My husband has been receiving calls every evening for the past few weeks. Sometimes the calls carry on for hours. I was curious after a few days. Ever since he had joined a multilateral institution, phone calls in the evenings from office had reduced drastically. Then? I confronted him. Who is this he is speaking to? Has the seven year itch set in!! Nahh...this post is not so juicy.What I got to know is that, some friends of friends of friends and acquaintances has been calling him for some dope on the current market situation in India - business and otherwise, to find out if they can make a beginning again (in their late thirties and early forties?!!!).
All these friends of friends of... are from the US and we have known them to do 'well'. Well was defined as follows - one of the callers had three cars (in the Peugeot and Audi bracket), had a house on a cliff in Vancouver, vacationed in the Carribean every year (other places too) and splurged money as if they were feeding seeds to pigeons, while the rest of us were open mouthed.
That sounds like a fairytale. But it was true till only a year back. After the Wallstreet debacle most of these people we know distantly has lost 80-90 per cent of their wealth. Some have lost their jobs and do not know what to do, while some are here in India looking for new ideas to carry back to the US to save their jobs.
My point is not to ridicule them. The reason I am mad is because those so called 'smart' guys of investment banking and the 'best talents' have failed the financial system. I can call them a bunch of jokers with a clear conscience now. They JUST had no clue and yet went on building castles in the air. And for THEM, some idiots like me and many more invested their hard earned money to see a notional rise in their wealth. Personally, the fall from the first floor doesn't hurt so much (though broken bones will take a while to heal), but for those guys sitting on the 20th floor - the fall is killing.
I am not an expert in finance issues except that I spend money. But I strongly feel that the so called 'brilliant brains' behind the current crisis world over, need some lessons in probity. Wonder where the hell they are hiding now? The world is more than the sophisticated tools and software they worked on. It is good to be on a ‘high’ by achieving numbers. But remember you bunch of morons - zero is also a number.
3 comments:
Hey... That's some real outpour... cool stuff... cudos!
You know, there is a herd mentality that we are all guilty of at some points in our lives. Because by not cashing in on the boom, you miss out on the opportunity. But you know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket...that's where they all went wrong.
@ Tarana - I don't know about eggs in one basket - what I do know is that the investement bankers thought no end of themselves. They hiked the salary market and made bold statements in the media. And where were those distinguished economists who come out and make predictions for future? It's all very good to say things after it has happened. And most often we listen to their predictions good or bad!!! But if specialists cannot predict future then what good are they for?!!
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