We get what we deserve: being citizen of a developed or poor nation!

Currently history of how the US became favourite destination for immigrants in early years, back in 1400s, and how it grew from there is my favourite reading interest. So I am exploring this topic a bit. And this has made me think how few countries became wealthier and others remained poor despite almost same opportunities. Here I give my take on this as to why some countries became wealthier and others not.

I wonder how so many countries like US, Australia, New Zealand, and even Brazil and many other, which are all completely full of immigrants only with very low native population, have same characteristics, well almost, but only the US is a super power but others not. Local native population in these countries is very less or in fact negligible they are mostly migrant population and all are natural resources rich. So we can say that all these countries had almost same kind of people or culture to start with when these lands began to take form as countries. But today they are all at different stage of development or influence in the world.
Similarly lot of Asian countries like Japan, China, Korea, India, Malaysia to name a few were all at almost the same level of development around 60 years ago but today they are very different. Some have rushed way past and others are left way behind and it will take them decades to catch up with others.
Similarly, at the time of independence India and Pakistan both were at almost the same stage but today the gap between the two have widened beyond imaginations both politically and economically.
Almost all these countries I mentioned up here were all at the same stage of development at some time and had same sort of resources to start with but some of them have gone way up in development but others are lingering at the same level where they started, or just a bit up from where they started. All had everything same except the people who led them were different, or of different characteristics.
So in my understanding what it says is that the two countries, with same sort of problems, and same amount of resources at their disposal to start with may end up being completely different countries few years down the line if the political masters who ultimately takes the decisions about the future of a country are not competent enough. So the future of a country and ultimately that of its citizen lies completely in the hands of politicians of the any day. How today’s politicians behave today will decide our and country's future tomorrow. It’s only the decision makers at the helm that differentiate a country from other. If a country has an able and competent leader at the helm it’s surely going to go in the right direction. This seems to be the reason why US and Japan are where they are today and other countries are not there yet.
Then if we see little deeper, these all countries are democracies, or mostly have been democratic in their history, so their leaders were and are decided by the societies of these countries only. That means the leader of a country is as good as selected by citizens of that country and deserved by that country.
So does it prove that if a country is developed it’s citizen deserve it and if a country is not developed it’s because its citizen do not yet deserve it? Else they would have chosen such leaders to lead them to a developed future? So ultimately the future of a countries is in the hands of the citizen of that country and politicians are only there to be blamed.

Demise of a dear friend called ELSS.

Recently govt. brutally killed ELSS by removing it from tax saving instruments. With the implementation of DTC it will no longer would be available to me and many like me for saving our taxes. For many years I was using ELSS only as my tax-saving instruments so with this announcement of DTC, I am shattered and so are some of my friends. Now we have to be reluctantly use the blood-sucking ULIPs or PPF and none of them seems attractive to me.

Future IITians and IIMians would not be stars ****.

Entrance exams to IIT and IIM are considered to be the ultimate frontiers to cross for a student in India. Once a student crack either of these exams he or she is considered to be having a high-paying, smooth and successful career for rest of his/her life. These institutions have been there for long now. And we have seen the products (pass-outs) of these institutions achieving great success in their chosen fields later in careers. And since the earlier alumnis of these institutes have achieved huge successs in businesses and other areaes, we are attaching more and more importance now to those who get into them. As a result students who crack these exams become overnight celebrities because they are considered to be sure to be successful.

But I have a kind of fear and doubt that not all of this new breed of celebrities would be successful in their careers. Because there is difference beween the kind of students who were getting into these institutions earlier and students getting in in last few years. Now a days there are coaching institutes who train students. Coaching class teachers and students put all their efforts and energy for cracking these exams.

So it's not that only talanted students are getting into these institutes but average students are also getting in. The average stuents put extraordinary effort and get through these exams. But such average students can not perform at the same high level all through their lives. So obviously such students would always be average later in their careers (Though this is not true for every average student).

Earlier only the real talented students would get through in these institutes as there was not much rote preparation so the quality of student would be maintained. So we see the alumnis of these institutes achieving extraordinary successes in their careeres. But now when average students are getting in, there would definittely not be superachievers. But this would only be realised very late.

Smoke & Drink your way up to Corporate ladder.

If you are an ambitious person who wants to achieve a lot in the corporate career as an executive and run up, mind you not walk up or hurry up but run up, the corporate ladder fast then I would advice you stop being a good guy and start smoking, drinking, partying, and on top of that remain single until you achieve what you want. Else you are never gonna be what you have always desperately wanted to be. Why I say so..? Do not agree with me? Then read on .....to end up agreeing with me!

If you are a good guy, you would not smoke, you would not drink or party as you would want to give as much time as possible to your family. So after office you would rush to be with your family to share the diner, over weekends you would want to spend precious little time with the family and family friends, so you would hardly have time to network. The ways of networking are to share a smoke in office with colleagues, call colleagues for a drink after office, party with influential people over weekend.

Since you are a good guy and you do not smoke so you would not go to smoking areas in the office. And that's the best area for networking. Over the time smokers in offices, not only from the same but from various other departments, forge great networks as they get to see each other at common area, get to ask for match box daily and very often each day. So they have great networks. But if you are a good guy you would want to finish your work in as less time as possible as you have to rush to home for diner daily. So you would avoid wasting time for smoking, in fact you would have your tea at your desk only. So NO networking during office hours. Then drinkers create opportunities for networking after office hours also by getting together with same interest guys at pubs/drinks. So over time they forge great networks there also. They may not give much time to family. Similarly weekend partying can be used for networking. As this networking is investment into the future which would ripe and grow many fold over the years and you can redeem this investment whenever you want or need it.

As a family man or mamma's boy you would not get all these opportunies for networking i.e. investing into future.

At the end it's all about networking. Honey!

Who said drinking or smoking is injurious to health. It's NOT!

Hope now you agree with me now....

An Cash-rish Opportunity at an Unexpected place

Entrepreneurial people will find some or other opportunity somewhere, that's for sure. I saw truth in this when I went to apply for my passport at a local post office. Now let me explain what the opportunity is..
The otherday I pulled my bike in the parking area in front of a local post office and before I could get down from my bike a person approached me asking if I have come for passport application. I nodded to him and he told me that the PO only accept fee in DD and not in cash and he had the DD which he can sell me for an additional amount of 100.

He had a bunch of readymade DDs with him. I did my mental calculation quickly, and I decided to buy one from him. Though I was a bit hesitant initially in buying as he may be a fake.

My calculation went something like this...if I do not buy from him, I have to find a bank nearby,
for which I have to spend time, petrol and mental and physical energy. After that I have to stand in a queue which would not be short for sure as banks are always crowded. Then I have to fill in application for getting DD, here I have to enquire or search as to to whom the DD should be paid to. And all those tensions. So I would have spent at least one hour in getting all this. So by buying I was saving myself precious time for standing in queue so I can get apply for passport earlier and faster.
So to avoid all this hassles, who would not pay just a little Rs. 100 extra?
That was the opportunity..
Coming to business model...
That person always keeps 5-6 DDs handy with him, it means his investment is 6000-7000 daily.
now if he can sell these all and depending on his average daily sale he can have that many no of DDs. So his daily investment would vary accordingly. That money will be blocked but can be encashed anytime so it's highly liquide investment.
Risks
This is purely a cash positive investment without any risk of loss so completely risk-free.
Potential
I assume at least 50-60 applicant must be coming to this post office for passport application daily. And I would guess at least half of them would be coming without DD, so that's opportunity. So it's a huge opportunity.

Additional Source of Income...

The person offers filling up the passport application forms, charging 50 each, also he sells form.. charging 30 bucks..etc..so such are additional source to earn hot money without much investment.

The biggest risk here is...

But the business is not scallable at all, it's not for educated guys and there are high chances that competion can come in or the govt policies can change and business may bomb.

If Nehru were today, could he become so GREAT? NO.

I consider Nehru THE greatest prime minister of India and it's because of him that today we are a thriving, optimistic, secular and a strong democracy, else we would have been another hindu Pakistan. We, probably, still would be an IT super power. But in that case IT would probably have meant "International Terrorism". By the way that's IT too. ;)
But if I imagine Nehru were to be ruling India today, in the same circumstances as, say, Dr. Manmohan Singh is or A B Vajpayee ruled, could he have taken such decisions as to take India towards further greatness. I would say no, and an emphatic NO. Whosoever is the prime minister of India today, would take the same weak decisions as are being taken. However strong that personality could be, however smart that could be or howsoever educated and wise that could be. Barring a few decisions here or there, everything else would be same. As in last 20 years, we have seen many PMs come and go but overall they took almost the same decisions.
Why I say so, obviously the circumstances decide or influence a person to the greatest extent as to how to act and what to decide. For today's politician or so to say for PM, their immediate concern is always the next general election or upcoming assembly election in some state or to keep alliance partner happy. And these situations are not rare but they are recurring, almost daily. So in such scenarios, the decision one will take for is to reap immediate reward, not the long term rewards. So even if our prime minister (whoever he is or whichever party he is from ) is well-intentioned, he can not take far-reaching decisions else he would be hounded out from the parliament to his grave by his colleagues only on the very same day.
But for Nehru, things were not the same, they were completely different. One he was educated, he knew what is wanted, he was prepared for this as he had probably been foreseeing himself in PM's chair for quite long, so he was all along planning for what to do. He also did not have those compulsions of upcoming elections as he had no serious opponents at all at that time. So he knew that as long as he was alive he was going to be PM. So in such situations he took decisions which were good for India in long-term, like establishing secular democracy, setting up heavy industries, setting up IITs, building dams, and many more.
Today also we want someone to take similar far-reaching decisions like, making primary education compulsory and qualitative, not on papers but in spirit, building world-class hard infrastructure in India, removing bureaucracy and corruption, improving public accountability, making India's foreign policy more suitable to India's stature, improving India's relations with it's SAARC neighbors, and so on. But we have no one to do that. Because none of these decisions are going to get immediate gains to any political party.
So let us not pray for a new Nehru to born but pray to circumstances to be amicable.

ULIP Crisis: More time to dupe gullible custoemer, Hurrey...!

Govt. has come out and said that the SEBI and IRDA have agreed to maintain the status quo on the issue of regulation of ULIPs. Why should court decide as to who should regulate the ULIPs? It's simple, ULIPs with any equity portion should come under the purview of SEBI as SEBI is mandated to regulate the equity markets. And IRDA should stick to insurance part of it.

First of all it's absurd on the part of both the SEBI and the IRDA to wash their dirty linens in public. One day SEBI bans ULIPs and the very next day IRDA comes and says publicly to SEBI, fuck-off from governing the ULIPs, it's none of your business. And so it's the business as usual for insurance companies to loot the gullible insurance-customers. They are looting public, like there is no tomorrow, all under the blessing of IRDA and citizen friendly-govt.
Why not the two regulators decide who to do what and then come public before making fun of themselves by fighting in public.

It was similar case where regulators were not sure who was to govern a particular area and they led to many scams, like CRB MF scam, in not-so-distant past.
But it's true to Indian character we never seems to learn from our past mistakes.

Sachin: Miracles do Happen.

This week a cricket record was written in the history books and a legend re-confirmed his place among the rare greats of our times and the sport greats of all times. In years from now and decades from now I would be feeling proud that I lived during the time when a great called Sachin Tendulkar reigned the Cricket. I would proudly be telling his stories, about his great exploits in cricket, about his humility, about his coolness during toughtimes to my grand children.
There are no words today with which I can express my joy that I saw Sachin breaking a record and writing two in his names. I simply feel ecsatic to be born Indian, to be born when Sachin is on earth.

ATM Risk: Did Banks noticed this?

The other day I went to withdraw some money from my neighbourhood ATM. I took my 2 year old son along. Since in India ATMs are housed in nice Air-conditioned secured room, I left my son in the room without paying attention to his activities. I got into withdrawing money. After I had entered PIN and it was about to disburse me money, I realised that the machine had shut down. When I looked around I realised that it was my son who had switched off the power to ATM and soon he had switched it on. I was worried if my account could have been updated with the transaction but I had not received the money.Bank should take into account this risk as well and place switches accordingly.

Money Resolutions for 2010

I strongly believe that each new year one should have money resolutions separately for oneself. Here are my "Money Resolution" for the coming year 2010.

1. Keep track of every investment regularly and count & consolidate every month’s investment. So That you know how much money is invested every month and consequently for the whole year.
2. Every 6 months look how investments are doing, redo them if required.
3. Start Tax Saving investments early in the financial year.
4. Every month invest surplus money somewhere, be it even the Liquid funds. But let your money earn at least something for you.
5. Don’t ever dither on any financial decision. Make it then and there but not without thinking.
6. Keep yourself up-to-date with personal finance knowledge.
7. Be little bold in investing for your long-term money.
8. Maintain proper balance in your portfolio by investing in all kinds of assets.
9. Keep booking profits if profit goes beyond your expectations.