“There seems to be high likelihood of double dip!” When we heard our professor of macroeconomics Prof Mankad say that we could not believe it. I recently thought to plot some charts and realized that human sentiments are also equally responsible for this. The following is a graph, here we see an increase in the center yet once the peak is achieved there is a drop and no gain. Some call it correction. Well, frankly speaking these are my semester-wise undergrad scores.
When I had a quick look at the graph I said – ok! I did ok initially, and then my performance dropped, it hurts I improved myself and went down back somewhat. Alas! My undergraduate was over therefore I could not extrapolate things. Yet, if you sem one to two movement there seemed some similarity.
I tried relating it to the last 10-years NYSE performance. There were phenomenal similarities. I took 10 year performance because it seemed to me that post DOTCOM bubble burst would be a good point to start from, and some other logics. See sentiments are again at work.
Then I thought about the statement of Prof Mankad, double dip, what about that? There could be a possibility of double dip, why, how and when? Yesterday I was reading Financial Times front page news – Ireland resists bail-out pressure, and viola I got a hint. If nothing is done at this time perhaps the other bottom is not far.
I recalled another part of macroeconomics class. “Essentially all banks are bankrupt.” Though for self satisfaction we may call them BANKS, on which we bank. Nonetheless banks are sitting eternally on a time bomb ready to explode any time. The bomb of Debt!
If Ireland does not accept the support from EU perhaps we all would be doomed to see the second dip. The situation is a double edged sword – the world needs an enhanced banking system yet what I read somewhere “if you actually tried to manage according to the regulatory measurements, your bank would fail.” At such times I resort to TRIZ – the theory of inventive problem solving. I would comment on the SYSTEMS in general and TRIZ in next posts.
Today, after a long time I was watching Television, the channel was Fox History and program – building the ultimate: roller coaster. This program was a story of development of roller coasters, a very good and informative program. What struck to me was one development which was taken from the world war II German defense system. This system was a breakthrough in material for the wheel of the coaster. I started wondering, how these roller coaster designers took one thing (about 20 years old) from one place to different place and with some success. My take from this is – we can learn from anywhere; only basic need is willingness to learn and being open to possibilities. I heard some author earlier used a term – ‘possibility thinking’. This concept has been reinforced often to me. I have worked on TRIZ– the theory of inventive problem solving – and have worked on application of TRIZ (a very engineering based problem solving method) to social sector innovation and medical science etc. The concept of TRIZ is similar and very structured.
Possibility thinking Let me give one analogy – a glass is half-full. An optimist says – the glass is half full, a pessimist says – the glass is half empty and the possibility thinker says there is room for more water in the glass. Going one step further – what if the glass is not there? Some would say – Glass IS (many possibilities). In my opinion this is possibility thinking; when you say Glass IS, you open opportunities to think more and more about what can be? The challenge is to switch back and forth from structured to more creative thinking.
Coming back to the point of learning, the idea I want to reinforce is – we can learn from anywhere; only basic need is willingness to learn and being open to possibilities. The idea of this blog – Business to the Buddha was similar concept.
References –
1. Fox history schedule – http://www.foxhistory.com/Schedule/Daily.aspx
2. Glass half full – http://www.zazzle.com/glass_half_full_23_poster-228602679415734701
