Adios... Mrs.Bhutto! Could you have made a difference?

Could it be that Benazir bhutto's death made her a larger idol than she ever was in real life. "There goes the last hope of democracy for pakistan..." the papers say, but was she really that important in the larger scheme of things in that tumultous country?

Benazir deserves praise for having been the first woman prime minister of a muslim country, especially in a country that is still yet to shake off it's feudal and male chauvinistic past. She was perhaps more connected to the west than any of her peers. But did she mean much to pakistan?

She clung on to the legacy of her father and took on the leadership of the people's party as a defacto leader. Benazir spent more time outside the country than at home with her party or people. Her two terms as a prime minister were cut short with corruption charges. She never had a chance to prove herself either on the foreign policy front or the domestic front, largely because she never had that much time on her hands and nothing significant happened on the foreign policy arena when she was in power.

Feminists from the west may romanticize the notion of a woman leader going in and reforming the bad practices of an islamic society. But benazir's record does not prove much. She had big things on her agenda, but could not deliver anything substantial on the laws concerning the treatment of women in pakistan.

Benazir was indeed the voice of moderation, and a voice at that. All she could have done, had she survived and won, would have restored a semblence of democracy, with the mischevious elements of pakistani society going about thier business as usual. The real power in pakistan, as they say always rested in the hands of the army, with the political process being a facade to all the chaos that's called pakistan.

Why ...... Iowa?

It's that time of the year when all the presidential candidates from both parties line up to impress their party men from this little midwest state, all because it hosts the first caucus. you'll see candidates lining up at diners with million dollar smiles, shake hands with farmers and do whatever they have to get the vote on.

The earlier states that host primaries are always known to have swayed the rest of the country. Think of how different things would have been if Howard dean were president. Although he was clearly the right candidate the last time around, he went crashing down once iowa trashed him. Not than John Kerry was any bad, but he clearly wasn't as good as Dean. What made the difference in that case? Iowa.

But Why iowa? Come on... the state is not even representative of the whole country, being 92% white, 3%black, 3%hispanic,1.5% asian... Iowa represents a slice of america from some time in the long past.

It's true that the caucus system of voting is unique, atleast the democratic party's version, and makes for good tradition. But should tradition be adopted at the cost of common sense?

Why can't the entire country have all the caucuses or primaries done with in a single day. That would prevent states like iowa from having that unnecessary influence and level the playing field for everyone.

Now that's unlikely to happen. There may be an advantage for some players with having this farmland state going first, so they won't go along quoting tradition as the reason.

Just as why it's likely to be a long time before the elections move from a tuesday to a weekend, when the country can vote all at once, the tradition of this little state dominating the presidential election will continue for a long time to come. So will the farm subsidies that give the world a reason to doubt america's commitment to free trade.

Early morning ads to Find god.... !

ahh... the time that we're caught in? Churches advertising on morning radio... asking you to start the new year 2008 by bonding again with god. No, it wasn't one of those evangelical channels, but a regular news channel. There have always been such ads on commuter trains , but to hear it on morning radio with a opportunist market oriented strategy of using the new year for proselytizing people , gives a whole new meaning to conversions.

Well, the catholic church can't be blamed with it's recent loss of market share coming f rom child abuse law suits. They seem to be doing whatever any company would do to gain market share....Chalk out a branding strategy and a marketing plan to capture new audiences. With churches being the million dollar machines that they are now... what could stop them. Talk of Business practices being applied to religion.

If the world catches on to this. What could be next? The mullah's placing ads over middle east... asking people to send their kids to madrassas... Or some fake swami in india advertising on MTV.. asking people to check him out.

Here come.. The sheikhs in shining armor

Middle east money is nothing new to wall street. The petro dollars always came back to feed M&A frenzy, and hedge fund adventures. But of late.. it's more in the open and it almost feels like the rich sheikhs of middle east are coming in to protect their investment.

There are glaring headlines around. The abu dhabi investment authority coming in to citi group's rescue at it's bleakest times by buying up 7.5 billion dollars of equity. The Kuwaiti's buying up 50% of dow chemical's plastic division. And unknown investors from the middle east ponying up 11.5 billion dollars for UBS AG's equity, especially when UBS's balance sheet is the most murkiest from the subprime mess.

Its true that all the assets come cheap now with a cheaper dollar. Save for them gorging up on what's available, there must be a protection play involved.

After all, the middle eastern oil churners don't want to let their biggest market, the united states to go through a recession. Especially with the dollar going the way it has been, they wouldn't want it to go further down. Well, they cannot afford to for their oil revenues are stored in dollar denominations.

Of course, they would do anything that they can to protect their favorite investment, even if it means propping up companies with bad balance sheets so the markets continue as though nothing happened.

They may also be leveraging themselves for the far future when oil would dry up. Borse dubai taking up 20% of Nasdaq and Qatar buying out 20% of london stock exchange. This can only be a measure to integrate better into global markets.

Maybe, when the oil dries up and the world starts using bio fuels, the sheiks would live off the spreads from investment deals with the middle east transforming itself from a oil maker into a financial trading powerhouse. What next? a macau or las vegas styled desert gambling oasis. maybe!!!

Can you stop this Flood... Mr.Paulson?

There's gossip around that Hank Paulson's Treasury shall come up with a plan to save all those 1.5 million home owners who face painful payment resets on around 400 billion dollars of mortgages expected through the end of 2007 and 2008.

All the major lenders are supposed to be involved, and the plan is to freeze the ARM loans for a couple of years.

Of course not everyone shall be rescued. Apparently, it's the "Middle tier" who are still solvent that shall be rescued. As for those speculators, and those who weren't even supposed to be in those bloated homes, if not for the tricks played by the lenders and appraisers, shall be left to fend for themselves.

Mr.Paulson seems all out to save as much as he can before the mortgage crisis spreads virally through the economy. But tell me Mr.Paulson, will the rate freeze save anything? will consumers still spend in spite of those stop gap measures? will it really stop a recession? It's true that it will perhaps delay the pain, but someone has to suck up the losses... and it should not be the federal government with the taxpayers money.

Maybe this great free market economy should be allowed to correct itself, like it always has through periods of "irrational exuberance" as Mr.Greenspan would say.

The GOP debate last night!!!!

Everyone says that the Grand Old Party doesn't have a chance to come back big. It had its 12 years of house and senate majorities that came to a screeching halt in 2007.

There are reports that the iraq war may have made the party unpopular in the red states.

The debate last night was interesting and filled with questions that may not have been asked in a plain vanilla debate. The "you tube" video questions were well made. some even went to the extent of making cartoons and animations, while others brandished guns and bibles.

The viewers asked all kinds of things from Vice presidential power to abortion, but there was only one single question about iraq. It's weird, but it appears that iraq does not really matter much anymore. Or were such questions cut out deliberately? who knows??

The front runners "Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney" both seemed slick and shallow in their own ways. Mitt romney had ready made answers for all kinds of things and he kept a bold poker face all through the debate. Rudy Guiliani came across like he was hiding a lot of things in his closet, and his jokes did not help.

Fred Thompson seemed too old and his statements lacked the firmness that would be required in a future president. Well, he at least took the time to chide both guiliani and romney on immigration.

If america ever needed another president with a weird sense of humor, guiliani would fit the bill perfectly. we could have a humor match between bush and guiliani, and i'm sure it would be a tight one.

The honorable John mcCain seems to have lost his sense of reality. All that work he did across party lines and the times when he took bold stances on issues not caring about his own party, seems so distant in the past.

Well, maybe he woke up to the reality that he cannot become a president without taking the middle line and doing about turns.

He did not seem to have a clear strategy on iraq and his stand that "we are there for the long run" does not seem to tune with reality. Well, Mr.mcCain still shows clairty when he says that he is committed to vetoing pork barrel projects and cutting down the federal deficit.

There's one candidate with lots of fire in the belly and guts, if any: Ron Paul. He had the boldest and the most sanest stand on a lot of issues. The argument between him and mcCain over iraq was interesting. Ron paul had some powerful statements: "Iraq is similar to vietnam. There was more progress made during peace time in vietnam, than the twenty years when we and the french were there".

Huckabee, they say is gaining ground with all the religious right backing him up. I'm sure the crowd would love him for he thinks that the IRS should be the first institution to chop down should there be a move to curtail federal spending in a big way. Beware of the next tax season...Mr.Huckabee.

Mr.Tancredo, known only for one thing and one thing only: His hate for immigrants. i'm sure no one thinks he'll go far. Not even for a Vice president nomination.

As was expected, everyone made sure that they kept the IRA and the religious right happy.

When someone asked "How many guns do you have at home?", guiliani was perhaps the only who said he had none. Well... he tried to woo the IRA a few months ago without much luck. He even seems to have tried a joke by having his wife call in during his address. Little wonder that no one smiled!!!

Everyone nodded that they believe every word of the bible, and not a single candidate took the side of the gay brigadier who asked a question. Well, they have good reason to. No one is expected to make it past the GOP primaries without the help of the religious right.

The good thing was most of the candidates almost went to the extent of promising that they won't rise the taxes, save for ron paul and duncan hunter who said it with some reservations.

It's interesting that the brigadier was actually related to the hillary campaign. Maybe, hillary is showing the GOP a taste of the "Swift Boat" tactics that they used to sink good old "John Kerry" as a flip-flop.


From all this, it does not seem that there there shall not be a credible candidate to take on Hillary after all. Well, if it's romney, then the democratic party may have a problem on its hands.

If Iraq was the sole thing that changed the fate of the republican party in the senate and house elections. And If Iraq does not matter much anymore, will the democratic party keep the high ground during the presidential election?

Could Oil kill your growth... India?

The 100$ per barrel for oil is wreaking havoc on retail prices everywhere in the world, but not in india. None of the consumers are feeling the pinch yet... Instead the governments simply sucking it up by using up all those excess foreign currency reserves.

Well, what else can the central government do? There are general elections around the corner and a couple of states seem headed to the polls too. the last thing they need is a backlash based on high petrol prices.

All the state refiners were ordered not to increase the prices, and they are buying into stabilization bonds being issued by the government to the tune of some 2,50,000 crores.

How long can the party last? Oil's not going back to the sweet old $60 levels of 2005 any time soon. How long can the costs not be passed to the consumer? The thing is once they do, it will drive up prices of all things from consumer durables to grocery items. If that dampens growth.. would that suck the steam out of the indian consumer machine. Well, we'd have to see!

Where are we headed... India?

Coming back from my recent ten day trip to india, i couldn't help but pen the changes. Not that change is new with india. It seems to be changing every year and rapidly at that.

The one thing you cannot miss and will not deny is that the traffic looks like it may have quadrupled. Easy financing and banks chasing everyone with loan offers may have done the trick. One can only imagine what that $2500 car from tata will do to indian roads.

Spending has gone up in a big way. People seem all too happy to spend more wads of cash on all kinds of things. There are people with new money all around.

Speaking of cell phones...I've seen 400$ phones everywhere i went in india. Say that to an american consumer who would rather take a yearly plan than spend outright on a device. And yes, the whole country seems to be busy taking a cell phone call. It's the second largest growing market for cell phones after all.

Air Travel has increased and there are newer airlines popping in.. although a majority of the current ones are bleeding with losses. I guess it's case of " the pioneers who creates the market will be the ones to stay". It's true there is not enough airport capacity yet, but they expect the infrastructure to catch on. My city, which had only a single airline coming in half empty a few years ago, now has five airlines arriving packed all the time. And yes, they are expanding the airport now after all the airlines have come in, instead of it happening the other way.

One big change recently.. the entry of GPS devices. there are GPS dvices being sold for bigger metro areas. There are more GPS usage options being sold than in the US where people would rather settle for pre-loaded boxes than tinker with their mobile phone and run a GPS application on it. Now, i have not seen anything along comprehensive online yellow pages yet, but once it does arrive i'm sure it would open up a host of opportunities.

Retail is the big word now with even smaller cities seeing bigger retail outlets coming in with an one place shop all option. Things may not catch fire that quickly in this area. Thanks to mom and pop shop unions opposing every bit of it. but say that to the urban consumer for whom such places also provide entertainment options.

The big hot real estate market, everyone says, is finally cooling down. And although people don't think the prices would rise any higher, they certainly don't expect them to fall down. How would they? All those billions of people need places to live, don't they? But at the given prices, it's difficult for a normal middle class person to get into the home market.

If there's one breed of men that's not in touch with what's happening, it's definitely the politicians. Apart from the central leadership, several state governments seem to have no idea as to what the hell is happening. while i was there, there was no announcement that indicated anything that made economic sense. Someone was questioning the compromise chief minister candidate of karnataka about the traffic situation in bangalore and his reply was that "he would call a meeting and discuss it"? speak about politicians without an agenda and no idea what to do!
The only thing any of the politicians seem to think they ought to do is to create "Special Economic zones" and everyone's out to do it, making them run into environment and relocation problems.

Thanks to the civil service for keeping the country running. If not for them, who knows what these political brutes may have done.

All in all, india's running at high speed and it only remains to be seen what kind of a growth story it's going to be. It's true that there have been sizeable investments in infrastructure over the past decade, but they just do'nt seem to be enough for the growth being seen. There arent' enough roads or public transportation options at all places. There aren't enough airports for the airlines.

Unless there is state level leadership that looks beyond vote bank politics and takes bold decisions with an economic mindset, the growth story that is india will be confined to a few well placed indians. Although the central leadership takes larger macro decisions, their translation to reality lies in the hands of local and state governments, which are filled with degenerate idiots lost in a different time. Maybe Big Business and the efficient Civil Service shall do what needs to be done to take the country forward, but to what kind of a future... it remains to be seen!

Whoa... Mr.Ambani.... aren't you rich?

Make way everyone..... Mukesh ambani is officially the richest man in the world with a net worth of 68 billion dollars... surpassing Carlos slim by a decent margin.

But tell me..... Mr.Ambani... How rich are you?
Not a day goes by without some news in the papers about you and your brother fighting for remnants of your father's empire.

It's true that you earned every penny that you flaunt about in ostentatious gifts. I'm speaking about that custom airbus airplane you gifted your wife lately.

But what legacy would you want to leave behind?

Can you ever scratch the back of Warren Buffet "the sage of omaha"?
Can you be humble and live a life of frugality ever?
I mean... can you even think of giving away half your wealth for charity?
Can you afford to step down and live for bigger causes like bill gates did?

Yeah... you may have made your mark in larger economic history sir... but how about giving back a little back in dividends to those needy shareholders of that larger entity called india that made your compensation possible. It's all about keeping your shareholders happy... isn't it? If nothing, it would create new consumers that you can make more wealth on.

Maybe it's a philosphical issue. Should wealth be flaunted? or should it be put to work in effective ways to do good to sections of society that are left behind.

Ayn rand might be puzzled by this question... she never spoke of flaunting.

Man....The general's at it again

The general is at it again.... There's news of Musharraf locking up everything that makes up a civilian run country: the judges, the press, and every liberal minded politicians.

Hey... atleast he's doing or appearing to do his part to lock up those jihadis. Well, he didn't have a choice post 9/11 with the US asking him "are you with us or against us?".

Being an Indian, why would i complain? As long as that country next door is stable and as long as some stupid wanker of a religious zealot doesn't takes over... we should all be fine, fine, fine!!!

Atleast the general's keeping things under control. If you look back at history, there was never a time in pakistan when the army wasn't in charge. Oh yes, there were civilian governments! but the real power, they say, was always with the army and the intelligence services.

There was this report in Foreign Affairs mag lately, that Benajir back in the day when she was a PM had not the faintest idea that the country had a nuclear program. Well... that speaks a lot about the limits that civilian governments have in pakistan.

All that talk recently about benajir's PPP forming a power sharing agreement with Musharraf seems like nonsense now. The suicide bombing that welcomed benazir at the airport throws all kinds of questions. Doesn't the general not want her coming back? Or are there elements in the army and ISI that don't fancy the general any more? Whatever the answers, they are not relevant anymore.

You have someone in control. Maybe, Musharraf's gonna stay for a while and leave some other general in place. As long as the sucker's sane and pragmatic enough, we should all be fine.

I wasn't too surprised to see a Newsweek cover saying that pakistan is the most dangerous place in the world. It is... It's the only place that stands a little shake away from leaving nukes in the hands of some seriously demented minds who have a convoluted agenda for the world at large.

Can someone really invade that country and rid it of all the bad things? That would be next to impossible, considering the big military force there that would fend off an occupier. That leaves constructive engagement as the only alternative.

Anyone engaging that country should keep in mind that pressing for democracy won't help. Ofcourse, There should be demands for a civilian government that represents the larger sections of the society, and also keeps the army happy.

Economic engagement with india allowing some of it's economic might to rub off on pakistan would greatly help. Also, a constructive long term engagement by the US would do wonders and keep the liberal elements of the army committed to keeping those insane wankers of society at bay. India has long been obsessed by the kashmir question, and the US has long pursued a discontinuous policy that keeps it close once and distances it at will.


The best thing for the world would be to engage pakistan, keep it stable, and allow it to prosper economically. That should take care of illiteracy, discontent, and all those incentives for fundamentalism. It won't be easy, but it appears to be the only way.

Oh no! the "R" word again

Oh no... the "R" word is being spoken again. The last recession i saw... no one saw it come and go.. but it did hurt big. And then we read it in books and papers months after it left.

The one thing i remember well is that every friend of mine was laid off... and at our first jobs at that. I heard of people losing their shirts on stocks... well, can't blame it considering that most of those guys were getting their stock picks at water cooler conversations.

I guess this time it's going to be nice and slow. Well... houses don't sell out like equities do.

There's speak of 150 billion dollars of ARM's (Adjustable rate mortgages) resetting this year, and another 400 billion resetting next year. With stats out there that a majority of loans after 2004 were mostly ARMs, I can only imagine what it's going to do the finances of all those people. Even a percentage point recent would sting bad.

Well... if that ever shows up in less retail spending this christmas, i think we'll see a repeat of 2001 with companies tightening their belts and holding off on hiring... which'll kind of start an ugly cycle feeding on itself.

As i say this, the Fed has chopped the fed funds rate twice already. There's speak of a super fund, which seems like a last ditch effort by some of the big banks to prevent a massive sell off.
The last quarter was pretty bad on the big players, atleast those who reported.

Last week it was Stan O'Neal's head at Merrill, and this week it's gonna be chuck prince's at Citi.
Star CEO's dont' just fall off unless something big and dirty in the making.

I hear it's not just the security buyers, but also the insurers. They say that the big guessing game on wall street is who owns how much and no one's telling.

Well... Let's hope the dollar stays low, keeps those exports good, and the big international market, which doesn't give the damn anymore about what the US does anymore, grows in a big way and save us all from seeing another recession.

All the home builders seem to be bleeding with most of the big ones showing falling profits. Well, if it hadn't been for their Alt-A loans, those home appraisers who got wooed a little too much, and those lenders who forced fancy loans up the throats of ignorant home buyers, we would not have been here.

But what can we say? A free Market corrects it's excesses over time and punishes the stupid, and even the very wise look stupid sometimes.

Ahh... some freshness at last

It was late august, when i was watching those weekly desi show clips of some seriously seedy clips of telugu movies..... I was thinking... "when would some originality free of filminess creep out from telugu land??" and there it was.. something about a indie movie called "vanaja" and a telugu one at that. The director was being interviewed and i thought "hey.. this seems different!"


Next thing i know..i was in a seedy theater in the NYU area off 12th street for the premiere of the movie....... Maybe it's because it was the last show that day.. there was no sign of a desi sign around except for a mush clad dude passing around fliers of the movie trying to interest the people in the line about it. we told him "dude... we are here to watch the movie... we heard about it".

Spectacular and original was the word. Ofcourse it was all in telugu with english sub titles. we two must have been the only gultis in the house, not to speak of desis being absent around.

Everything seemed real, the actors, the settings... it was wonderful. the story of a poor little girl, with high hopes, experiencing life with it's conundrums of life, birth, hope, and despair in a telangana village of older india.

The actors were very real. Fisherman seemed like fishermen, little village boys wore loin cloths, no one spoke out of place, and hey... no fancy sets! The characters were rich and original. Everyone acted, dressed, walked, and spoke as they should. Little surprise, considering that the director mentioned that he didn't really use actors but regular people who did things as they do every day.

We were awed with how the audience connected with some of the humor in the movie, considering that the movie watchers were all mostly caucasian. I guess language doesn't matter when it comes to conveying issues and humor at large. Some scenes hit the right strings.... and the crowd clapped and cheered as the show went on. The cinematography was textbooky, clear and real.

Now, how often do they have a Q and A session at the end of a movie, especially with the director and the lead actress showing up. I haven't been to any premiere's but this was my first one.

The director, rajnesh domalapalli really seemed down to earth, and ah... for a moment it felt refreshing to look at originality. No stock answers and No BS, he was getting quite carried away in a genuine way as he answered questions. It's interesting to note that this movie was his thesis for the degree he was persuing at columbia university. He spoke of short films that he used to take in india during vacations, and how they finally culminated in this movie.

Someone asked him if he's seen the Satyajitray's movie from 1958 called Jalsagar and he replied "yes, it's my favorite movie". It was a old white man who said that he's seen that movie in 1958. I'm sure the gentlemen was persuaded to come see this movie from his experience 50 years ago. Maybe he's looking at the next satyajit ray. If his thesis looks like this, imagine what a real work would look like?

I was going to ask something before the beautiful girl next to me stood up and asked "Why did vanaja decide to have the baby?" and that started a big explanation by rajnesh how he was inspired by the film called sophie's choice.

The lead actress, Mamata Bhukya seemed like a typical shy school girl. She seemed overwhelmed by the response and went about answering all questions in telugu. Ahh.. it felt so good to someone from telugu land break out of the norm and create something so original yet appealing to the world at large.

It's films like this that india needs to send to the oscars, not crap mash ups like "Lagaan".

Where do the rules begin and where do they end

It's different if you're turkey invading iraq to save yourself, or if you're india going across the border to stop some perky paki's wreaking havoc... but it doesn't matter if you're israel.

Maybe rules can be broken if you're wise and can win enough influence to justify it all.