way they think for a solution and the way they address a given situation.

To compliment this I will elaborate some examples Remember the Global economic crises. What did the big/small corporate did? All of them went for a head reductions without worrying about there future goals/launches, about there market share, competitors moves, strategic positioning of theirs vis-à-vis there competitors.

Companies started reverse engineering for cost cutting. Let me explain, management gave a target to departments/ functions to reduce cost by say 20% now it was the department/ functions head responsibilities to reduce that many head which will help them to achieve the cost cutting target. Doesn’t it sound funny?

In most of the cases company were already having expansion plans and some of them have already invested in expanding in certain technological areas, geographical markets and operations where there performance was far below industry the industry standards. With the wave of head reduction all this expenses turned to sunk cost recovering which is next to impossible and getting back on track with all the previous plans and strategy seems to be a difficult proposition.

As per my school of though if the companies would have invested in technology, human resources, expansion they would have reaped huge benefits today and days to come. But the companies did the opposite way and to retain the status quo it will take years because in business 1 month delay is 1 year behind.

Similarly individuals too took wrong decision during the down time. Stock investors were watching there stocks falling and did nothing, when the stock prices hit the rock bottom prices they simply stayed away from market and exited there holding as soon as the stock price touched there purchase price, fearing that the price may fall any time.

If they would have invested (in the same stock which they were holding) when the stock prices were @ there bottom prices they could have attained a breakeven much before and could have made huge profits.
Most of the investors were scared and didn’t wanted to put there money in any of the risky propositions, investors were sitting on cash but were not willing to invest anywhere, all the money from stock market either moved to bank deposits or lost its value. If they would have shown courage of investing against risk they would have earned huge profits.

On the contrary there was/is no prudent way in which the downturn could have been handled, individuals/ corporates responded in there own way which they felt is the prudent way.

Ken Thompson said “Long-term success is not only determined by how well a company/individual handles a downturn, but also by its foresight in preparing for the next upturn. In the midst of a recession, we are often forced to restructure and control expenses, but those who focus only on the immediate crisis may be left behind when better times return.”

Image souce bioteams.com

Second dip…..!!!!!

Many of the economist and financial market guru’s believe that the next financial crisis may be in 2011. Some of those believe that this might be a dead cat bounce, or what economists term a double-dip recession.

But looking at the global market (as on today) seems that we are very close to the double-dip recession say by 3-6 months. The reason for me to believe this is because of all the global indexes falling below there support levels (US, India, Hong Kong).

Indian stock market are heading southwards from last 4-5 trading session and have broken there support level. These support level were crucial according to finance experts (I’m not among them) .

Keeping my fingers crossed for today’s opening bell, I pray to god that the index should open with a positive note as all the major global indexes are in +ive.

The reasons why we might be headed for a double dip recession based on artilce published in ft.com

1. Oil, energy and food prices are now rising faster than economic fundamentals warrant, and could be driven higher by excessive liquidity chasing assets and by speculative demand.
   
2. There are risks associated with exit strategies from the massive monetary and fiscal easing, If policy makers want to reduce fiscal deficits they will raise taxes, cut spending and mop up excess liquidity soon, they would undermine recovery and tip the economy back into stag-deflation. But if they maintain large budget deficits, bond market vigilantes will punish policymakers. Then, inflationary expectations will increase, long-term government bond yields would rise and borrowing rates will go up sharply, leading to stagflation.

Image source: http://www.soxfirst.com/

Promises that I have to keep.

From the very first day when the news of downturn appeared in newspaper and news channel I started to calculate many things. I was busy thought day and night watching many things simultaneously the US Presidential elections, Assembly elections in India and what the market analyst across the globe has to say about the fall.

After certain calculation I derived some conclusion and asked my wife to sit and listen to them. I firstly declared an assumption that I have made while calculation certain things. The assumption was that “Neither me nor my company is going to affect by the downturn”

With this assumption I promised her that I will purchase her all the luxurious that we have though of, a big house, a three boxer car, modular kitchen and lot many things for my kids and mom.

Well the thought process behind those promises was a well planned strategy.

My Dream House: With a global slowdown there will be an oversupply of everything in the Indian market and will push the prices south.
Property market will correct itself enormously because the spark in the market was due to the NRI’s investing dollars into the Indian market. Once they run short of money they will be sell there assts and there will be oversupply of housing in India.

Companies who were involved in big projects will find less buyer and pressure will appear on the prices.

Peoples who have blocked there money in assets anticipating that prices will appreciate will start selling their assets causing a further pressure on prices.

There will be at least some cases of defaults (sub prime crises. Though before the downturn the customers were prime customer but after downturn they became sub-prime and couldn’t pay there emi’s) which will force housing loan entities to increase there margin money and interest rates resulting in less availability of loan. So there will be low demand for housing and will create pressure on price again.

All the above sentiments will hamper the zeal of house buyers and at that particular time I will buy a house.

My Dream car: With Giant Auto makers filing for chapter 11 indicated me that my dream for 3 box car is not far away.


Post chapter 11 people will loose faith and interest in the products of those auto giants resulting a lot of stock lying idle in the backyards forcing them to bring down the prices; here I will enter as a buyer.
Companies will cut down the prices to recover the investment made resulting a pressure on the prices; here I will enter the market as a buyer.

Agencies will offer heavy discounts to clear there idle backyard stock and to reduce their cost of holding, here I will enter the market as a buyer.


The downturn will have a multiplier effect on all the things wherein one thing pulling down the second, the second thing pulling down the third one and so on.

I will have ample opportunities to purchase whatever I thought of.

But sorry to say that I defined and speculated the strategy well but couldn’t execute it out, there are n number of reasons of not putting those strategies in action. But the bottom line is that I have to fulfill my promises