Business to the Buddha

Tag: Panama papers

  • Farewell 2016







    Wish you a Very Happy New Year.

    Cherish the moments you enjoyed and learn from the mistakes made – that he how we must move on in life and celebrate. Isnt it? The year 2016 was eventful. Every year is eventful though New Year blog 2016, New Year blog 2015, New Year blog 2014, New Year Blog 2013, New Year blog 2012, New Year blog 2011  😉

    Terrorism – There is a new common for the world – terrorism – so that was as usual, religious extremism has not only kept its target India but added Europe to it. These apparently look like some unorganized terrorist attacks, but the end of many of these thread is common. The list is not small – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_2016 We need to ask ourselves – when are we going to be “human” behave like humans? Did we learn anything from this in 2016? In fact I wrote this and heard 2017 has started with terrorist attack in Turkey! Waste! These good for nothing parasites on the face of earth do not understand what nonsense they are involved in, if some religion teaches this that is not a religion at all.

    Business & Economics – There were few big developments in the year, first UK voted to leave European Union, second Wells Fargo of US was found out to be involved in a big scandal and third India demonetized high denomination currencies. Here is a wonderful Ted Talk on UK’s vote to leave EU.

    Wells Fargo scandal has no lesser words for taking strict actions against the high, mighty and decision makers who looked for Q-o-Q results and made up books, profits and rewards the culprits. You must watch this video to know how

    Demonetization in India shook many within India, and to utter surprise three others countries planed to follow suit – http://qz.com/867724/three-countries-across-three-continents-after-modis-india-demonitisation-has-spread-to-other-countries-too/

    What banks did post demonetization in India must be a subject matter of scrutiny same as Wells Forgo in the US.

    Another battle happening currently in India is Tata group Vs Cyrus Mistry (the story is yet to unfold fully in 2017). As of 10th Dec 2016 (source), Investors of Tata group have lost about Rs 81,000 crore (810 Billion INR) in seven top Tata group companies since October 24 as Mistry was replaced by Ratan Tata as Tata Sons chairman.

    Politics – Donald J Trump the next President of USA. It was most surprising and unthinkable when campaigning started last year. I wonder if what inspired Trump was mockery by Obama in white house in 2011.

    Corruption – There was enough and more hue and cry about Panama papers. Corruption of many rich people worldwide. What is Panama papers? Watch the following video to know more. We must ask each one of these filthy rich people – what would they get by making, hoarding and rolling so much money all over the world? Remember we all leave everything here, including the wealth.

    Somethings caught my eyes, were AT&T’s acquisition of Yahoo, LinkedIn’s by Microsoft and the phenomenon called Pokemon Go! https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/11/crunch-report-pokemon-go-mania/
    Pokémon Go added $9B to Nintendo’s value, global rollout continues within a week
    Pokémon Go has an estimated 7.5M U.S. downloads, $1.6M in daily revenue within a week
    Will 22K people turn up to catch Pokémon in San Francisco and what less – Robbers target Pokémon Go players in Missouri.

    What all these events have taught us? Humanity is important than a religion and terrorism. Globalization needs a perspective of interdependence at times we need to let go of some control, at times be need to think of inclusion. Every company has to be responsible, whether its Wells Fargo or Tata group. Never mock anyone, even if you are the president of the worlds most powerful, economically strong country. You will leave your wealth here only, pay your taxes instead of evading it. Legitimate money will make you and your money more respectable and in the end you would leave your body too here, wont take anything back with you. If you are doing something, put your heart and soul in it, make it awesome like the Pokemon Go!

    This was LBC topic for farewell to 2016, I am late, was bit occupied with a preparation for a workshop on IPR held yesterday 31st Dec. You can read other blogs of other Loose Bloggers Consortium members at Ramana Uncleji and Shackman.

  • 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.