Monday, October 30, 2006

SNIOP

SNIOP

Like many writers I am not going to keep the abbreviation a suspense for long. SNIOP stands for

‘Susceptible to negative influences of people’

I am just recapitulating a training I had attended a year back while @Wipro. The training was all about a video, in which a Man faces a brutal accident. For the doctors in a leading hospital in US his survival seemed impossible, until few days after, he recovers from his coma, and realizes that this was his rebirth. For all the doctors around his survival was a miracle. Even one doctor proclaims that it would have been better had he died, because his life is going to be painful hereon!

This Man could hardly walk,talk,eat,sleep,breathe,move,drink and to sum up he was a dead man alive. But wonder the God’s creation, he could talk to himself. Meaning he could think. He realized from whatever was happening around him that he had a miraculous escape. When the doctor saw tears rolling down his eyes he came up to him and said Be Confident!

This man thought only this. He should not let God down. He believed that God gave him rebirth and he should not waste this attempt of His!

He went on to Motivate himself day in day out. Few days later he could hear and see. And sad for him he could only hear pessimistic things about his state. But that night he decided he would breathe himself. When he communicated this to his Nurse she did not comply and said No to removing the ventilators. When the nurse was asleep he decided he would remove the ventilators himself and he did it! And Goodness me he could breathe. He cried again thanking God and within few days he could talk. He requested the doctor who was stunned to see his recovery to get a wooden plank to be placed at a cupboard which he could always see. The plank would have the word SNIOP imprinted on it. And everyday he would motivate himself by reading that and convert all the negative energy around him into positive ones!

And 8 months after the accident the Man got discharged from the hospital and walked his way into the Car before revealing to the doctor that SNIOP means “Susceptible to the negative influences of people”. I feel every human being on this earth to watch that movie. And what I have written here just transpires 1% of what I had seen. It was such a powerful movie!

I have so many to infer from this story which was one the best motivation movies I have watched.

1) In times of stress its very important one motivates himself. Infact there’s nothing else that can keep us alive. When we fail to develop this trait we end up becoming sadist’s or end up in a suicide.

2) I heard someone say this, definitely not Sidhu :) “The world is not flat, not circular, Its crooked!”. Negative influence is more that nitrogen in the atmosphere. It’s very important we develop a resistance to this. The only way we can do this is to develop positive attitude and in our own little means spread positive energy around us.

3) If you believe you can, you can and you cant, you can’t. In both ways you are right. This seems so often heard. So I don’t want to write more on this!

4) Always trust in God when you believe in anyone around you. After all there is something definitely mysterious in everybody’s birth,life and death. Not everything is under Human conception. If it was there would have definitely been a prototype of a brain developed by now, considering that there is one for almost every organ in our body!

And to end this article of mine on a philosophical note I remember a kabir’s quote I read when I was in my 6th standard of schooling. The translated version of the saying means to say “All of us remember God in times of distress and none of us when we are happy, but those who remember God in times of happiness will never have a phase of distress in life”

Spread the positive energy!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Sagacious Schumi

Sagacious Schumi

I always didn’t want to make my blog an editorial one! For the simple reason that to report what happened, is done extensively by the media and its stupid for me to do it with little inputs. But I just cannot stop writing about what I saw yesterday. I saw attitude. I saw determination to win. To sum it all up I saw what Success means. Success according to me as I have already written about, means Consistency. Being consistent in whatever you do best.

In the arena of sports if ever a game became dull because someone won repeatedly and the game hence became so predictable ,that game is none other than the invigorating Formula One till 2 years back(Both invigorating and dominating only then :)! .To my knowledge the epitome’s of consistency in sports were 4 Men- Sachin, Tiger woods ,Lance Armstrong and the invincible Schumi. Atleast they are the ones I knew and admired.

And I just want to untiringly admire Schumi in this blog for the simple reason that he retired yesterday. Retired with pride and sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction to both his fans and himself.

I just wanted to analyse what was so special about his Man that he made me write so much about him. Considering the fact that I have been watching Formula One only for the past 2 years. The two years when Schumi’s career started to fade! There are lessons to learn from him here..

Lesson No.1 –Never Give up.

In the last race of his life Schumi to all his fans disappointment started 10th in the grid. As he started the race with just two laps completed he raced to 6th position and before I could even believe his agileness he was behind Fisecella and fighting with him for the fifth place. And Man another misfortune he had his tyres burnt and went to his pit before even finishing 5 laps and had a tyre change. I thought he was going to retire from the race but he came out of the pit and believe me he was the last on the grid and heights he was already a close back marker to the race leader Massa. I just felt so bad because I didn’t want him to retire at such a disgrace. I was 100% sure he would have reached the podium had he not burnt his tyres .I switched off my TV set and started browsing on my laptop.

But although my Man was no way expected to get even any points for his constructor I was still tempted to switch On my TV again and see him for one last time driving. And what was I seeing. Schumi was on 8th position and within minutes threateningly close to becoming 6th on the track racing past raikonen on 7th. And there were 17 people on the track by then. Imagine the grit, from 18th to 8th in some 30 laps consedering 5 of them were laps with safety cars on the track and obviously didnt allow any overtaking!. I just felt in the final few laps that this guy shouldn’t retire and should win next years championship! That’s whom you call a Hero. And that’s why Ganguly isn’t called one.

And as the race ended I was so happy and proud because Schumi ended racing past the guy who was the reason behind his first pit shop. Inspite of never being a race leader this guy was fastest on the circuit twice beating his own time!! From 10 to 6 to 18 to 4. I just don’t have words to express this spirit. I just want to salute this Great sportsman. He just dominated the sport and retired with honour.

Lesson No.2- You should know when to retire with honour.

I think it’s very important to have this skill. I have seen so many people who inspite of being very successful in life ended their career with a disgrace simply because they didn’t know when to call it a day. I have two examples that strike me now! No prizes for guessing the first- Ganguly and the second Vajpayee. And this is one reason I want to admire Schumi. Because its so tempting to quit something you were a leader in. After all the more you play the more you earn!

Lesson No.3 – Fight for a comeback.

Be it yesterday’s race or this formula one season, Schumi for me came from no where. Alonso was becoming slowly but surely the next invincible chap. And imagine the Japan Grand prix that might have given Alonso sleepless nights! Taking pole but schumi was so unlucky. I am saying this because a Ferrari Engine failure was history. But it did happen on the penultimate race of the season and Schumi’s career! But salute to the hero who came back strong and made everyone believe this guy still has potential!

And I don’t want to write about my other heroes –Tiger Woods, Sachin and Lance Armstrong. You know why they are called heroes now!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Riding on the boom

Riding on the boom

Pessimism and spiritualism are the most fashionable thought outlooks today. I know this pretty well but the tinge of pessimism and philosophy is very hard to ignore every time I sit down to write!

News No.1

My dear reader,How on earth do you interpret this? A company called Google buys a company called you tube for 7500 crores!!(1.65B$)

You tube is a company that just has a portal with loads of web multimedia content in its database. It’s a company with a mere 67 employees. It’s a company that started with a venture funding of 3.5 million dollars( 161 crores). 7500 crores for 161 crores ? I just have one word for this, ‘Ridiculous’

This is just a show of opulence and an attempt to exploit the confidence and fame Google has with investors.

News No. 2

Tata plans to buy Corus Steel ,at a deal valued at more than 10B$

Now the same question repeated. How on earth do you interpret this? Tata steel is a 3.5B$ company that aims to buy a steel giant valued at more than 15B$.

Corus Steel is an angle-dutch company with 50000 employees and a turnover of Ten billion pounds. Now is the time to remind my readers about the topic. Why I saw this is riding on the boom? Where will Tata get the money for such a mighty acquisition? Tata plans to source money from investors and plans to float a bond for 2B$. And take a loan of 6B$ from Standard Chartered Bank. Again a show of opulence and a showcase of exploiting investor’s liquidity.

That poor fellow was scary of investing in stocks and preferred to open a FD with Standard Chartered Bank. Look where his money eventually goes :) .Philosophy not missed in this article!

Back on track,

I am just striking at some illogical valuations and some illogical acquisitions. Why on earth can’t someone be pessimistic if such deals happen around us. And you have another fashionable word discovered with justifies all these acquisitions. And the word is Consolidation.

Consolidation in one industry that relies heavily on a depleting Natural resource and Consolidation in another industry that relies on Open source data.

Where are we heading. Are the investors being fooled.. Are we riding on a boom that’s gonna become unsustainable because we rode rashly and lost our balance in the process?

Sorry I tried to be neutral but the pessimism seems to peep so very often. I will write more about this!

Beware my dear investors :( .Drive safe and drive with a smile!

Thursday, October 05, 2006

America is living beyond its means- Larry Elliot,The Guardian.

I read a excellent article about the fate of US econmy.Posting it below. Read it repeatedly!

America is living beyond its means

China and India will be calling the shots when the US is no longer top dollar

Larry Elliott, economics editor,The Guardian

It's 2056. After a coup in Saudi Arabia, the new government announces it is cutting off supplies of its dwindling stock of oil to the United States. The White House responds by sending in the troops, but is forced to withdraw after Beijing says it will only continue shoring up the dollar if the military action is called off.

Marking the 100th anniversary of Suez, the Americans have no choice but to comply. Fanciful? Ludicrous? Certainly, that would have been the reaction of the traders on Wall Street who last week sent the Dow Jones industrial average to within a whisker of its all-time high. But even if the US can avoid a hard landing in the short term, as equity dealers believe it can, the medium and long-term risks to the economy remain.

Optimism seems to be inspired by falling oil prices and the expectation that the next move in interest rates from the Federal Reserve will be down. It is an optimism not shared by the bond market, which is sending out clear warnings of impending recession. It is possible those who have pushed the Dow back well over 11,000 points have got it right. Many economists believe, however, that the equity market has got it wrong. They can hear the sound of fluttering wings as the chickens come home to roost.

Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC, has downgraded his forecast of US growth next year to 1.9%, and believes that by the end of 2007 the economy will be expanding at only just over 1% a year. That, by US standards, is very slow growth and would certainly lead to a sharp jump in unemployment. The Fed would be cutting rates by this time next year in an attempt to get the economy going again. It may not be that simple. For one thing, the downturn in the housing market looks like it has a lot further to run. Activity and prices may continue falling for another year, and with US consumers already drowning in a sea of debt it's not obvious that they will be prepared to load up on any extra borrowing, whatever the level of interest rates. And the wisdom of curing the hangover from one bubble by another binge has to be questioned.
Consumers have been using their homes like ATMs - borrowing against rising prices - but this cannot go on forever. The US economy needs quite a prolonged period in which consumer spending grows more slowly than the economy: that is the only way that the trade deficit is going to be reduced. There are those who say that the trade deficit is not a problem for the US. They argue that it is perfectly sustainable to run sizeable deficits in perpetuity because the dollar's status as a reserve currency means that there will always be demand for US assets. But there are two points here. First, running a permanent trade deficit affects the structure of your economy. It means fewer manufacturing jobs where productivity tends to be higher and more jobs in the service sector, where productivity tends to be lower.

The US has struck a Faustian bargain with its trading partners, particularly China, responsible for about one third of the $700bn-plus trade total last year. As the American economist Tom Palley puts it: "US consumers get lots of cheap goods in return for which they give over paper IOUs that cost less to print. Meanwhile, China creates millions of jobs and builds modern factories that are transforming it into an industrial superpower, and it also accumulates billions of dollars in financial claims against the US. From this perspective, trade deficits don't matter because there are no limits to either government or private borrowing, and because manufacturing doesn't matter either." The logic of this, Palley notes drily, is that the US would benefit even further if China devalued its exchange rate and ran a larger trade surplus. The second point is potentially much more explosive: it is the one sketched out in the crystal ball gazing at the top of this piece. What would happen if, as a result of global developments over the coming decades, the dollar ceased to be the reserve currency of choice. This was a point raised by Avinash Persaud, one of the financial sector's more original thinkers, in a recent lecture in New York. Persaud's argument is as follows.

Throughout history, there has always tended to be one dominant reserve currency along with a host of lesser rivals. In the 19th century Britain was the pre-eminent economy and sterling was the main reserve currency. Yet currencies don't retain their dominance forever; part of Britain's problem at the time of Suez was that it was struggling to adjust to a world in which it was no longer the top-dog currency but the creditors came knocking at the door asking for their cheques to be cashed. The US is living beyond its means, hoping that nobody cashes the cheques it has been merrily writing as the current account has gone deeper into the red. That's the advantage of being a reserve currency, even though, as Persaud notes, there is no rule which says that you have to run current account deficits simply because you are a reserve currency.
Britain didn't a century ago. In the decade or so up to the first world war it had a trade surplus of 5% of GDP. "That is a mirror image of the US today. The UK was in surplus by as much as the US is in deficit." That deficit has enabled the Chinese to build up their industrial strength at a rapid rate, so much so that it is probable that China - and perhaps India - will have overtaken the US as the world's largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis, at least) by 2050. Persaud thinks that the upshot of this will be that in the next few decades the dollar will start to lose its reserve status just as sterling did in the last century. "In the case of sterling's loss of reserve status, world war one and two accelerated a process that had begun more slowly before and ended abruptly with debt and inflation."

Today the process is also being accelerated - by wars where the end is as elusive as the enemy and by a consumerism built on a property bubble. Perhaps we will not have to wait until 2050. In my lifetime, the dollar will start to lose its reserve currency status, not to the euro but to the renminbi or the rupee. This would clearly have massive economic and geopolitical consequences. As Persaud rightly says: "If it was economically and politically painful for the UK, even though its international financial position did not begin from a position of heavy deficit, what will it be like for the US which has become the world's largest debtor. There will be an avalanche of cheques coming home to be paid when the dollar begins to lose its status."

And this "avalanche of cheques" is likely to make for the most horrendous geo-political tension. The idea that the US will give up global financial hegemony without a fight seems fanciful in the extreme.