The Vault Of Souls

For the last two hours… I have been thinking of what to write next. You’ll say that I have too much free time (who spends two hours thinking?!!) But in reality it’s because I am sick and have no other work to do lying on my bed (;-)). Lately I have been reading a lot about recession and economics. (As you would have notices if you’ve read my earlier post). Recently, I read a theory about how INDIA has survived the recession. And as soon as I saw the soaring stock markets today… I felt like I had to write this. So, here goes.

The main reason why America is the worst sufferer of this recession is
the “charuvaka” philosophy the people follow (which tells people to borrow, spend and live happily ever after).This and the habit of the Americans of spending more than what was needed made the US lose most due to the recession.

INDIA is a different scenario. During the early 2000’s the economy of country was booming. Till 2006 and the first half of 2007 the per capita income of the country was increasing. As the per capita income of the country increased, so did the per capita expenditure and the per capita savings. Thus, economists thought that INDIA would go the same way as America. But when recession hit the world, the per capita income of the country fell and remarkably, the per capita expenditure fell and the per capita saving remained the same!!. This confused many economists who thought that capitalism could not survive in a society oriented country like INDIA. It was only this society only that saved our economy. The values which were passed on from generation to generation of spending only on what is required and the famous Indian phrase “ADJUST KAR LE YAAR” were the things that helped us maintain our economy. Thus, The values taught to us by our parents and grandparents, which were ignored by the greatest minds of the world and neglected by the greatest B-schools of the world, acted as a shield at the time of trouble.

Also,borrowers by and large in INDIA especially medium and small borrowers believe in repayment of loans, as rightly said by the American Ambassador Mr. Galbraith that he could see “the richness of honesty in the poverty of agriculturists”.
JAI HIND!!!

As they sat there, in the room…Dark and grave,
She really hated him, his chewing his pen, his clothes, his shave,
They were playing scrabble on the dead hard ground,
Tap, tap, tap….She shuffled her letters,
He clenched his jaw; he was annoyed by that sound.a
He pondered…Would killing her make his life better?


She moved first…WIND with a ‘D’ on the double letter score,
Outside he heard a sound….but ignored it…he wanted to win,
He had 4 vowels “2E’s, A and an O” and “an H, T, Q”,
HEATED using the double lettered ‘D’..Ha! Today he’ll beat that whore,
…silence…The kettle sounded; the coffee was made... (”Quick!”)


Tap, Tap, Tap..Urgh!!The sound again. BREAK she moved using his A,
She got up and went to get the coffee…Thinking hard he broke his pen,
HURT he made using the H…”Ouch!!”She yelled.
She’d burned her hands off the kettle,
Trying to look concerned he passed her a cream; searching for a pen,
She came back. Tapped again(“Humph!”)..
WOUND she made to show her mettle.
FIND…he moved and saw a pen underneath the rug,
What luck! There was something fishy abt today’s game,
FLY… she moved, getting a ‘Y’ on the triple lettered score(“Bitch!!”),
Another sound…This time it was a mosquito…Wham! It was dead.
She had a paper in her hand,…how he would like to do the same to her,
QUAKE…using the U and K on the board…There was a thunder,
The ground started shaking and then went quiet. He looked up at her,
Her face was white…The FLY!, HURT!, HEAR!, FIND!, QUAKE!,…..


Realization drenched him. It was magic!!!!....
A thought came to him…he could still kill her. He’ll ne’er be caught,
He waited for her turn….DARK…she made and the lights were gone,
He’d test it first…he had 2K’s, 2O’s, L,I,M…thinking..NO..He made..
The lights were back.


Thrilled! He’d get her today…tomorrow he will be a free man…
He collected his K,I and L…he would KILL at the L of fly,
CHOKE…she made using the dark K…It was his turn…now she dies,
He got ready…in his excitement…tripped & the L slipped from his hand,
It flew up and got in his mouth…he was choking!...this was his end,
He looked up at her….she was smiling…and looked at the score,
He was dying..but he’d won the round..
At least he’d beaten the whore!!!.

11:00 PM… As we were walking down the main street of our campus, my friend asked me, “Do you know there is a ghost in VDV?” I too had heard many stories and claims. Nodding I walked along...as we came in view of the VDV. “Would you like to see it?” he asked. I was startled by the question.”YES!!”, I said feigning bravado. Then we reached VDV …. There was an eerie silence all over the place and the building did look haunted (perhaps because we were talking about it!!)… I pointed out to my friend…”Anyone would die if he sees a person thru that glass”. And as soon as I pointed to that glass BOOM! The lights of VDV went out and scared the shit out of me…laughing at the coincidence, we walked ahead..as we reached CTV(we were still laughing about the earlier incident)… as soon as we saw it , the lights of CTV went out too… We ignored it but we weren’t laughing anymore, my insides were trembling. But the real shock came when we crossed CTV. Out first step inside TIFAC... And the lights of tifac went out …and the lights of the road went out… Leaving the road engulfed in pitch black darkness….and there was not a single soul in the street… The first time a sense of fear surfaced on both of us… and we ran… away from the darkness………..

The incident sparked a question inside me… Is something like a supernatural really there? Do people have psychic powers? GHOSTS??...Well, these are the questions that are better off left unanswered. The probability of providence is what keeps the good inside people alive…….

THE DAY THE EARTH WAS CHEATED!!

The first thing I would like to mention in this article is that it is “Not against any particular economy”. It just explores the “HISTORY OF ECONOMICS “and gives a brief account of the causes of the current recession (within the limits of my knowledge).The roots of this recession lie in the economic situation of the world from 1980.

THE RISE OF CAPITALISM

Before 1980, the government was considered the best tool for distribution of money. Slowly, Marxism took over as the main form of economics in countries throughout the world in which need was considered as the main tool for wealth distribution. After 1980’s the role of the government started undergoing a transformation and communism started to fail .During late 1980’s and the start of 1990’s , many events such as the breaking of the Berlin wall, disintegration of the USSR marked the end of the communist theories of economics and capitalism took over.

Thus then was the time when Marx had failed the government and the markets had failed communism. Thus, most of the developed economies of that time started practicing capitalism. Not only did the countries practice capitalism but they wanted to make their model a role model for the rest of the world.

"THERE IS A CRISIS!"

Hence, most of the discussion at every level (political, media, intellectual) during the 1990’s till 2001 was on economics. After 9/11, the discussions shifted from economics to terrorism. And till 2007, terrorism dominated the news, politics etc. After the early 2008, the discussion has again shifted, this time to an amalgam of terrorism and economics because the recession period points at great danger in the form of the total collapse of the financial architecture of the world. Hence there’s confusion. The extent of confusion is such that even the best of the minds of the world are able to reach a consensus on only one thing... that “THERE IS A CRISIS”! Beyond that they are not able reach any consensus on the cause of the recession. Some say it’s the banks, some say it’s the society or consumers….. .

THE FOLLY OF CAPITALISM

As we are talking about the developed economies and since US is considered as the most developed economy, our discussion will also be limited to it. The two most important points in the free market capitalism in 1990’s were that 1) the stock market was the most endured tool of wealth creation and 2) the consumers spent a lot as a consumer spending driven economy was the most sustained from of economy.

Therefore a huge amount of consumer spending and a huge hype created in the stock market marked the US of that time. Thus, the consumers spent beyond their needs and the wealth ( not only of consumers, but organizations and corporations) was spent in the us stock market. And since US was booming at that time, they began exporting this strategy (and the countries who adopted this are the biggest victim of this economic crisis). Till the late 1990’s, the Silicon Valley was booming and t-stocks attracted the maximum investments.

Then in 2001 the .com bubble burst, the market capitalization had failed and much of the investors wealth was reduced to 0.And post 9/11, the business confidence in the US hit a new low and this changed and transformed the economic downturn into a crisis.

DAMAGE CONTROL - From .com bubble to housing bubble!

So, Some damage control was required by the US because their model could survive only if the people were encouraged to 1)spend as they spent earlier and 2) be closely associated with the stock market .But, business in US was almost synonymous with the stock market and it was impossible to separate business from the declining stock market. Thus, a new model was needed within the framework of the old mindset as there could be no economic activity without investment from the people and US had to give people a new portfolio of investment. Thus, we a shift of investment from the stock market to the real estate market.

Suppose someone had bought a house for 1 million $ and now the cost of the house was 5 million $ and hence the person had a passive investment of 4 million $ lying waste. So, the banks decided to give a loan of 4 million with that house as collateral to encourage people to spend. This resulted in more spending and people started buying new houses from the 4 million loans assuming that the value of the house would reach 10 million in the next 10 years. Thus a housing bubble was formed. But the problem was that the asset creation was illusionary (i.e. the banks never had a collateral of 5 million with them, it was just a house that was “assumed“to be marked at 5 million) and the loans on that house were real. When the housing bubble burst, the value of the asset fell but the value of the loans never fell down, they were still 5 million. Hence there was economic trouble in the US.

But then this crisis should’ve stopped in the US only. How did it transcend boundaries and reach the other countries.

GLOBALIZATION OF THE CRISIS

Here the real culprit is considered Allen Greenspan who started sallying these loans to other banks abroad and Banks like Lehman Brothers (which filed for bankruptcy) and others started selling these loans to other banks. They took a group of these loans, packaged them as CDO’s (Collateral Debt Obligations) and exported them to other banks. Moreover, These CDO’s were given AAA rating by rating companies such as Moody in 30 sec because they got commission for that. Ironically, In India it takes 3-4 months time just to get a load of 1 crore but then trillions and trillions of dollar worth packages were rated the best in just 30 sec. And these were sold to banks in Europe, Australia, newzeland etc. Thus there was a complete disconnect between the original borrower (somewhere in US) to the final lender (somewhere across the pacific). Thus his created a ripple effect and the recession transcended boundaries and took over the whole world.

(* that is why the revival package in the US is some 800 million dollars, the revival package for the EU s 4 trillion dollars).

This irritated a lot of economies and particularly those of the European Union. And recently the German finance minister and French president in their speeches, pointed to the same fact, on the same day as though connected by telepathy that…

“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAD CHAETAED THE ENTIRE WORLD”

Hi everyone! For my first blog on blogger( My first Blog this year!!) i'd like to share something which is very close to my heart and which ends its first year on 21st of this month ( BTW I have my business xam on the 22nd :-().

'DBC' or 'D Beginners Club' was started by us ( which includes Anupam, KD ,me and many more...) in our third semester to make the freshers , who were "beginning" ( ** origin of 'B' in DBC ** ) their lives in the ""technological world"" , comfortable with engineering ( this is only the official reason presented to the dean-CSE , there were many more less noble ones!!!). The first session took place on 21st august 2008, at CTV 104.

The first session we took was on ...'the wonders programming can do!!'( the first class was attended by 46 students)... . Subsequently, We had sessions on ' C ' . Once the Mid sems for I years were over , we had a session on 'Digital Film Making' and showed movies and videos made by us during DAKSH that year. The class was attended by a record 117 students. Then we had further sessions on 'C language' includng graphics,pointers etc and the response of the first years was encouraging.

As we entered the IV semester...we started off a bit late. We had our first session(that semester) on 'The journey of languages' which dealt with how languages evolved from low level languages to HLL's like C# and JAVA. After that we had our sessions on 'C++' and a session on 'Online programming in gcc( for DOPE)' before daksh. We also covered many latest technologies on the way 'CLOUD COMPUTING' , 'BRAINFCK' , 'CHEF-ESOTERIC PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE'. The penultimate session was taken by anubhav(ECE dept.) on the topic 'STEGANOGRAPHY and MATLAB'.

We'll be having the last class on 21st of this month ( 21st , incidentally is the same date we had the first class) , the topic will be 'ALL YOU CAN DO WITH MICROSOFT'. We'll be giving an intro about various microsoft technologies like
- Windows 7
- IE8(which i am using nw!! and its gr8)
- AZURE
- PHOTOSYNTH
- POPFLY
- SURFACE
- Second Light etc.

Also, the MICROSOFT STUDENT PARTNER,SASTRA university natraj sir will be coming to our last session.He has been an inspiration and guide to us in everything. Hope all goes well on Tuesaday.

P.S I have mid sems from 15th....i hope they go well too!!