Wall Street Bonuses, AIG under fire

So apparently all of America and it’s “Tax-paying Citizens” are hopping mad about top performers (and others, who were given retention plans etc.) being given bonuses with their pay. Isn’t it being blown a wee bit out of proportion though? For the below reasons possibly:

a) The bailout need would not change whether they got the bonuses or not. I understand the morality and the issues involved, but then, when the plans/contracts were signed, this was not the environment. Moreover, if you want to come out of a bad position, you need the best people working for you and making money for you. If you’re not planning to reward people who do well in their parts of the business, then how will AIG ever start making money. Last I checked, motivation was needed, wasn’t it?

b) One of these senators on bloomberg was questioning why some of the thousands of people laid off by citibank cannot be hired by AIG. Well, because a) There are contracts and contractual issues, b) You would be filling a seat with a fired lower preference guy from citibank by firing one of your top performers cause you had to pay them a bonus!

c) It’s really simple. I, as an employee, have the ability to make some money (or do anything else positive) for the firm that I work for. I want to be compensated for it. Especially in such a bad environment, if you do not hold on to the good people in your organisation who are actually making some money for you, then my guess is that the company (say AIG) would be in a worse off position and the losses would only be wider and the tax-payer would only be madder. Let them do their jobs now. Yes, most of them screwed up, but we all know that and they know that. Now let them work and let them be compensated if they can work well. The time to stop the flow of money was probably “then” and not “now”

d) It’s really EVERYONE who screwed up. Stop beating the banks up about it. Every person invested wrongly. Oh, and because they are poor citizens and dumb cows, its not their fault but because the bankers BANK, and they make a lot of money, they were supposed to be magicians or know-it-alls!!

Seriously, now these executives might be working for the tax-payer by proxy, as the government owns most of these firms, but that is not going to change that these are high stakes games and the best people in the business need to be paid the best amount of money. Stop being government-al in your thinking, or what you will get will be services and businesses that are as efficient as the government.

Blame it on the … Chindians!!

Highly opinionated! That’s what I am.

One of those opinions being – The west is too obsessed with itself, and knows too little about the rest of the world. What they think they know, is surprisingly inaccurate and misinformed.

Only to prove this point, the western media and the officials of Public or Private Service keep going on and on and on about how China and India are responsible for all the ills that the world is facing today.

On the Commodity pricing front – They keep going on about how the fast increasing demands of foodgrains and energy fuels is igniting the price of commodities all over. Of course, some bit of it is our contribution, but… but… but…

a) I am sure speculators and all these traders on energy and commodity exchannges have a HUGE part to play

b) Actually, per capita consumption of foodgrains is HARDLY going up in India, even in comparison to the US. Especially if they consider how much they are now converting into biofuel etc. Some big names, who keep passing the buck to Chindia like the man known as Bush, just love leading the public down false paths. Obviously he has all the information and all the data… but of course the American people like to hear that someone else is responsible for all the so-called misery.

On the energy and fuels front, of course there is growth in India, but does anyone BOTHER to check what is the per-capita consumption in the west and what it is in India. If not that, have they checked what is the TOTAL consumption of western economies or America as compared to India???

On the global warming and emissions front – has anyone checked what is the total emissions of the US against the total emissions of India? Forget per capita, that thing is not even worth mentioning. Every leader is convinced that the environment cannot be helped unless the “fastest growing” economies come on-board, but has anyone thought how much emissions can be controlled if the US emissions went down by 5% or 10%?

The west has been polluting and developing at this pace for the last 50 years. They are enjoying the living standards and the economic conditions for which the price has already been paid. Now they should be the ones making up for it. Give these new economies a chance to flower.

I would sincerely advise these leaders to stop misleading their vote-banks and take some hard decisions. Of course no one likes to say/hear the truth, but blaming it all on Chindia will not help. Even the most logical person will neither expect the Chindians to keep living like the scum of the planet and nor will the Chindians pay the price for all the havoc the west has wreaked on the planet. We will drive gas-guzzling SUVs too and we will eat junk food and becomes obscenely fat like American kids too. If you’re hurt that the government subsidizes gas prices, then you should read the fine print and know that they tax us back and make gas still MORE EXPENSIVE than it is in the US.

Stop crying babies! The real growth and transfer of power is yet to come.

A second at a time, fighting the laziness index

The inspiration for this post comes from this post here, on Naina. My life though, somehow, has never been so hectic. I have hardly ever had to run from one project to another and always given my brain lots and lots of time to wander into nothing-land. I don’t even know what I’m thinking then, but possibly, everything that can be thought, has been thought 🙂

On most days, I wake up and start the day with 3-6 aims in mind that need to be achieved. They will usually comprise a mix of work related targets for the day, or home related projects involving the washing machine or the meetings or commitments to others rounded off by a two-some dinner with wife or some other commitments to expand our social graph!

I wonder what makes people different, and is it really the amount of work that makes them so busy or is it the way they run their lives. I’ve thought about it often (as I have thought about everything already) and I’ve come to the conclusion that its a mix of everything. Most importantly it is also something that I have termed the laziness Index. The higher up you are on the laziness index, the shorter will be your method to reach your goals. Sometimes it would be fair to call it a shortcut and at other times, it’s just about being smart 😉 Also, I think the laziness index decides on how much of the flim-flam you’re willing to cut across in order to reach the end of your to-do list for the day/week/month.

I usually wake up easy (no, it is not easy to wake up, easy in the sense of nowhere to reach in a hurry), get ready easy, and go to work easy. Also, in a day, if you have 5 things to do, in 8 working hours, It IS actually quite easy to get them done if you prioritise properly and knock them off one at a time. This I learned a long long time ago, I wonder if there are any people who still have to learn that lesson. And then it is smooth sailing to your out-of-office engagements, whether it is driving classes, meetings, shopping or anything else. The dinner (social or not) and then a nice evening watching a movie or reading a book to zzzzzZZZZ land. Life is good!

The one other thing I learned is that human beings spend a LOTTTTTTT of time talking. I mean, if people count the number of productive hours in a day and what they did for them, they’ll usually be disappointed with the results they got. One of our teachers at school, when we were veryyyy young said – “Just remember the amount of energy and time you waste when you keep talking, it’s not worth it” Of course, we will always do it, but maybe we need to put a cap on it. Not only does it take time, it is physically quite sapping… I usually can’t talk about something for more than 5 minutes… the message has to be conveyed by then!!!

Gulfnews: The common man continues to suffer

–> Gulfnews: The common man continues to suffer <– the root cause of this post

There’s a decently written article on the link above on how the “common man” continues to suffer in India after 60 years of independence. Sentences from the said editorial goes like this – “But why should all the sacrifice and suffering be the fate of the common man? He gave his all during the independence movement. What about those who wallow in luxuries in every regime and in every clime?”

My polite submission to the writer is… why are we assuming that the “common man” fought for independence? I’d believe that it was the uncommon and gritful man who fought… and for every other achievement of India/Indians or over the world… it is the uncommon man who does something. The plight of some many in India is such only because they choose to be “common” and carry it on their shoulders like a weapon. It is the common doctor in Indian hospitals who goes on strike because he is not paid enough for (not) working, it is the common hawaldar who asks for a bribe when you have already been robbed… and it is the common minister who makes sure the development of the masses just does not happen.

Of course I agree with a lot of stuff that is written in the article, but the author forgets that the privatisation and other recent evils that he talks about were absent till a decade or two ago. I’m sure India was doing much worse with the so-called Hindu rate of growth then. At least now I see myself moving forward economically and with my standard of living. And of course this is not a one-off statement. Who can deny that there is a sense of well-being and optimism all over the (urban side at least that I know of) country. A lot of things are wrong in the country, and a lot of us, including myself, have done precious little to make it better… but let’s just stop using the “common” platform as a weapon to get everything for free. If education will remain a low priority of the people, and if archaic belief systems that put whole families in debt will not be shed then the farmers that our high commissioner talks about will continue to die.

The “Common man” in India can not do well… he can not be prosperous, and hence can not be happy… at least not in the near future. The reason for that is simple… there are too many common men & women in our country. With the productivity levels that we have, especially on the agriculture side… prosperity is not possible for 1 billion+ common men. If one does not have the courage to be uncommon, then one should not complain… I think. After all… you’re doing as well as the average! And our population pyramid does not permit us to distribute freebies to such numbers. It is NOT, and I would repeat –NOT a crime for an Azim Premji or Sunil Mittal or anyone else to earn as much as they do… we perhaps forget the amount of jobs and careers that they have helped create. These gentlemen are perhaps far more helpful in building the lives of some of the common Indians than any politician who served s@%ewed India… or the ones who established the huge monoliths of public enterprise that not only suck in taxpayer money but also provide electricity or phone services or civic amenities at pathetic levels of competence.

Those who wallow in luxury in every regime and every clime (from the linked article) are precious few, if they exist at all. Everyone, I am sure, has had to fight for what they have sooner or later, whether it was Dhirubhai Ambani or the Birlas or Tatas. Let us not sell them so short and assume that just connections or simple bribery or some magic wand from Diagon Alley made them billionaires and they wallowed in the lap of luxury ever after.

Dirty Minds, A Lot Of Us Have Them at Psychotic Ramblings Of A Mad Man…

Dirty Minds, A Lot Of Us Have Them at Psychotic Ramblings Of A Mad Man…

There is a very nice post by the blogger on the link above… about how people stereotype and how men will go to great lengths to talk about characters of women that they hardly know. I’m wishing more people would pass such stories along and stick to their own businesses so that life can be a little less bothersome for many others.