Business to the Buddha

Tag: Govt

  • Panama leaks, IPL & the rulers







    Kill! Kill! Kill! the arena was full with the viewers and they were shouting, it was horrific scene. The gladiator was looking at almost a corpus – the other gladiator – who had lost the battle. Fate of this gladiator was in the hands of winner or the king. People were giving their verdict ‘to kill the losing gladiator’. What was wrong with these people who were enjoying such brutal and life taking game? I suddenly woke up and started thinking about this dream.

    The arena has changed, shouts for kill is changed too and now instead of the queen asking us to “eat cake, if we do not have bread.” The politicians are serving us IPL and other trifling stuff to divert our attention.

    No wonder there is widespread corruption, Panama Leaks seems to be the tip of the iceberg. Can we doubt of existence of 100s of other law firms in Panama or any other tax heaven? If there are ten more such law firms worldwide, what number we are looking at – in terms of corruption or black money? The problem is in most countries, let me take India as a case in point (as I live in India), there may be parallel everywhere though.

    Secondly, heard about few of the World Cup T20 matches were fixed. Vijay Mallya haggling with banks after eating thousands of corers for settlement. On top of this haggling RBI governor stating – Releasing defaulter names can ‘chill business activity’. We are fighting with each other on who should or must win, who is in your or my dream team and here the whole economy is at the ransom of those who are so powerful and mighty and yet in so much debt (and defaulted on debt) that if their names are made public economy of country will be standstill! At the same time, it is beyond doubt that those who have defaulted have a lot of money stocked in tax heavens. Otherwise how come Dr Vijay Mallya say that he can pay 4000 Cr in coming days. Why didnt he pay this amount before KFA becoming defunct?

    It is not just about one man. It is about those thousands who have stocked money and poor people of their country are dieing of hunger or more recently of thurst (In Maharashtra India) or are jobless. Once again quoting – Mr Rajan governor of Reserve Bank of India Panama Papers: Dangerous to question the legitimacy of wealth! Seriously! If people have legitimate wealth why would they hide it in tax heaven? Well, its likely that the answer will be – according to xyz legal framework created by (many of the corrupt politicians as the law maker) the then Govt it is legitimate to under Liberalized Remittance Scheme to put your money out of the country.

    It is like 1. making rules for your own and close clouts convenience and 2. than hiding behind the same to make your ill gotten  money the garb of legitimacy.

    FarmerIn all these – we are trending on twitter about local teams matches as hashtags! Forget that, we are not even considering that people and their cattle are thrusty but we are enjoying the tamasha of IPL where a lot of water is going in drain. Again, what is the argument? Maharashtra Govt may lose crores of rupees if matches are moved out of state. What is the probability and assurance that Govt will use the revenue generated by IPL for 1. prevention that is providing water to drought hit areas and 2. correction that is taking steps so that in future we do not face drought like situation.

    Governments (in effect rulers) earn most in the tragedies of citizen – be it flood in UP or earth quack in J&K or drought in Orisa or Maharashtra even floods! We’ll forget all the natural or man-made calamities and go back to our TV set or stadium and start shouting – six, or Kohli or slogan of a team. On parallel worldwide – for IPL in India, we’ve soccer in the Europe, NBA, NFL in USA and so on!

    This time the shouts of KILL are changed that is it. This time rules don’t ask us to eat cake if there is no bread, they show us the revenue generated in Govt tax collection. But problem remains – Forget terrorist! who knows the french revolution this time may explode the whole world?

    Image 1 source – http://famouswonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Depiction-of-Gladiator-games-by-Jean-Leon_Gerome_Pollice_Verso-400.jpg

    Note – Author referred to RBI Governor’s statements, but believes the rot in the system is political & crony capitalistic.

  • Has the time for this idea come?







    When I wrote Problem of top 5% blog I was little too concerned due to various reasons. One was, I – being a centralist – am not a good judge of the situation in completely capitalistic societies. Second was – I myself was at the center of the example. How can I judge myself. I may get biased was the very obvious possibility. I shared the draft with Prof Mankad, again various reasons. He knows me, he has lived in the US for many years, he is an economist etc. His response was –

    QUOTE# – The solution lies with top 5/10%. Regulators – teachers, principals – also bank on 10% and would not want to do anything to hurt them. (Refer to a very long article in Huffington* Post yesterday -26th Sept 2014 – on ‘culture’ at FED NY to ignore the trespasses of Goldman’s.)
    With current socioeconomic yardsticks of success, it will take time for the 10% to shed their arrogance. The society may attempt to generate a social consciousness to move away emphasis (not d-emphasise) top 10 %. Can we start with admissions to prime colleges? Take an honest, mathematically random system of selection of say 50 from top 500? Such a system would retain the academic standard and defuse the arrogance of top 50 and perhaps reduce the commercial exploitative practices of coaching classes.
    Same practice may be chosen in recruitment of employees. (And perhaps in selection of brides!) [that “bride” part a “late cut” – as Prof Mankad calls it 🙂 – on me]
    This would be revolutionary. Who will start the revolution? UNQUOTE

     

    So the possible solutions Prof Mankad suggested starts from the top. Top 5% or 10% need to shred their arrogance (read Problem of top 5% a figurative real life example of representing our society, economy and even schools).

    An interesting case happened recently in India. A Gujarat based Jeweler – Savji bhai – has gifted generously to his employees this Diwali. Apparently he is a standard 4th dropout! Mahatma Gandhi used to say what Prof Mankad suggested in his opinion – “…the wealth of the owners is distributed among the workers and when this situation is arrived at, only then would India grow in real terms…”

    According to reports Savji Bhai has given Diwali gifts based on a loyalty program, so even though he did not study typical “Employee Engagement” and “Loyalty Marketing” or any other jargon of an MBA. Additional interesting this is – he supports pilgrimage of his employees families, has made stadium in Surat.

    Just to conclude – Mahatma Gandhi said wealth distribution as the way for Swaraj, Top 5% are hoarding the wealth (reference Dr Joseph Stiglitz) and even Govts are afraid of top 5% so we have a creative solution which Savjibhai experimented with recently. Has the time for this idea come? Wish we see Business and the Buddha co-exist positively to make this world a better place to live and be enlightened.

    NDTV interview (I am yet to watch it though)

    Savjibhai in a brief speech (Gujarati) 2012 – when not many people knew him.

     

    Note –

    # The blog Problem of top 5% was published on 11th Oct, draft created was on 26-27th Sept. Prof Mankad shared his opinion on 27th Sept.

    * I read Huffington Post article which Dr Mankad referred, however currently not able to get that link, so here is related link – http://www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed

  • Problem of top 5%







    screen shot 2014-09-28 at 2.32.00 pm.pngWhen I was studying in 12th, I had hoard of intelligent classmates. About 10% of the class was very good in Mathematics. We had completed a couple of chapters of 12th Math in advance. When these chapters were discussed in Math class session we did what we could do the best. We were wicked – as any smart fellow can be – we used to solve these problems in no time before rest of the 90% could even understand the concept. Than we used to start discussing the topic between/among ourselves. Our teacher used to be disappointed, she could not tell us anything – as we had solved the problem, we were discussing the problem (how to solve it faster and not a movie). She used to feel that she is missing on her responsibility of teaching the concept to the rest of the class.

    We were wicked, we were intelligent, we were brutal (for our other classmates) and we were trying to make as much out of our class time that we can be more competitive. The reason was whole of our class was preparing for State Pre-Engineering Test (MPPET) – 19 or 25 of us made it to Engineering out of 70 students  (which was a record for school). My friend and me were among some toppers! So, we were doing whatever we could do to get to the topics which were tough for us. One way was completing other topics faster [because we were not able to force the teacher to start topic of our choice].

    Just to give you an example – Teacher was teaching Probability theory, we used to solve the problems in no time, as most of us (the 10%) were good in that. Probability otherwise was not a simple thing, so 90% were trying to grasp the concept; we are already talking in class. The 90% used to get hassled & were not able to understand whats going on! Ma’am was little too supportive to us – we were at the top! We (the 10%) wanted to finish Probability quickly and go to Vectors and 3-D Geometry. We were learning that ourselves and wanted to support our learning with class sessions. This nonsense kept on happening starting Calculus to XYZ to Probability sessions. After a while, Ma’am realized that these guys are beating the system. The “probability” of same happening in Vectors and 3-D Geometry session was increasing day by day.

    One day before start of the mathematics class, she called us (the 10%) of the class in a different class room. She told us – in as simple words as she could – “I know you people are intelligent, I appreciate it. You are very good at Mathematics. But you know what? I have a responsibility to teach the other 90% of the class as well. I would suggest you people to abstain from class for next couple of days, because this will help your other classmates to learn better!”

    We were not able to understand her this very simple message or a very polite order. We felt she was being sarcastic. We started being more regular. Kept on beating the system. Even the Principal could not do much as everyone in our school knew – all these people are “actually” toppers whatever subject you take. This happened in 1996-97 during our class 12th.

    Now, I am revisiting that time and thinking to replace – teacher & whole school staff with the Govt of any nation. We (the 10% of us, toppers) with the top 1% or 5% of the wealthiest/powerful of that nation. Rest of the 90% of my classmates as rest of the population of the country. Did you see any ways the top seated people are beating the system? If no, please re-read the story I narrated above. Change the situation – now do you think the teacher/principal (Govt) needed (needs) to do something different? Something to perform their duty better and manage the wicked, intelligent, smart, brutal and selfish “we the top 10% students” (the top 1% or5%)

    This is the problem of top 1% or 5% or 10%, they want to maximize their own profits, most of the times beating the system. Sometimes, we need to think – if I produce something, there should be enough money in market so that my prospective buyer can buy what I produce.

    At times, its about collectively growing!

    Disclaimer – The author could – at best – secure 2nd position and remained in top 10% most of his academic career.

    Image source – http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/542851c7eab8ead666120b0a-619-457/screen%20shot%202014-09-28%20at%202.32.00%20pm.png

    If you have more time read this – http://www.businessinsider.in/Cash-Hoarding-Is-A-2-5-Trillion-Problem-In-Asia/articleshow/43753643.cms

    Note – Check image above Corporate Cash Holding in Japan and Japan’s economy – read recent blog – Did Keynes fail Japan?