A calm & relaxed weekend, I was happy to receive my dad who just returned from his yearly visit to Shirdi. When we sat down for a cup of tea together what we spoke was not of the darshan or the journey. My dad was not his usual self when he spoke of the Money Market, the downsizing in the Out sourcing industry , about the tight fisted banks etc, etc. "Etc, etc" !!! - I must be sorry , I took it so light. I visited my Car dealer today, he also seemed to have understood why his sales numbers are looking not so good.
I felt it was quite strange , everyone seemed to be talking about it and everyone are talking quite seriously about it. Everyday News paper is awaited to see what other turn has the market taken this time. This actually put my little brain into act, wondering what could have happened, what could be the intensity & impact of this entire phenomena? What ? what? what ? Why? why ? why?
Interestingly , I got quite a few answers from one of the discussions with a VSL (Very Senior Leader*) during a Brown Bag*. He started with a beautiful Example, " Have you seen an Hour Glass? " he asked. " The contents of the hour glass when inverted pulls down everything that is there with it to the bottom..... and that is exactly what is happening to the market". Quite simple isnt it? . Talk about House of cards, or a building relying on several pillars , one of them cracks down , the structure is bound to fall. In reality, The Banks fell and are pulling down the entire economic structure with them. Dating back to couple of decades, when the market was good some of the Financial institutions made a mistake of over rating the market growth and took up the risk of lending and lending and lending with very little/without security. The so called "Assets" of the bank also could not bail the banks out of this situation, hence, the Banks had to close down. Now, this calls for a chain reaction where Banks are the " Hearts" of any Economy coz they pump in money in to the market by providing Finance to manufacture , sell & grow. Having left with very few options of raising funds , the Industry avoids taking risk and avoids new venture/ projects, etc. While this is happening in the "Seller Market", lets look at the Buyer Market, his purchasing power comes down ( No finance available), he gets stringent with his choices, demand goes down, prices go up. Uff , now this is getting into too much of Economics ( I wish I took my Economics paper more seriously while in college, huh! ). So, we definitely understand it is a chain reaction that is going to affect every segment of the Economy. But , is there something that we can learn out of it? May be, yes.
Lets turn to History for some time, this down turn is not the first of its kind in the
human history. Who can forget having read about the 1929 , Great Depression in the United States. I have been referred a book to understand the same from a different perspective, its called the Grapes of Wrath, while this gives us a Social perspective of the Great Depression , the Phenomena can be better understood on the Wikipedia . Should we now say History repeats itself. May be / May be not , its too early to come to conclusions. But, America some day had to pay this price. I am sure you would agree if I said , somewhere, America's callous lifestyle is one of the reasons for this entire phenomena. I still remember, having heard that Half ( or was it 75%) of America lives in credit. I may sound too nasty singling out America for this. Well, this applies to all those who believed in a life style of buy now , pay later. India according to me was just getting there and facing a boom that was too superficial. For ex: Bangalore's real estate.
We talked about learning lessons, May be this is one of the biggest lessons, we can learn today. Sometimes it is good to have a conservative approach or shall I make it sensible approach ( I was really sounding conservative when I said that). A sensible approach towards everything including our spending habits, our work, our life, our people, our learning. Simply , can we keep our feet on the ground and not in the air. It calls for some discipline in every one's life to condition ourselves, professionally, personally, mentally, physically , spiritually. What do I mean ? picture this, Professionally - bring in more dedication in to work - more selfless work. Personally - know what exactly you want & bring in more focus to achieve the kind of life you want. uff , not again, you know me , me me , the preacher. But honestly guys, we need to give it a thought. Don't you think we need to change & for the Better? Remember , its all Micro before it turns Macro. so, lets start at a micro level and be the change we want to see.
Leave in your comments to let me know if you agree / disagree / hate / love my thoughts. whatever you do , my thoughts are still mine and mine only.
I felt it was quite strange , everyone seemed to be talking about it and everyone are talking quite seriously about it. Everyday News paper is awaited to see what other turn has the market taken this time. This actually put my little brain into act, wondering what could have happened, what could be the intensity & impact of this entire phenomena? What ? what? what ? Why? why ? why?
Interestingly , I got quite a few answers from one of the discussions with a VSL (Very Senior Leader*) during a Brown Bag*. He started with a beautiful Example, " Have you seen an Hour Glass? " he asked. " The contents of the hour glass when inverted pulls down everything that is there with it to the bottom..... and that is exactly what is happening to the market". Quite simple isnt it? . Talk about House of cards, or a building relying on several pillars , one of them cracks down , the structure is bound to fall. In reality, The Banks fell and are pulling down the entire economic structure with them. Dating back to couple of decades, when the market was good some of the Financial institutions made a mistake of over rating the market growth and took up the risk of lending and lending and lending with very little/without security. The so called "Assets" of the bank also could not bail the banks out of this situation, hence, the Banks had to close down. Now, this calls for a chain reaction where Banks are the " Hearts" of any Economy coz they pump in money in to the market by providing Finance to manufacture , sell & grow. Having left with very few options of raising funds , the Industry avoids taking risk and avoids new venture/ projects, etc. While this is happening in the "Seller Market", lets look at the Buyer Market, his purchasing power comes down ( No finance available), he gets stringent with his choices, demand goes down, prices go up. Uff , now this is getting into too much of Economics ( I wish I took my Economics paper more seriously while in college, huh! ). So, we definitely understand it is a chain reaction that is going to affect every segment of the Economy. But , is there something that we can learn out of it? May be, yes.
Lets turn to History for some time, this down turn is not the first of its kind in the
human history. Who can forget having read about the 1929 , Great Depression in the United States. I have been referred a book to understand the same from a different perspective, its called the Grapes of Wrath, while this gives us a Social perspective of the Great Depression , the Phenomena can be better understood on the Wikipedia . Should we now say History repeats itself. May be / May be not , its too early to come to conclusions. But, America some day had to pay this price. I am sure you would agree if I said , somewhere, America's callous lifestyle is one of the reasons for this entire phenomena. I still remember, having heard that Half ( or was it 75%) of America lives in credit. I may sound too nasty singling out America for this. Well, this applies to all those who believed in a life style of buy now , pay later. India according to me was just getting there and facing a boom that was too superficial. For ex: Bangalore's real estate.We talked about learning lessons, May be this is one of the biggest lessons, we can learn today. Sometimes it is good to have a conservative approach or shall I make it sensible approach ( I was really sounding conservative when I said that). A sensible approach towards everything including our spending habits, our work, our life, our people, our learning. Simply , can we keep our feet on the ground and not in the air. It calls for some discipline in every one's life to condition ourselves, professionally, personally, mentally, physically , spiritually. What do I mean ? picture this, Professionally - bring in more dedication in to work - more selfless work. Personally - know what exactly you want & bring in more focus to achieve the kind of life you want. uff , not again, you know me , me me , the preacher. But honestly guys, we need to give it a thought. Don't you think we need to change & for the Better? Remember , its all Micro before it turns Macro. so, lets start at a micro level and be the change we want to see.
Leave in your comments to let me know if you agree / disagree / hate / love my thoughts. whatever you do , my thoughts are still mine and mine only.
1 comment:
extremely well said, not very verbose but very lucid. u hit the nail on the head with this one.
this makes me re-emphasize on the saving habits of indians. we're taught to save from day one. only if this country realized that saving wasn't a bad idea after all.
kudos to some great writing
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