Business to the Buddha

Tag: economy

  • Peace second

    When the need arose Krishna told Arjuna, pick up your arms, and fight. When there is a need, you have to do this duty without thinking about the results. Krishna said you have the right to perform your duty, also you do not have control over the results. Peace comes first when we are trying to reach a peaceful solution or consensus. If the peace fails, relegate peace to second. Perform your duty by taking arms. This is what happened in Mahabharata.

    Krishna picking up a wheel to attack Bhisma in Mahabharat. Krishna had avowed not to take weapon in the war, even a wheel was considered weapon if used for attack

    India and her culture and China from a religious perspective

    For time immemorial, India has been a harbinger of peace. India’s message to the world has been of spirituality, science, and peace. Every single message from India has been for the progressive world as a one-world family “Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam”. The examples are the first surgery or mathematical genius of Aryabhatta or the message of the Buddha. The best thing, Indian culture has never asked for recognition for any of the achievements. The world knows basic mathematics from the middle eastern name – Algebra. India developed the concepts of algebra, the message of meditation, astronomy, or peace all are open for adoption.

    Hinduism has a lot of branches. Every branch is exploration of different aspects of spirituality. Hinduism accepts every approach. Buddhism lays immense importance to meditation as a religion. Meditation is yet another path (Dhyan yog) within Hinduism. A book – Vigyan Bhairava Tantra – contemplates more than 100 meditations. You can read/listen to Osho’s commentary on the same. A better suggestion is to experience the meditations described in the book. The art of living foundation has a special course on Vigyan Bhairav. Buddhism was spread to Egypt in the west and Japan in the east. The western side of India has curbed Buddhism by force – bursting of the Bamiyan Buddha statues is a contemporary example.

    India has been a kind country for many centuries. She has to rise to the occasion and not only be a guide for a peaceful world order but also communicate clearly about its national interests too. There are multiple conflicts here such as Chinese and Pakistani occupation on its territories. Possibly, as stated, peace may have to be related to the second spot for that.

    Buddhism in China

    In the recent past, Tibet was forcefully taken over by China. There are close to 20% Buddhists in China. Buddhist and Communist approach of life is diagonally opposite. Buddhism has a concept of Sangha a community. However, it lays a lot more emphasis on an individual’s personal growth – because enlightenment is achieved by an individual. Whereas the communist approach is – an individual has no value as such. China has been trying to use Buddhism to influence South East Asia, in fact using Buddhism with forums. This is another meddling in the personal life and beliefs of individuals – a very common practice of China.

    The way China crushed Tibet (watch 7 years in Tibet), it is going to pay back. China has crushed one such uprising at Tiananmen square. China has been able to control these descents to a great extent – Google and Zoom. It is no secret more you suppress something, more powerfully it will come back. Sooner or later, this is going to happen to China.

    Chinese aggression

    Recently China has tried to push Indian boundaries on North East Doklam in 2017 and Jammu and Kashmir in 2020. This attack comes with the audacity of pushing the world into a lockdown due to Covid-19 (actually the Chinese Virus). It is a natural response for a country that feels threatened by a potential competitor. Many companies are likely to shift from China to other countries – including India. The other reason for considering India a potential competitor because India is a major economy if everything falls in place, India can grow faster. Though there is at least 5 times gap between the GDP of both the countries, however if mass exodus happens it may adversely affect China in short span.

    There are various internal and external factors affecting China. Some of the Internal factors are the aging population of China, shortcomings of the one-child policy. The external factors are abused rules of free trade, debt trap for smaller nations, etc. The world now sees a new way of colonialism from China. This has woken up the world. This aggression if taken forward, is likely to cost a lot not just to the two nations but also to the world at large.

    The economy trap of China

    If you look at the trade balance of major economies vis a vis China, you would see trade balance is 1:3. Almost every country has trade-deficit with China, in effect China sucks funds from every country! In many ways, China either flouts World Trade Organization (WTO) norms or takes unfair advantages of the same to trap countries. The worst form of trap is – debt trap – giving loans to countries at better rates (naturally these countries cannot service these debts) and later gain control over assets of these countries, Sri Lankan port is an example. Nepal will soon get into this trouble. China is trying to control the sea too. In the east, they are contesting with Phillipense.

    In a nutshell, every country, business, and economy dependent on China has a problem with China and yet it is very difficult to look at short term alternatives. This is the kind of overconfidence that anyone should be cherry about. This overconfidence has to be and will be tamed sooner or later. Probably the fear of this taming is forcing China to take aggressive steps against India. Further, in the coming time, China will face the heat of Covid spread worldwide. The whole world has suffered. Recently Geeta Gopinath of IMF wrote, that the negative growth rate is expected to be worse than previously estimated. More likely, the countries worldwide must get compensation from China for this massive loss.

    Peace second

    There are multiple problems the whole world is facing currently. Starting from the Chinese Virus challenge, economic downturn, and major control of China over many smaller countries to Chinese aggression on Indian territory. The China-India standoff is probably a warning to companies considering moving from China to India, giving a signal that India is not safe. This exposes China to many of its internal problems, suppression of its citizen, forceful control on Tibet to name a few, and external right from the debt trap, surreptitiously controlling land to the aggressiveness across sea routes too.

    At the time of Mahabharat the equation was more driven by the military power and the kingdoms aligned to a side. Now, more than military power, it is economic power that drives alignments and overall control on world affairs. In Mahabharat, Pandavas were forced to ask for their fair share of the land they had to fight for it. In the present day world when a country faces such an adversary that is powerful, manipulative, and extremely aggressive sooner or later it has to be relegated peace to the second spot.

  • Inclusive growth, How?







    There is income inequality. Agree? If no check this – IMF Publication

    …increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down…

    If businesses want to earn good profits in long term; businesses need to improve purchasing power of poor. Why? When people will have enough money to buy products/services, then only profits will increase at a better rate. Isn’t it? The simple explanation to this is – once poorer population gets resources (buying power) market size for companies increase multiple times. The increase would not be for one company but for every company in the market. One example of that could be involvement in CSR activity wherein poor can get good basic facilities and opportunities to earn. Once the poor can earn, they can spend too! Of course a caution here is – CSR is not charity, it should not become charity where it may lose its meaning.

    If this logic is clear – shouldn’t business be investing in making people prosperous? Once we do this we would solve a big problem – poverty. Hopefully, we will be able to not only grow the businesses but also grow every strata of society. Isn’t it? This is interdependent co-arising.

    Let me share a store, a very old & cliche, but I think that can drive home the point.

    Heaven HellLong ago a person wanted to see how heaven and hell were. An angle obliged and granted the wish. Person was blindfold and was sent to hell first.

    When the blindfold was removed, person was standing at the entrance to a great dining hall, full of round tables piled high with delicious foods of all kinds.

    The person noticed that, people seated around those round tables but their bodies were thin, and faces gaunt and creased with frustration. Each person sitting on dinning table held a spoon though their arms had no elbows and the spoons were four feet long. These people could reach the food on those platters, but could not get the food back to their mouths.

    Next the person was sent to the heaven. In the heaven the entrance to the dining hall was big, it too had round tables with piles of lavish feast as hell had. Here too people did not have elbows in arms and they were holding long spoons about same length as the hell. The person noticed that the people in heaven were plump and happy, the dinning hall was full of joy and laughter. Situation in both – Heaven and Hell were similar, however there was difference in the milieu, the reason?

    The difference between heaven and hell was – the people in heaven were using those long spoons to feed others so effectively everyone was full, plump & happy.

    Source of the story is AnomalyBeta and LinkedIn

    —

    So, if we take the concept of interdependent co-arising as the core of growth, capitalism or communism or any economic structure we follow we will surely have inclusive growth. The catch here will be – value of money will decline, and exclusivity (as marketing or demand / supply concepts of economics) will play in different fashion. In whatever case at least the basic necessities hopefully be fulfilled.

    Other blogs on inequality – The Price of Inequality, Not so trickling down!, Economics concepts and equality and Has the time for this idea come? and Inclusive growth

  • Dont divide – we are all interdependent







    Yes I know you must be wondering as if the topic is not complete or I missed something? This blog is not related with politics or religious division either. No, no I am not going to write about terrorist attacks again. They are becoming something very common now a days. We do need a solution to that with Talks, if that does not work perhaps force.

    Look inwardsThe year started on a very strange note – people wrote if 2016 is similar to 2008? The world bank reduced forecast of world GDP growth rate to 2.9% however had a positive outlook on growth of India. However, as we read news like this, we tend to think – ok make this strata analyse this. How about the developing countries as a whole? How is Europe doing? How about China? So we try to divide and look at each as individual or strata or country, isnt it? We are all interdependent, we must think of the whole world. If we look at worldwide trend, we realize that 2.9% is lowered expectation, that is a cause of concern. When such concerns are raised we must do one thing – turn inwards. This inwards is applied on an individual level as well as a local level e.g. the smallest strata we are considering for growth for example country. Look for options for improvement locally. When we see troubles in GDP growth worldwide – the best option to consider is looking for improving economy at country level – increasing local consumption, improving livelihood of the citizen by infrastructure or other basic needs. Because these small steps add to the monolith of global GDP, isnt it?

    The other thing to keep in mind is – when a hungry person eats, that adds to his/her health. If a stuffed person eats extra, his/her health may deteriorate, isnt it? When we are seeing world GDP, we must concentrate on the underdeveloped not on developed world as the driving force for growth. In the end once again – we are all interdependent.

    Image source – Petfinder.com

  • Chicken in the “poultry farm of economy”







    It was October and winters were just starting in Canada, for a change it was nice weather for me. I had not seen < 10 degrees in Mumbai for almost a decade now. In this beginning of winter we – Anil, Abhijit, Prasad and I – were talking about eggs being Veg or non-veg food. I was the only Veg person amongst all and do not eat egg (by choice). So the point went on to whether egg has life & how does fertilization of egg happen?

    poultry

    That discussion became an argument and point of contention. I said I do not eat egg because of my choice, I do not want to question whether an unfertilized egg should be considered as veg & I (and many more Veg) should consume egg.

    It was an interesting question, I never had thought of this. So I searched on net and of course others too did it. The argument was won by Abhijit in the process of egg fertilization. My mind was running in different direction when I read the production process or making of an egg! If you want the drift read how egg production happens (inside a chicken!) here.

    Hens are like gumball machine (as the author of the blog calls it), popping eggs every 25 hours. Hen keeps on producing eggs through its process of ovulation, where Ovum is released to infundibulum, to magnum, to isthmus and to shell glands. The most surprising and disappointing part comes here at shell gland. The white shell which we see in egg is made by not either the diet (ok that is good) or by procuring enough calcium from the hen’s body. Yes, calcium is taken from hen’s body e.g. bones if enough calcium is not consumed by it. Just imagine daily this hen is producing egg and if enough calcium is not in its diet it is decomposing its body to produce the egg.

    Now let us think about hens as human, poultry farm as world economy (well I want to say this but still want to mince the words) and owners of poultry farm are the few who are heading World Bank, IMF, Banks and politicians. They perhaps do not care about what happens to the hen what they want is their egg next day. Oh yes, the owner of poultry farm does health check-up, takes care of sanitation & cheks quality of feed (equivalent of running education and development programs), but its as good a guess of yours as mine – for what?

    Making of shell of an egg and effectively the whole DAILY process of production of egg made me think of humans as the chicken. We are burning our lives (ask chicken uses its bones); why to make the economy work! An economy which is judged by GDP, share market growth and value of money et al. and who is at the core of it all? The Pseudo-owners or the proprietor of the economy of the world!

    Abhijit helped me learn that Veg people can eat eggs which isn’t fertile as that does not have life in it & it could be called similar to any dairy produce.

    Image source http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/AgroCommodities/54197/

  • Think it over!







    This is a wonderful video. I just got it on Whatsapp thought to share it without any opinion, just watch and ponder, writing anything regarding the thoughts of speaker would make me wander in very many directions. So better just watch it.

    “Oh my god!” Have you ever thought about those things, speaker is speaking?

    This video made me literally say – Oh My God! the topic for LBC (Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium) blog. But I thought that those who can understand must think seriously on what the speaker says. So, I didn’t title this blog – Oh my god. Other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order – Ashok,  gaelikaa,  Lin,  Maxi, Padmum,  Ramana Uncleji,  Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. This time I was the one who posted very late, do visit blogs of others they must have posted their opinions too.

  • Mayhem, is that?







    Last month when I heard the word “mayhem” with respect to the share market, instead of checking the SENSEX I checked dictionary. Though I knew the meaning of Mayhem (thanks to my preparation for GRE, when I learnt a lot of English words). I am sure many would know the meaning of the word.

    I had always related the word Mayhem to violence. Is the share market drift up or down a mayhem? Is it not extending our imagination and making share market swings more important than the actual violence around us? For me Mayhem is what is happening in Syria. What has been happening in the name of religion, what is happening around man-made borders of the nations, man-made mental borders (barriers) around ‘my religion’ is better than yours and ‘my belief system’ is better than yours. Have you seen the photographs of Aylan Kurdi? A 3 year old kid who drowned. Those situations are mayhem and not the perceived value around stocks rising and dropping. These perceived values or more valuable to us than the actual values of human life!

    NYSE 10 yearsThose who can pour in their comments about ‘collateral damages’ or ‘life ends one day’ – The teachings of the Buddha about impermanence. Please understand two things – 1. This value of stocks you value and are defending right now, is also impermanent and 2. yes our life is limited (in human form), but it does not give anyone the freedom to kill someone else, which ISIS is doing selectively. All these are man made problems (stock value or terrorism), solution too has to be from us.

    “This too will pass” – No judgement its all about perception. Please apply this not just on the false causes you are fighting (for example ISIS or the terrorists) for or valuing (share market) too much. Some day or the other we will see correction in the values of stock (check image above, 2008-2010, it will keep on repeating at different levels). Are we sure we are going to see appreciation (correction) in the values of our Morales? Our defining one event as “Mayhem” and the other as a twitter trend and moving on? Are we really working towards solving such issues as Terrorism?

    would we please call a right thing “Mayhem” than a share market correction, which is driven by greed and blind following (technical analysis / algorithmic decisions) rather than fundamental position of economy.

  • We are no different – Up or Down







    I am watching the highway from my hotel room at 6th floor, a bird flies just at the same level as I am currently. What an interesting sight that is – cars (and humans within) are down on road however fast they can drive and here up about 60 feet from the ground a bird is flying effortlessly. More interestingly I am able to witness all this in an AC room without any qualm of weather and being at a foreign country. The birds are not worried about the height they achieve while flying, unlike humans who care too much for the high’s their company share, fast pace of growth of their wealth et al. At times we humans do not even bother to play with numbers to show these growth figures which are fudged.Toshiba

    This weekend I read in the Economist that Japanese company Toshiba was involved with accounting fraud for last 7 years. In this duration there were 3 different CEOs, all let that happen. Where has it not happened – USA (Enron), India (Satyam) and Japan (Toshiba) sure there must be big/small cases everywhere in the world. I always had high regards for Japanese system and people – but Toshiba has let me down. The inference is same – many people are shortsighted. Here Keynes should not be blamed for making a comment – “in the long run we all are dead”, his context was different.

    The problem with corporate world is (specially with listed companies) the CXO and board is more interested in showing quarterly results over the long term. In fact, the plague of living quarter by quarter comes down to the sales associate level too. If they want their bonus or incentives they too hPoor on footpathave to jack up their sales numbers. How they do it, can be a different topic of debate.

    Such incidents let me ask the same question again and again – What more you need? When will we stop? Are the markets – that govern these listed companies – moral? And why do I think about these things?

    The last question to myself lets me relate us – Humans – to the character of Ice age – Scrat. Scrat is running behind its one corn seed and it is unending running for the same for last 4 series. We are the same – whether we become a CXO of Toshiba or just a daily wages worker on the streets of Mumbai – who has to think of this ability to feed his/her family tomorrow.

    My take is only one fold – Until we merge whole of human life (include business, economics, science, politics etc) to spirituality we would see the kind of frauds happening.

    This blog relates to LBC (Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium) blog topic but not exactly the same – Up and Down. Though I was supposed to write on that topic last Friday but could do it today. Other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order – Ashok,  gaelikaa,  Lin,  Maxi, Padmum,  Ramana Uncleji,  Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. This time I was the one who posted very late, do visit blogs of others they must have posted their opinions too.

    Image source – Toshiba executive – AFP Link, Rediff Indian Poverty figures

  • Economics concepts and equality







    I was thinking about this strange experiment. What is we conclude end of day today that, everyone is given a new currency DMV (Digital Monetary Value) 2000. Any currency anyone has in his /her account is NULL except DMV 2000 after end of day today. Any other assets whatsoever are also NULL.

    maxresdefaultThis will bring everyone on the same economic level.Socialists want that, right? Next day onwards everyone has to work in DMV equivalents only. What would happen? Would we see equal socio-economic status of the world in say 20 years? Because everyone started off afresh with same amount of currency? Would the world be same as it is today (without DMV), after 20 years? The inequality will creep-in. Socialism seems to miss something in that sense of the world? The inequality in the world is not only because of the madness human-beings are involved with, but also because of the way soft things are build. The lobbying would continue, even after the DMV, and citizen’s representatives will make laws to favor few. Education will also make an impact the inequality generated. Relationships will play another role in creating the difference. Result? We would end up with the same The Price of Inequality.

    Capitalists will disagree to the starting point of the experiment itself. However, if capitalists understand the basic flaw of socialists approach they can understand last three sentences of the previous paragraph.

    I noticed on the net that If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. [Tweet “Albert Einstein said – If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be #Buddhism”] Though my opinion is – one must not even accept everything in Buddhism also as  panacea. I would suggest two point if not anything else of Buddhism – 1. compassion & knowing interdependent co-arising and 2. meditation.

    The problem is the way we think, we need to change the way we think (what we think we become) [Tweet “what we think we become”]. Here is an example – Asian shares climb after dismal U.S. jobs report. This is the situation when one side of the world is in trouble the other half enjoys and makes profit. Are we going to understand the true meaning of equality? Forget meditation for some time, are we going to learn – interdependent co-arising?

    Image source – http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hdr6vSYZXGo/maxresdefault.jpg

  • landslide







    When Alan Greenspan said in 2008 – “I really didn’t get it until very late.” It was as if someone was digging under his feet and Mr AG did not know. May be Mr AG really did not know, because he was keeping his eyes and ears closed. May be he was so inebriated in the wheel of growth that not just Mr AG but any banker was not willing to feel the “overheating economy”, hear or see that someone was digging deeper – under their feet.

    These words overheating and digging remind me of environment and when I received the above video* from someone on Whatsapp I could relate this video to one and only thing – economy.

    When I was watching this video, I was having strange feelings in my mind that the economy is going to do in down turn once again in 2015-16. “Everything just works as perfectly as it can…until it stops working!” That seems to be the case yet again for the economy.

    There are other reasons to believe that we are going to have a tough time. Though I do not want to be a doomsayer or conspiracy theorist, but here are few things – Developed world wages freeze analysis (The Economist), ISIS is likely to help economy sustain (wars have helped bring economy back on track), Upcoming elections in the USA, France unhappy and rise of EU opponent leader there. Though when it comes to EU, I wish it remains an integrated unit, that is a start for unifying the world in the lines of – interdependent co-arising.

    Watch that video once again – remember Economy goes down like this. Have we ever questioned the actual reasons for these things? Dig deeper! This digging deeper to make some extra pound creates the problem. Economy crumbles like this when we do not nurture it the way we – as a collective group – fail to maintain the hill which just crumbled in the video. As capitalists too – we are individually smart collectively dumb.

    *The origin of this video is unknown to the author – video shared by Dr Mala Kapadia.

  • Served by biases







    Though the technology has made things / opinions / news available and discoverable, however this has resulted in information overload as well. This information overload has made us divide, restructure and focus on what we (as an individual) want to read, know and learn. Look at the image, for example from The Indian Express news site. There are many such examples, where we are served by biased news (in India many people call it paid media). Recently, Network18 group was acquired by Reliance group.

    What you want to readThis content customization or focus (in marketing called as targeting) of each one of us is actually alienating us from many realities. Reason for that is – we either do not know what actually happened but are bombarded by the other side with their perspective. In that case responsibility lies with us to know or try to understand what is actually happened. Thanks to the customization and therefore negative information we have already received from our “sources” we do not know what is right and if something is serious. I have been occasionally termed biased when I tried to provide different perspectives. Tough time! one has to live through it.

    Take an example of environmental damages. If you followed environmental cause related opinion makers you could know something wrong is happening, but if you are just following weather reports – you would say everything is ok! this year this typhoon, tsunami, hurricane, earthquake happened. Why? Well, have we asked these questions? Can we identify or try to search for the reasons for such changes in environment? Monsoon in India is delayed this year, can we ascertain reasons; and if we can avoid the reasons.

    We make our economics / political / national / Environmental opinions based on such biases. Take an example of economics. Capitalists’ project their system is right, socialists (communists) projects wrongs in the capitalists approach and vice versa. Is there a possibility when we think and design something which tries to bring good from different systems? Think, open your mind and look at the bigger picture. Should not we ask ourselves – are we served unbiased information or we are seeing what powerful people want to show us.

    Disclaimer – The author has no intentions to tarnish image of Indian Express/Network18. It was the easiest available screenshot for providing author’s perspective.