Eggs Rs. 48 for a dozen

Two things, I hate to disappoint you all, but this blog will have nothing to do with internet space, but the economic indicators can be understood in overall business sense, second, in this blog I will use movie quotes from 1967 classic “Cool Hand Luke”.

As commodities moving up by almost 50% year on year, Eggs for example have moved from Rs. 32 to Rs. 48 for a dozen, and similar trend for vegetables, fruits and pulses, the government WPI inflation showed up a number of 4.78 %, as on 14^th December, 2009. On news of this high inflation, the suggestions floating around are to curb liquidity further and raise the interest rates. But how good is this inflation number, when clearly the value of currency is going down much faster than these number indicate. The currencies across the world are showing worst trends, with US Fed maintaining a 0.5% interest rate, and printing money. Meanwhile, the gold is rising all the time, with more faith in precious metal than in currency, and couple of months back, Chinese government offering official advice to its people to invest in Gold and Silver.

“What we have got here is failure to communicate”

The core of the inflation numbers, come from it being driven by age old wholesale price index, rather than consumer price index in developed nations. The other side of it, is lack of control of government on economy and liquidity as a whole. With Congress enjoying absolute power in parliament, there is no one questioning the price of gasoline, up or down, in turn commodity prices, due to hoarding, the situation for a common Indian is getting worse. And to check common man’s case, Mr. Rahul Gandhi visits a dalit’s home in UP, every two months, to have “two poories and aalu ki sabzi”, which becomes prime time news for our esteemed news networks, apart from covering “paa”.

“Sorry, Luke. I'm just doing my job.”

“Luke: Nah - calling it your job don't make it right”

The government is doing its job, the stock market is rising, the auto sales are up, the real estate is back in business, so what’s wrong? The same thing which was wrong in late 80s Japan, and to some level post Sep’11 United States. It is the budget deficit and trade deficit, that is wrong, it is the out of control real inflation, it is the Debt bubble we are building, it is the falling exports month on month. But does RBI care, nopes, they want to cover the deficits by printing money, a la helicopter Ben (Bernanke), who can be blamed for the crash, but since he later tried to put off the fire he lit, he got re-elected.

This is the new RBI solution for everything, print more, and with no focus on the problems which US is facing post making that mistake. RBI is also accumulating worthless dollars as part of its foreign exchange reserves, and some recent buying(200 tonnes) of Gold from IMF at ridiculous prices. The conspiracy theory behind it, is the insecurity of RBI as part of its printing currency blindly with no back-up.

Coming to the original question, is the currency value falling faster than inflation numbers suggest, Yes Sir! What does that mean, one clear thing that in an effort to put dirt under the carpet, that is not having effects of slowdown, RBI started printing more money, and making big money auctions to banks at lower rates. This was the same action taken by US federal reserve post Sep’11, 2001, where the US economy was badly hit, instead of taking the punch, they started printing money left right and center. Which is the case for us today, with rising debt all over the place, do remember money creation is equal to inflation, and money is always created as debt. With clear lack of control over money supply, prices are going out of the roof, and so is the stock market, owing to high liquidity and operators play.

“Luke: John-boy, lemme tell you something. You know, them chains ain't medals. You get 'em for making mistakes.”

I simply fail to believe how media and people at large, do not talk about this. The prices do not inflate on their own, these things have reasons behind them, and deficits do not get wiped out by printing more paper money. US is staring at over 10% unemployment, the common man is suffering there. As US looks at loosing its AAA rating, please remember India’s rating is still BBB.

"Luke: Nobody ever eat fifty eggs"

With these prices, nobody can!

You are not your car

The DJIA(Dow Jones industrial average) going under 6600, bailout not making any difference, homeless increase and jobs disappear as US goes down the hole of recession. The cash crunch has hit India, RBI opening gates with lowering ratios and rates, Banks skeptical to pick up more debt, as NPAs rise, still more loans are on offer to get the economy back on track. Could this be counter productive, in case loans are not paid back, like in the US? As Buffett announces “this is the pearl harbor of recession, and we have fallen off a cliff”. The fear in the customer’s mind is unprecedented, and its spreading like the bush-fires, the corporate needs to come out with honest and lower offerings, and marketers across the world have the tough job of renewing customer confidence. Is social media marketing, where millions of customers are converging, the right medium to convince customers of new offerings, that too only when corporate is giving some good schemes, as in India, greedy auto firms are raising prices, airlines not dropping prices even after government sops! Complicated, Yes, that’s the life in one of the world’s worst crisis. I will use the quotes of fight club to make it interesting.

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”

What is the reason of recession, as per Dr. Ron Paul “We spent too much, We borrowed too much, and Fed printed more to facilitate this”. Basically the spending was out of control based on debt, and the debt was made easier and easier by Fed, the people drove expensive SUVs, got big houses and they couldn’t pay back. Is RBI not doing the same thing, reducing CRR each month, printing more money, pushing more money supply, as NPAs of banks rise, does it make sense to give out loans, when current loans are not getting paid out, that is what has created this global crisis, and I think in India we are following the ways to doom. People are buying sofas for 1 lakh, cars for 8 lakhs, and house for 1 crore, and we know it is out of capacity, its due to the availability of debt, this is bound to crash. Now even bathrooms and kitchens need to supremely ornamented, the tiles, the Italian kitchens, the expensive appliances, its going out of the window. We are spending too much, which is based on debt, this is modern India, going on lines of Japan and US, into the recession.

The government budget, is far more adventurous, instead of conserving spends, and taking money out for sops, decreasing income tax, they have increased the spends, the pay package for government employees, the rural schemes for 1,00,000 crores, I have put the zeros intentionally, we know where that money is going to go, as poverty in India actually stays constant. Slumdogs are staying slumdogs, and richdogs are becoming richerdogs. The budget deficit looks at a mounting 3.5 lakh crore, on which giving sops is suicidal, and sops keep coming, and spending keep rising, result S & P has rated India negative, I said the same thing on budget day, but no one heard me, but when S & P gave out rating, that was on front page, but that is obvious, I am not complaining. Bottom line, with this budget government is not in a condition to help us pay back installments of the big car, while RBI is working hard to get us that loan.

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history.... no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives.”

Warren buffet has warned that the fear in the consumer is unprecedented, he puts it very well, that you can install the gravest fear in five minutes and confidence may not be installed in the same manner. The fear maybe unreal, but what about demand, that is also driven by fear, advertising and availability of debt. As the dollar departs from world markets, the domestic demands has to facilitate the economy, while the export market markets crash. In India, the best part is retail consumer demand still on a good level, But as exports fall, and demand relatively falls in infrastructure and retail sector, the manufacturers and wholesalers, are experiencing overnight losses, one of my friend, who deals in copper, told me that copper rate plummeted within a week, and his inventories, were worth half. He no longer holds big inventories, but that has lead to loss of customers who want the material the same day. Please get it right, that means, everyone wants Just-in-time inventories, only when order is there, which manufacturer cannot do, obviously, so he is cutting down production or smaller units getting closed. In China, these problems are bigger, as it is highly export oriented, but the old tide is in their favor.

"It's only after you've lost everything," Tyler says, "that you're free to do anything."

Still India looks good on consumer demand, and that is what we need to push. The RBI measures are risky but happening. The service tax reduction is one good move, but now it is up to corporate to give special sops to consumers. post which it is the marketers job to install confidence and promote good purchasing for consumers. As media spends dry up owing to high pressure on costs, the marketers are looking at newer options.

I bet social media marketing and video advertising on internet is the way to go, but it has got to come intelligently. The connect, the evangelizing, the continuation of communication and the value delivery on ground has to be the order of the day. What it means is this, the social media has millions of people entrenched, you got to be part of the media, entertaining these people, without blowing trumpets of your brands, so entertain first, introduce second, give a humble introduction, not in their face, as most of the media planners and brand managers want “It needs to be seen”, so that they can impress their idiotic Heads, who have no head or tail of internet marketing, and it is for their bragging, since it is technology and digital, or maybe since his son is on Facebook. Do not, and I mean it, Do not bring the term ROI here, and please understand what that means, it is been some time that this term is abused. It is a financial term, just ask your finance guy for the firm's P & L, and check the EBIDTA, calculate the operating leverage for the year, then lets talk ROI. So Entertain, Introduce, and next impress him enough, for him to leave his contact info, contact quickly within 24 hrs, surprise him with more value, and service him well when he comes to your outlet, MARKETING IN ACTION!! Do not make it inaction…

Video advertising is really going to be the future, with video publishing and ad-serving technology getting stronger. Creativity is the name of the game, and entertainment has to be the starting point, same walk way as I explained for social media marketing. But creativity and customization do not go hand in hand, so do not trust the agencies looking for mock-ups for the clients to clear, that will kill creativity. The creativity will come out of “loosing all fear and hope of appreciation” from the client, the creativity is about you, your own stamp, it is like the great Sergio Leone movies, once upon a time in America. As responsible internet media owners and marketers, lets crack it for the brands, increase consumer demand, get the spending in the right direction, and beat the crap out of recession. Then buy that 1 lakh sofa, may be not……

“...you're not how much money you've got in the bank. You're not your job. You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself.... You're not your name.... You're not your problems.... You're not your age.... You are not your hopes.”

India Blinding

This blog entry would be more about economics, corporate and financial order in India, with little reference to Internet. To make things interesting I will use the quotes of the famous film “Wall Street”

The lack of reduction in prices, the falling demand and the falling inflation, the Satyam downfall and the political, corporate and banking corruption is order of the day. The politicians, corporate and media are out to protect India’s Image in terms of pretending to have no impact of meltdown, complete control over economic variables and Satyam being just one bad apple. I am shocked to see how nowhere real facts are getting discussed.

Fact 1: The Economy is clearly getting effected, the credit crunch is high, the demand is low and inflation is falling(and it is not the best sign). We lost close to trillion dollar of market cap within an year. Look around, there is a clear credit crunch, money is getting tighter, and no parallel economy and black money is going to make it better, which is the theory of some people. The credit crunch is bigger within trading circles, please check with your trader friends. The money is stuck in the speculative markets, everyone waiting to make his profits, even the people who are already in profits are looking for more and more, why?? Simple as it was worth more 12 months back. A friend of mine wants a sell a flat in Delhi, he bought it for 15 Lakhs, he is getting 45, he needs the money, but 8 months back he was getting 60, he waiting, and hanging on hand to mouth but not selling. There are hundred such theories on stocks and real estates. The problems with others, some people rather than doing anything productive, made shares and property their business, and now are holding on to barren plots(which was to become flats), under construction properties and entries in DMAT accounts.

“Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others”

Fact 2: The government packages to push the economy are great, but there are hardly any takers. The government opened up over 50 K crores to be released in the Economy. To every street economy expert, that is something to be pumped up about and make a story upon. But get a grip of it guys, this money is to be taken as debt by systems, YES DEBT, the banks take debt, they give debt, Debt is the way money flows. Banks are highly levered already with NPAs right on limits. ICICI is highly levered, and is India’s largest private bank, and as per RBI, they hold more liquidity by 3-4% than actually required. So why is RBI opening more liquidity if India’s largest private bank is so well placed? Why are there no takers for it? Because you need to buy something to take Debt, to push buying, there needs to be a price stimulus, which finance minister is begging for, but the greedy corporate India, has decided not to give that. The auto price cuts are just a sham, the auto firms have already decided to cut down production, which means they will produce less and sell less, but would not compromise with the profitability.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit”

Fact 3: The falling inflation is coming from steep fall in demand, and here is where a lot of people would disagree with me, but I think the lowering of inflation clearly a bad sign. For once, we need to see that government efforts to reduce inflation were not working, but as the stock market has fallen and real estate transactions have lowered, with US dollar business dropping, the inflation has come down, as a result of these factors creating a major drop in demand. This means government is not controlling the economy, it is highly market lead, Oh yes I know some people might be think, what’s new about it, we operate in a free market economy, no my friend In India, we don’t, we have a complex half baked system going towards a free economy, but far from there. The second bad part of this is corporate, media and banking taken positive meaning out of it, and supporting to push more liquidity in the system, in turn asking more loans to be taken, taking us to the mistakes US made, with entire population living in Debt and speculation. With Hindi news channels busy covering bollywood releases in prime time, the English newspapers and news channels are busy promoting utopian positive shit. The talk shows are pre programmed, the guests are taught and selected in a pre-decided manner, the print media is worse, have to fill some pages, so write whatever is new and not written about, has to be new, can be anything, but new, today criticism, tomorrow sympathy. Everyone is here to sell news, not to guide you, I hope you all know that…..

“If something’s worth doing it's worth doing for money.”

Fact 4: The Satyam case is a true case of how India is going blind and loosing all direction. First the guy does it for years, acknowledges it and quotes “Riding Tiger, Getting Eaten”, sounds like an Ang Lee film title. Second, what corporate India does, get on big time defensive and image correction, I mean like no discussion on corporate governance, no accountability taken by SEBI or any government institution, no accountability of the banks where Satyam money was claimed, PWC missing all over, all-for-one and one-for-all, Narayanmurti to premji to finance minister to TV show hosts, “India is a clean place, we have no corruption, no fraud, we haven’t even heard about any bribing in here”. Oops, DDA scam, Noida housing Scan, fodder scam, wipro banned by world bank, local cops, government babus, only 3% of country paying tax, hardly any corporate governance(you be my director, I will be yours with no liability and SEBI sleeps) and on and on. But we are Indians, we are clean. As businessweek and WSJ questions India’s corporate governance, SEBI’s control and corruption levels, we are worried getting some sympathy on front page of newspapers for Mr. Raju. Government bailing out the fraud firm in interest of 53 K employees, amazing!!!! Let me get your attention, You got LIC policy I guess yes, they commit you bonus and loyalty and stuff, that’s not guaranteed, that is as per LIC’s investments performance, which was a good 5 % of Satyam, so your return will be lower now, still worried about the employees of Satyam….whose going to worry about the investors???

My point is that media, politicians and corporate are taking us away from the facts. In the age of bailouts, do not accept the Satyam bailout, the corrupt should not be bailed out in a free economy, US fed, although being far from perfect itself has bailed out bad decision making, not fraud. AIG, Freddie mac and company did not commit fraud, Enron was not bailed out, worldcom was allowed to collapse, and Xerox took their hit in their scandal. In the current US meltdown, only the madoff scandal is there, and his victims are not bailed out. But our news coverage and word on street says, bailout is bailout, it is happening everywhere…who knows…..who cares….we are gathering sympathy for Rajuji, we have taken zero action on PWC, which is preposterous, and what about SEBI and Indian Accounting Standards, nothing, no action. I think most of people know, how after enron and worldcom scandals, the US GAP became very tough. But we are not even thinking about it why? Because we are busy claiming that we are clean….

“A man looks in the abyss, there is nothing staring back at him. At that moment he discovers his character. That keeps the man out of the abyss.”

The Grapes of Wrath

“The Grapes of Wrath” is the title of a book, by John Steinbeck, set during the great depression. It is the story of a poor family’s (the Joads) journey hit by the economic downturn, from Oklahoma to California, in search of a decent job, survival and dignity. I read the book, after listening to the Bruce Springsteen song “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, which has reference to the protagonist Tom Joad, from the book.

I choose this title for this blog, few days back, but after the Mumbai terror attack it addresses two issues. One is the current economic downturn, uncertainty, job-cuts and world looking down the barrel of a major recession. Here is one quote from the book:

“The Bank is something more than men, I tell you. It is the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.”

This is coming true in 2008, as well; the term added in this era is “complex derivatives”. Men made it, and they cannot control. Although some men like warren buffet, criticized it. The jobs are going, the companies are falling, the sales are down and the credit is tight. With some luck the internet advertising has survived In US, as it has proved to be more effective and ROI driven than any other medium. The Silicon Valley has survived the crash well, and still holding fort.

The second is the terrible Mumbai attack, which is the grape of the wrath, the anger, the hatred and the animosity built around the world. The human has dropped to a level, where the god given brain has stopped working. He is ready to kill anyone for someone’s revenge, and the killer didn’t know either “anyone” or “someone”. Here is one quote from the book:

“In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage”

If you go to youtube there are stinging videos of wrath, against Hindus, against Muslims, against Jews, against India, against America and so on. Basically you can find a video against anyone, and the comments on those videos can easily explain the wrath, the hatred, people want to kill each other, not knowing who is on the other side. “Kill them”, “F..k them”, “Rape their women” are the common comments, please check, and I bet you already know this. We have lost it! The bright human has lost it!

Now with the top world economies going negative in GDP numbers, we at India were happy and hopeful that we will do at least 5 % economic growth, which will be among the best. Now that will be good enough to attract investment of leading investors across the world. Suddenly after Mumbai attacks I(and I bet many others) am thinking, about my safety in this country. In the aftermath, some articles have come out in the financial papers, about “Brand India” loosing its shine, and India’s corporate Image getting hurt. Although that is correct, but I think the top of the mind thought, with most of the Indians today is safety and security within the country, for which we await some strong actions from the government.

In any case, it looks like the economy is going to get hurt. Investments in a terrorism affected state will get tough, and tourism is going to suffer a great deal. Just like all media, the internet industry is also suffering with the falling advertisement spends. The aftermath of the attack will bring more issues to curtail the progress we were making. As the economic growth slows down further, we can look at PC penetration, and Internet penetration again growing at a slower level than anticipated. We were hoping for 100 million internet audience by the end of 2011, I think it is going to be delayed, until some major change happens.

The current issues of majority of Internet firms are negative operating leverage due to economic slowdown. And as per the sequoia presentation, the death spiral may get set in motion, in an effort to get the operating leverage positive by brute force of cutting costs. The investors are under immense pressure of raising credit, on the negative operating leverage. Now dotcom firms of Silicon Valley are also under similar pressure, but they were ready with the learning’s of the dotcom burst 8 years back. The firms are having lean manpower structures, automated models and thanks to cloud and grid computing, very reasonable server and infrastructure costs. Another great thing is the open source software resources, on which a lot of start-ups and even major sites are built, with minor coding and customized applications on top of them. The manpower planning is to have talented and senior people with very limited team strength, the visionaries and vertical/functional experts run the show, and donkey-work (manpower intensive, not dumb work) is outsourced to donkey-work experts.

This is not the case is India, and internet firms are still to learn from the crash. Majority of workforce is young and inexperienced, and are even new to their corporate career, let alone the Internet Industry. The other media like TV, radio and print has a training ground, and a process for education of new comers. But the Internet seems to be requiring zero training and practically anyone right out of college or from any other industry can take up major jobs. This is the key reason, why major brands do not spend, or pay very little for much higher value than any other medium, as the poorly trained manpower in Internet is not able to convince clients on the strengths of the medium. This is also adding to confusion and lack of foresight for taking on economic slowdown in reference to Internet businesses.


Here is another quote from the book to sum-up all situations:

“Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concept, emerges ahead of his accomplishments”

Here is my take on the situation; we need the economic situation to improve across the world, with basics of hard work, savings and real income. We need hatred to come down and safety for everyone across the world. We need the Indian internet firms to surge ahead, and await the boom (like in US and China), with Internet population going beyond 100 million.

I salute the martyrs of Mumbai.

The Greatest Trick

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
The famous dialogue from the movie “The usual suspects” can be the headline for the financial collapse in the world. They are calling it the “Financial Tsunami”, “The Meltdown”, “Nuclear Winter” and so on. Yes ladies and Gentlemen the biggest financial crisis of the last 75 years has hit us. Now this blog entry will not be about explanation of sub-prime crisis, it will be about economy, lies, human behavior, financial modeling and a bit about the impact on the Internet space. It will be a bit long, but if go the whole way, I promise you the kicks…

The guy who predicted all this is “Paul Krugman”, the Nobel Prize winner for economics, the columnist of New York Times. Here is his now famous article from back then in 2005, titled “Greenspan and the Bubble”:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/opinion/29krugman.html

Here is the important excerpt, If you do not want to read the whole thing:

“If, in particular, the housing bubble bursts before the trade deficit shrinks - we're going to have an economic slowdown, and possibly a recession. In fact, a growing number of economists are using the "R" word for 2006.”

And some part of the problem was challenged by Texas congressman Ron Paul, wherein he criticized Ben Bernanke on money supply, trade deficit and oversupply of dollar across the world. But what was the feedback to their issues, they were criticized and some (Bill O’Reilly) called Paul Krugman stupid and unpatriotic. The Greenspan’s, Bernanke’s and the Paulson’s played along like ignorant parents, for kids like Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG to create mayhem.

Let us come back to India, Aren’t we sick and tired of listening to finance minister (FM) and RBI governor’s rhetoric that everything is fine in India. Now that is not the truth, and everyone knows that. The market has crashed from 22 K to 9 K and SEBI believes everything is fine, it is not. The rupee has touched its lowest, still our FM says, No problems, do not panic, we are in control.

The real estate and banking stocks have crashed, with real estate firms crashing 80% in six months, and these firms are still releasing full page advertisements in leading Indian dailies, Is that not misappropriation of funds raised from public? SEBI doesn’t care a damn, and you (the shareholders) are given an impression that it is nobody’s fault. Mr. Subbarao was all out to back ICICI; the RBI even released a press statement for their guarantee. Amazing, everything is great, all the banks are well funded, liquidity is good, not only good, according to RBI, ICICI is better placed by 4% in terms of liquidity over statutory requirements. Now ICICI is our number one bank, if they are so well placed for liquidity, so we do not need to free up liquidity anymore, but RBI is cutting 2.5 % CRR and freeing up thousands of crores, is that not contradictory? If that was not enough, repo rate was reduced by 1 % and another repo rate reduction, will come with 15 days to one month. Now why is all this happening if everything is fine?

There is a real estate firm offering 20% interest on a public fixed deposit, one will be surprised to know that a leading media firm, which reports business, is offer 13 % interest. The stock market has fallen, rupee has fallen, Inflation still in double digits, food grains prices are rising in an economy with 80 crore people making less than Rs. 20 per day and inter-banking lending was stopped by our beloved RBI, and still there is no problem.

This is the greatest trick. Lehman brothers were never in problem, all their press statements were bubbling with confidence till the last three weeks of their existence. Recently Greenspan admitted the error in vision, and the American politicians are blaming it on greedy Wall Street players. But there is bailout for all on taxpayer’s money.

Let us rewind, the India of six months back, everyone buying shares, MFs, ULIPs and biggest of all, real estate. “They asked me to take a loan for property, as even if I would not be able to pay the installment, the house will always be worth way more”, this is the statement of an American Home loan consumer, who had to foreclose. Does this remind you of anything? Yes all your friends and investment advisors were making the same statements. If you told them that the property is a bubble, and there is no change in civic amenities (electricity, water, roads, law and order), they would laugh at you. Every second person had become an investment consultant, throwing advice on shares, MFs and real estate, with zero background. All ULIP plans were sold like “guaranteed returns” plans, which they were not.

Three weeks back, one of our ministers was mocking US economic system, and boasting how we will have no impact of this, what now? Now Real estate firms do not have money to complete projects, is what they are saying. Complete??? That is a joke, go to Greater Noida and tens of other suburbs near major cities, where big townships are announced, and a single flat is sold over a crore. I just went there with someone; there is nothing there, absolutely nothing, no electricity poll, no road, nothing. The question should be if these projects will ever get started with the liquidity crunch and plummeting stock prices of real estate firms. These firms were raising debt at rate of 30% plus not so long back, where is the corporate governance on that in India, none what so ever.

But is the mainline media talking about it, Not much, they are running interview of the FM and RBI governor giving assurances!! At least in US, the mainline media is challenging the Fed and the regulatory system. Here, the King Khan claims ICICI is safe (as if he will bailout if there is a problem), and the word on the street is that RBI will bail us out in case of crisis. The FM, PM and RBI governor has promised the bailout, the question is should we not be doing something to avoid that situation? The mid-term credit policy kept everything status quo, they said it is not required, on the same day, when markets fell by 1200 points. This is the foresight of RBI.

More word on street, Real estate prices will never go down, especially from the people who have taken properties recently. Second assertion, even if prices will go down, rentals will go up. I checked in market both real estate prices and rentals are going down, in case of doubt please check for commercial rentals in the posh Con. Place area of Delhi.

There is a clear impact on internet space in India, the advertising propensity overall has gone down, and Internet is taking the maximum heat, followed by radio. The start-ups are going to have a tough time, check my piece on internet evolution on that:

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=687&doc_id=166514&

Let us not think about the financial crisis for a moment. Let us question our intellect as to try and understand the truth. But instead most people are busy selling their personally benefiting confused thoughts.

So I leave it to you, do you see a problem or not, do fundamentals like high money supply pushed by RBI is last 3 years without requisite growth in GDP, or growth in products and services is the right decision. Now so many questions, where were the questions when markets were rising?

To come clean after all this mayhem(which is just the tip of the iceberg), is surely the greatest trick!!!