The Sacrificial Generation

In the history of fame and corporation, the foundations of an idea that has revolutionized the dynamics of livelihood has not been given but implemented by a sacrificial generation. It was the generation which had no time to listen to daily chores or live an ordinary life because they were born to give the world, what I call, pumps of a nation. These pumps gave birth to revolutions our nation had never seen before like telecom revolution started by Bharti-Mittal or the power revolution which we will all see in 5 years or soon.

Obviously, they sacrifised a lot. It is said that the idea of insurance was born in a slum where these people hated the whole idea as such but look what it turned out to be. What were they losing? It was nothing except a ordinary life. It is one to know the objective and then sacrifice, a privelege which a socialist setup could never lend, and it is the other to be driven by an idea like you are pushed in Mumbai locals. The choice obviously lies with us.

For, the likes of magnates we see today (Ambanis, Birlas, etc) are not the chosen ones, but they are the lucky administrators who's one sacrificial generation had laid the seeds of implementing many a ideas that can push all the undecisive ones along. This one generation can be called as a mutation in the history of economic evolution. You might be one of these X-men, all that matters is one decision you will never regret taking, whether you wanna push the world or get pulled. Because once on deathbed, like an old warrior, you might wish a death in blood than in your piss.

Get Paid For Being Pregnant

The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana seems a boost to our population numbers. Every pregnant woman will get a sum of Rs. 4000 over a period of six months. All street vendors would be covered under this. There is no doubt that the maternal aide program thus created will help many but will prove as a headache to human resource deptt.

This seems to be benifitting nearly 18.6 lacs women and would soon turn out be a huge business in places that are poverty stricken. The places where you see threatening eyes when you click your dear friend near a picturesque. It is sad to see places like these and it definitely reminds you of the high Ginni coefficient.

But still the sight of small young girls going to schools is refreshening. But guess what the ministry has given a hidden incentive to only those families having strength of five. Though we need to improve our infant mortality rates and low birth weights, but this is a solution with some externalities that seem far more harmful and I can envisage a viscious circle ahead.

TOSS

That was the first day when I felt that I had been listening to all the crap in the classrooms till yet. It was not about the class, the quality of teaching or the resources. It was the teacher, the most important person in the life of a student. He's our Project Director (PD) and he's got it all. The feeling was the elation that a child experiences when a grandfather/mother recites a story to a kid.

The lecture was a sheer technical story; the experience was pouring out of PD as if he had been immersed in the process of building the largest machines on the planet. The reverse engineering was being done through the very basic science which even a tenth class kid knows. That's when it hit me like a bullet that when we all had been studying for hours no one taught us how to think which is the underlying skill for understanding systematically. Just imagine if our PD would teach a bunch of third class kids for an hour on Sundays. He can produce many PDs like him and our country has no dearth of such people who just fade away from the face of earth by devoting their lives to the only process which they enjoy.

That's where TOSS comes in. These people are eager to contribute and would love to Teach On Saturdays & Sundays. A huge responsibility of educating the young and making them 'really educated' rests on on all the experienced 'corporate teachers'. If we make the point bigger, it might be a Teach Revolution.

How Does the Debt Work?

Here's a story how big our Debt might be. Headlines: America in debt of trillions of dollars. Oooops!! Isn't is horrifying? Well maybe not. Let us look a bit closely and understand it through a small 'ode'.

A small motel in California.

Scene I:
Traveller: Hey! Wake up you Mr. I need a room. (Pays him 100 bucks)
Motel Owner (MO): Ohk. 100 bucks!
Traveller: ??? Are you out of your mind? This is recession going on.
MO: Well, get it or get out. (Takes the buck). I will be back in fifteen minutes.

Scene II:
MO: Take your money, man. We are even now.
Contractor: Well, yes until you return my drilling machine.

Scene III:
Contractor: Well, Mr. Manager. Now I dont owe you a single buck you blood-sucking new version of satan.
Mr. Manager: You still owe up 10 bucks of interest. I won't let you go coz all of us are after all returning the interest to the mighty Fed.
Contractor: Oh take the cake. I will return the cherry later.

Scene IV: ( Hey, Sandy!! Go, go. Just make him feeeel good. Alrite!! Just ride. GO!)
Bank Manager: Hey! Ms. LovelyAssForYou. Here's the rest.
Prostitute: You didn't turn your back on me. you are a nice man, Banky. Want another.
BM: No, I have to file Chapter-11 today. My bank is going broke tomorrow. Smiles.
Prosti: Well, then we will celebrate the fat check you will get tomorrow, Fatass!

Scene V:
Prosti: Hey, Lou! Thanks man. Seems like a new arrival huh? Set me up. And here's your pain in ass. Take it. I'm waiting. Just say ready when he says yes. ohk?
Motel Owner: Well, yes! But no lending this time.
Prosti: You dumbass! It is his room this time not mine.
MO: (Makes a deal).


And the chain goes on. Well, maybe you guys got it. But the total debt was 500 bucks. See, how big and inter-linked it is.

The Last Four Years.....

I still remember the first day of the college and the only thing I understood was that it was not for me. I realized that either I was in the wrong college or maybe wrong profession. As many say time is the best medicine. Soon I found that here people vary from chill-out-creatures to serious psychos. Everyone having a different tale ranging from joints to niche ambitions. I realized that it is not the brand of college that matters but people who make that brand. I was soon feeling lucky seeing the long and successful alumni. I thanked God but have known since childhood that mediocrity is in abundance but excellence is rare. Soon I was finding the parameters of excellence. I could not find any external parameter (except beauty in case of girls). Money (it will come), CGPA (does not matter), intelligence (all here are equally or rather more intelligent than me), character (well maybe), cars, girlfriends, placement, etc. nothing fits. Well then what?

The first I found was in the third year. Since childhood I wanted to be an engineer, to build big buildings, big planes, etc, I have never thought about money. When I was interning in L&T I found that after working till late one night, I didn't want to go the next day. I understood that it is the hunger that matters. If you are not hungry, sooner or later you will be complacent, nothing will matter. The second one I found out in the last semester - the people. They only can make it happen. They can pull you out they can push you, from birth till now, they were always there to listen to me, to rebuke me, to support me - friends, parents, etc.

After long four years, all I have left still is hunger and people those who can die for you and I can die for them. After these four years some will achieve goals, some confused like me will reach a bit later, but all us - hungry people- will reach. Everyday reminds me of the first day: the stage, the auditorium the gorgeous seniors, the vibrant Director, etc. I still question myself whether I will be able to justify myself as "ENGINEER" for the rest of my life. However, hellish it was, it was worth the friends (people).

MX: New Financial Instruments

With the rise of Identification schemes like UID, soon all marriages will be registered and the day is not far when our relationships will have a financial derivative for themselves i.e. a representation of the stability of marriages in form of an economic trade-off, a marriage price or stock price, as it will be called. When all stocks like these will be traded on speculation or by diagnosing community traits, we will have an MX, a Marriage Exchange. Well why not? If we can have those filthy sub-primes running down the economic pipelines why not some more random and interesting derivatives like these. Well, I am sure it will churn the world.

After all, sociology will find its real economic value. But what can be the pros and cons? Well soon we will have an insurance product that acts like 'Meher'. No marriage without that insurance product, wow!, what an idea Sirjee! Everyone who marries has to buy that product like you have for your motor-vehicles. Insurance companies and banks will bribe senators so that this instrument gets an opening ceremony from one of the fanatics who will say, "This is the start of new Social Order in the World and that through Capitalism. God Bless all couples." And soon, there will be trading charts released in a prominent Bank which has formulated the pivot point after which the marriage will be in chaos. Every sector including Pharma, Fashion, FMCG, etc will start churning strategies such that the intrinsic stock value of the couple increases.

In case you are found roaming with your beautiful wife, the policeman might impound your vehicle (wife) and guess what before you bail her out, your stock value is down on the MX and all debtors are standing at your doorsteps asking for loans because the collateral lost its value, you lost your prestige and guess what the policeman had sucked out all of the oil before you could roam with your vehicle (wife) again. You have to file Chapter 11.

That's MADNESS! And that is what sub-prime mortgage backed securities were, an utter madness. People with loans are out of their houses. Everything was being borrowed using collateral which never existed but on paper being traded in mortgage markets under AAA rating. We should make capitalism improvise our lives but we should not let it be an orgy.

I'm Heretical and I'm Confident.

I would be called 'heretical' if I will say that earth hour is a foul attempt to mitigate the climate change or I refuse to turn off my lights to save energy when there are no outages anywhere in the region. Maybe I am against the whole notion that Humans are causing global warming and I would be among a few group of people who are called insensitive and idiots.

I might be wrong but I am not confused. We have all ignored the daddy of life causing agent on earth: the Sun, not the minute 'we'. Earth's climate has been much hotter than this and much colder than this too. In 1970s we were debating about global cooling and a mini-ice age. but today we are saying that this is because of us. Impossible. It is true that we are exploiting our non-renewable resources but the trends are depressingly hyped and I just don't agree. We have forgotten the main source of temperature called Sun. Look at the red solar activity and black temperature line.

It is interesting to see that even after the second stage of Industrialization started, we had a dip in the temperature curve but it should have risen because of the increased carbon dioxide emissions. So instead of whining about the green house gases we should see that we are not using are non-renewable resources inefficiently and are not destroying our environment like fresh water lakes, etc. Human contribution to green house emissions is only a meager fraction of what volcanoes contribute. Also there is a 800 year lag in the increase in carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere and the average temperature thereby we can deduce that increased temperature causes increased carbon dioxide levels.

So what is the reason behind all this global warming hype? Well, it is Africa's large exploitable resources (coal, petrol, etc). World Bank recently gave 4 billion dollar loan to South Africa for building a coal powered plant. The loan was criticized by the whole of developed world and so called global warming foundations. Well, they want these countries to use unreliable solar and wind energies so that they can suck their resources at back hand and break the cherished African dream to develop. The developing world definitely needs energy to cut back their emissions. The cooking is still dependent on firewood which causes more harm to environment. So what is the argument? Well, I'm not an African but this hyped game is not that difficult to understand. All you need is some right stats.

How to derive satisfaction from a choice?

O God! I am writing after ages and it feels really good. I don't know where I was. Though, let us evolve a mathematical formula for satisfaction. We all have infinite choices to make and to reach to a decision we have a infinite options to select from. You all must have gone to buy a mobile phone and you have a plenty of options, rather infinite of them and after you have bought one which fulfills the functions you wanted and looks fine but you still fancy the ones you left. ' O boy that one had all the features and so low a price but it weighed a bit more.' Isn't it? May be this reveals the magic of market place which is driven by incentives. But how to justify yourself that the option you have chosen stands validated among the infinite options you have rejected?

That is where the formula shown below is useful:-

Satisfaction from a choice (xi) = Pros of choice(xi) - Cons of choice(xi) - Pros of all the rejected choices (∑x=1 to ∞xi) excluding xi.

That is why all of us are unhappy even after making some of the best decisions in our life. Because we carry only the pros of the rejected choices and not the cons but we subtract the cons of the selected choice. Rather we should try to remove the ∑ (sigma) out of the whole equation. This sigma in economics is called opportunity cost of the rejected choice. This removal of opportunity cost will make the choice worth more and increase the satisfaction levels for the decisions for which we are responsible. But physically what is this sigma?

Actually, it is the emotional value of the rejected choices. When women go out to buy saris, after coming to their places, they still fancy the one they left at the shop. And a kid fancies the rejected toy that he would buy the next time. The bride fancies the other possible groom. A graduate fancies the placement he left for something else. We all feel hollowness after leaving something because it is the tendency of human beings to emotionally stick to the things we have rejected and thus, justifying the ∑ in our equation.

Hence, the actual equation representing a rational and emotionless decision is:

Satisfaction from a choice (xi) = Pros of choice(xi) - Cons of choice(xi)