Spend More and Save the Economy

The US economy flourished in the past by encouraging consumers to borrow and spend rather than save. The recent meltdown has created havoc on the consumers. Drastic spending cuts by the consumers have added exponentially to the recession and more than one can imagine. Government has been trying for some time to get its banks to lend and its citizens to borrow again. Even though the excess borrowing caused the problem in the first place, it appears that that may be the only way out of it as well. Historically low interest rates encouraged people to borrow and banks to lend. US personal saving rate fell from 12 % in the early 1980s to -1% in 2006. It appears like a classic catch 22 scenario where in order to revive the economy; the private consumption needs to be revived as well. Based on this thought, I was trying to do my share of spending ;) as if I need any extra reason to shop…Now my passion to shop has a worldly cause associated with it “spend more and save the economy ” …So what I have closet full of clothes, accessories and everything else that I really need.. So what my boys have roomful of toys and more clothes than they can actually wear…. And so what my house cluttered and stuffed with books, things, electronics and what not…. And so what home cooked meal is more healthy and nutritious than the outside one…Once you get bitten by this “spend more and save the economy bug” nothing should stop you from spending…. And that’s when this word “Recessionsita” caught my attention. Macmillan Dictionary website declared it the word of the week. It is one of the top fashion buzz words of 2009. The word recessionista means originally a person who enjoys dressing fashionably on a budget. It also encompasses the universe of dining, entertainment and beauty. How clever I thought that few intelligent minds are trying to cash in against these destitute situations. . If people can be so ingenious at the time of crisis of this magnitude, one must appreciate their efforts. As the world economy tanks, people are finding pleasures in finding bargains rather than splurging. Even for the well offs its beginning to appear gauche to show off their conspicuous consumption. So the new buzz word is spending smartly but cautiously. . It is very chic to save but even more chic to get a deal. Any girl wants to look stylish but also be perceived as smart. And no one likes frugal. So let’s do our share of reviving this economy. And maybe- just maybe we will help save few jobs along the way….The consumer universe has opened up as a bargain basement and let’s go find our treasures!

My Thoughts on Octuplets

The last few weeks this story has been lurking around in my mind. I have been reading in bits and pieces about the birth and related stories of the mother giving birth to octuplets. I am a mother. A mother of twins who survived an ordeal of complicated pregnancy and premature delivery. I know how hard it was to see my tiny twins fight for survival in early days of their life in NICU. And now as me and my husband are raising these toddlers, our constant struggle to give them as much love, attention and care as any other singleton child would normally get. Deep down in my mind that guilty feeling bothers me and nothing will make up for that. To me, how you raise your children is more important than just having them. Children are your blessings but also your responsibility of the highest order. All these feelings came to surface again when I read about the mother giving birth to octuplets. What was she thinking? If at all she was thinking? How can you be so selfish to have such high number of multiples just to make up for your troubled childhood and loneliness? I read that she already has six children before this. If she really wanted to have a huge-large family, why didn’t you think of adopting? There are thousands and thousands of orphans who could use loving and caring home. Was it necessary to put her and her babies’ health to risk? Research proves that more premature the babies are born, the greater risks they have of facing significant lifelong problems .Why did this mother put these babies through this ordeal? And who’s paying for the NICU and related costs? I know how terribly expensive it is for single NICU stay and in this case we are talking about 8 babies for several months. She’s going to be a welfare mom and really how can she make sure she can provide financially for the 14 children she's responsible for? As much as I would hate lawmakers and governments to decide how many children one should have, these types of irresponsible behaviors make me wonder if indeed law should ban giving birth to such high order of multiples. I can understand using reproductive technology for someone desperately trying to create a normal family, but why would someone who already has 6 children go through that? This controversial decision is anything but a heroic case and the mother should be condemned to the highest possible extent. PS: To all my blog readers, for this post, your comments are most welcome. I know its controversial topic and you may have differing opinion. Just go ahead and share…

Aspiring to be ......Somebody?

The whole thing is coming full circle. After all, it’s a generational thing. Couple decades ago, it was me. Now it’s my boys… I guess a few things don’t change no matter what. "What do you want to be"? Elderly people often ask this question. After all, somewhere deep down we all want to see our children to be more successful than us. With that base, we start directing our life and building our career path. No doubt, success demands a lot of hard work, dedication and perseverance. But when do we become successful? All of us have grown up with listening to elderly folks telling us to study hard to become ‘somebody’ big. Along the way the success is measured against someone else. The successful person is always someone else. And we are driven to catch up. The success, after all, is a fluid thing. What defines success keeps changing and catch up game is timeless. The moment we reach a milestone in our graph of success, the expectation height builds higher and then strive begins all over again. Absolutely nothing wrong in that. If we stop, life will be boring like hell. But along the way, sometimes we can loose our sight. There is a difference between aspiring to be somebody and aspiring to be big. The motivation should come from achieving our own success and being proud of that. It should not be based on trying to emulate someone else’s definition of success. I remember the time when I was reading Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The book is thought provoking and very well written. But I often felt that if someone doesn’t have any of those habits or if someone only has a couple, does that make you less effective? Does your self esteem go down if your habits are different than those of the so called effective people? And do habits really make you effective? After all, we have one life to live. Why measure it against someone else’s? Self esteem and pride are integral part of our own existence. I see it everyday in beaming faces of my little boys. As they are exploring this new world , they are trying to do new things on their own. Their faces lit up on every success, every clap and praise they receive. At the tender age of two, they don’t need to compare themselves to others. Their success is their own and they are delighted with their own achievements. That’s the spirit of success and happiness. We all had that spirit before and we have it now. I believe that we are that ‘somebody’ even now. You become big as years pass by. But you don’t become someone else. You are who you are. Aspiring to be somebody also means being unhappy with your own self. The more you imitate others, the more you lose your own identity. Be proud of who you are and where you are in your life. Celebrate your life. And define success on your own terms!

Let's Start Fresh

Every morning gives you an opportunity and every evening asks you what you did with that opportunity? I think no day is bad day or a good day. Our attitude determines whether it will be good or bad… And to great extent, how we wake up every morning determines our mood and attitude for that day. So, I think that the very first few minutes while we are waking up are very precious. I decided to switch our alarm clock for the same reason. Instead of waking up to the loud alarm, we decided to use musical buzzer. Its soothing and refreshing musical tunes wake you up lightly, happily instead of abruptly. (of course, you can’t savor it for too long, the music gets louder if you don’t wake up in time) To a great extent, it helped me set the tone of the day on a good note. My sister suggested adding Eau De cologne in the shower. Yet another simple but powerful idea to change the tone of the day. Now everyday quick bath is not boring anymore. I breathe a sense of refreshing air along the way. I have noticed that a refreshed mind opens up to new ideas and optimism and that’s what we need. When we decide to do anything, we have to put our heart in it. It may be a small thing or big project. Our creativity and efforts will largely determine the outcome of it. But sometimes, we try very sincerely, earnestly, with 100 % efforts but we fail to get the anticipated results. Such situations are disheartening. But we have to believe that it’s a short term failure. We shouldn’t get discouraged. We shouldn’t abandon our efforts either. Otherwise it leads to panic. One starts blaming others for their own failure. If few tasks out of several don’t get done, why blame the entire day? Besides, if we look back, there may have been something good hidden beneath those bad days. We just didn’t realize it at that very moment. Lets find out what those good things were. There is no point in dwelling too much over what all went wrong. One certainly should try to analyze the causes of the failure. Maybe our approach is wrong or the maybe we didn’t realize the whole picture and missed few things along the way. There are certain lessons we can learn from our failures. It’s possible to avoid certain mistakes and restart again. Tomorrow brings in a new day. An opportunity to start all over again. After all, mind blowing results are rooted in fresh mind and smart ideas. So let’s not dwell on having a bad day. Just forget it and move on!

Trifecta

Investors around the world are scrambling to find a safe haven for returns. Unfortunately in current situation there seems to be no right instrument to earn solid positive returns. In addition, the conventional wisdom is proving to be against investor community. The Stock markets around the globe are down at historic proportions including free fall in real estate prices, so are crude and oil prices and so are Gold and precious metal prices. Historically, the gold and the oil prices moved inversely with the stock. That helped many investors to eke out some gains in bad market. This time around Stocks, Oil and Gold are going hand in hand. Interdependencies across the world are bringing everything down and there seems to be no end in sight. So emerging markets are no longer safe havens neither are matured markets…..Gone are the days when the Dow was to touch 20000, Oil was to reach 200/barrel and Gold was to reach 2000. Pessimism is bad for everyone but just like millions other, I am looking for a ray of hope. I am sure the things will improve but sooner the better. While such gloomy scenario continues, I was happy to see a silver lining for someone who I care about deeply. My friend changed his job last year. He left Satyam (way before it collapsed) and joined Chase Bank (one of the “chosen” banks which Fed will save under any circumstances) Along the way, he turned down excellent job offers at Lehman Brothers and Nortel Networks (of course, excellent per standards of year ago) I am so glad all the lucky star were lined up for my friend who chose Chase over all other three. May you keep winning my friend ! And we will score hat trick gains of stock, gold and oil…

Satyam Saga

Just when we thought we learnt a lesson from Enron, another corporate scandal rolls in. This time, its Satyam Computers-Indian Software conglomerate. The truth is corporate greed doesn’t have national boundaries. The small investors remain with leftover pieces of puzzle and business schools get another case study. Sadly not much more happens after such mind blowing scams… Enron was cooking its books for years and Arthur Anderson; its independent auditors overlooked it for years. The collapse of the Enron caused the collapse of the AA and we were left with Big 4 instead of Big 5. Sarbanes-Oxley Act rolled in. All corporations made a big push for Corporate Governance and Control. It seemed that, finally, the corporate books were trying to look clean. Now the Satyam scandal bursts that bubble of trust all over again. This time it’s Price WaterHouse Coopers. Its auditors failed to do their due diligence and Satyam Owners could commit fraud of mind blowing proportions.

The internet has got the globe connected and world economies have become even more interdependent. So just overlooking the Satyam as Indian IT scam is a mistake. Its global implications are enormous. The Auditors ought to be independent no matter what. The auditing standards should be same across the world. We need to stop having different sets of regulations and accounting standards for different nations. One set of standards should govern the universe. The punishment for all those involved in such scam should be as strict as possible. In this global economy, the word transparency should hold its meaning. The PWC is just as responsible for assisting the scam as much as the founders who did it.

The corporate ethics demand the need of separation of duties and tight audit controls for all publicly traded corporations. With Sarbanes-Oxley act, these rules were reinstated in USA. It was a major undertaking for US corporations to reassure their confidence after Enron scam. The same should be applicable for all companies traded on American Stock Exchange. The worldwide recession has already given a major blow to the investor confidence. Such scandals make it worse. Indian Software companies are going to learn it the hard way. Just competing on the price differential is not enough. Quality, commitment and assurance are essential parts of winning equation. Sadly, all of these three values came in doubt after Satyam Scam. Once lost, it’s very hard to restore the trust and confidence. The effects of Satyam collapse therefore are far more than just monetary numbers. In a negations class, I remember learning “its ok to loose a deal but not ok loose your trust and Goodwill’. Sadly, that trust is once again lost ……..

Big Cow Wins !

So… here are the results of the Dow Jones year end close predictions . Thank you so much to all my buddies who responded to my earlier post. I know this year, it was very tough to guess the wild Dow Jones Industrial Average. No one had predicted such a sharp fall of worldwide economies. We were aware of the presidential election year disasters of the past. There were enough indictors pointing to the economic slowdown. But this time it turned out to be lot more than that. The Congress, the President (elect and elected) and the business leaders tried to rectify previous mess but it was too little too late. The world economies are dwindling between recession and deflation and most everyone is looking hopelessly at it.

I pray that the New Year brings in the peace and prosperity to all. We all more than deserve that. After all, all human beings are optimistic creatures and we will pull out of it. If we can ride this wave, who is to stop us ?

For the facts, here are the numbers

Jan 2, 2008 Dow closed at 13043

Dec. 31, 2008 Dow Closed at 8776

At its Highest of the year Dow was at 13137 and at its lowest it had reached 7449.

AND NOW THE WINNER IS: ( let the drum roll begin)

PATYA at 8700 !!!!

You go girl !!! +/- 50 is allowed but you came the closest. So you are hereby declared the 2008 BIG COW (like BIG BULL) of the stock market…….