the underbelly of delhi

12000crores being spent on the common wealth games? Did I hear right? In a country where between 30 to 40% earn less than $2 a day. And what do we get for it? I am told prestige.
Of course prestige is priceless, but only if we have something to be proud about.

If we spend 12000 crores and create ugly non functional monstrosities, and do not win a single medal, will that still be prestigious?And who is paying for this anyway? and who gets the so called prestige? the politicians? the sports officials? In any case the politicians are the sports officials , and get not only the prestige but also, as i understand, most of the money.

Then someone told me that Delhi in the process will get some world class infrastructure. Now, I have been in and out of Delhi for quite a few years now, and happen to believe that Delhi relatively speaking has the best infrastructure in the country..be it the broad roads, a swanky airport, a metro system that compares favourably with any that I have used anywhere in the world. So why take money from the rest of the country which is literally crying for some decent infrastructure spend and create more in Delhi? Just so that our worthy netas can feel proud? And get richer?

Any why are our regional Netas not crying hoarse at this daylight robbery to feed Delhis underbelly? Do they get to share in the prestige and the loot too?

Startup pangs

where is the money?

Where is the money I ask? Every day I pick up the pink papers, the Government has raised more money by selling spectrum, increasing oil prices, increasing taxes, GST, Vat, Service tax etc etc and more. Plus they are selling stakes in PSU s to all and sundry at prices at which even seasoned Investment Banks are baulking to take the mandate.

I would have thought that with all these resources that are being raised we can see better infrastructure, better security, better standard of living for everybody, education, health care, unemployment insurance. There are so many wise and pressing ways to spend the money. But wherever I look, any new investment or infrastructure is all private..So you have swanking new airports being built with private money, roads being privatised and tolled to death, new private and expensive schools ( when is the last time the Government built a school, or hospital for that matter?)

And if you have the misfortune of having no choice but to use Government schools or hospitals, God help you, cos they are not spending money there either. Armed forces are ill equipped and the police force have weapons that they stole from Noahs Ark. They announce big schemes with impossible acronyms like NREGA and JNUURM, and no one knows where it is spent. Because if anything is built it is being built with private money and political patronage.They are doing less and less and it is costing us more and more..

So where is the money going?

Is it gone?

predictability of market volatility

Financial markets in the recent times have foxed the pundits. Volatility is a given, and predictabilty is zero, leaving one to wonder if there is such a thing as a financial pundit. There are so many variables ranging from Icelandic ash to Greek tragedies to senate hearings, to UK elections to the Yuan valuation theories, to almost any financial and non financial behaviour of market players that effect markets all over the world, that it is naive to believe that anybody can predict the future price of an individual security or market.
I read almost all the financial dailies and am a CNBC addict and the confidence with which analysts are making buy, sell or hold recommendations amazes me. I suppose it is easier to make these recommendations with other peoples money and with no responsibility. or skin in the game.
To make matters worse we all suffer from selective memories when it comes to evaluating portfolio performance. The losses that we avoided by not following advice are ignored and the gains and losses arising out of following the same are overweighted.
It seems obvious to me that for for every gain made someone somewhere has to have lost and the overall stock market or bond market is a zero sum game. In fact if you take out the transaction costs charged by he exchange and the intermediaries , the markets are a negative sum game, whether you are long or short over a long period of time.
The only thing certain is the current price. How that price will behave in the future, how much it will change up or down and by how much are pretty much a matter of chance, and nobody has privileged information on that, much as they pretend to fool you with jargon, quantum theory, string theory or random theory. Fact is your maid or driver or your teenaged daughter can make as good a prediction and there is a good chance that they will be right 50% of the time, which is better track record than the so called professional view.
Some of my friends consider me a financial genius and often ask me for stock market tips. The only advice I can give them with confidence is to buy low and sell high. That invariably works.

The Greek tragedy

First it was Iceland. It got financially ruined by investing in toxic waste assets generated by Wall Street. It ended up kicking ash, which disrupted flights across the European skies.

And now a Greek tragedy plays itself out creating ripples across the global financial markets. From a peaceful holiday destination and home to some of the worlds wealthiest, to a financial basket case did not take too long. Did they buy something toxic like the others, or did sell themselves short, or did some other genius from Goldman Sachs custom make the Greek recipe for disaster.

Italy Spain and Ireland may soon follow. And then the entire Eurozone is fair game for short sellers. Regardless of what the learned Pranab Mukherjee tells us, it would be naive to believe that India is insulated. We now swim or drown with the global tides, and as Mr. Buffet says, you can only see who is naked when the tide is low. And the global financial tide is getting alarmingly low.

Asset prices in India, across classes, whether it is real estate, gold or stock prices are all over priced and heavily dependant on foreign capital flows. Global money managers are becoming increasingly risk averse, and will also be under pressure to book profits in the few markets where they are in fact making money, India, unfortunately being one of them.

Duetche Bank is maintaining a price target of 22000 for the Indian market. Are they smoking he stuff that has been recently legalised in California and Colarado? Or are they planning to sell before the tide that is sure to wash up here?

It is better to be a spectator to the Greek tragedy, than have a lead role in the Indian financial tragedy that is buiding up.

BCCI

Does anybody remember a bank that went by the name BCCI? that went bust? Nowadays when one talks about BCCI , it is generally about the cricket board. BCCI the bank eventually came to be known as the Bank of crooks and criminals international. Maybe the Board could use the same expansion as well.
BCCI that spawned the IPL (Pirates League), is now distancing itself from the child and pretending that they saw nothing, heard nothing. They must have at least smelt something. Whatever,... they DID nothing.
Meanwhile the brat they spawned, outgrew the board and is now the tail wagging the dog. Everybody enjoyed the parties, sweated their equity, tweeted on twitter and generally had a blast. Who is complaining? not the fans, not the franchisees, not the broadcasters, not the advertisers, not the sponsors..who was the victim in this crime.
The cricket afficiando will tell you that the gentlemans game of cricket has suffered..Really? The game which was dying a natural death having been replaced by the EPL at the home of cricket in England and in cricket crazy India. The IPL was the last big hope for cricket. And the Board may have landed the last killing blow.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Love, sex , drugs and the IPL

For now, i prefer the front pages to the sports and stock pages. Between Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor they have created the equivalent of a bowl out in T20 cricket. All the ingredients of love (for money) sex (for glamour) and drugs (for performance) makes this an ideal topic for money and other things.

It has been well known for a long time now that there are curtains behind curtains of ownership of the franchises, and that ownership has nothing to do with the investments. In fact control always was and always will be with the powers that be in BCCI. In this case what probably happened was the Kochi franchise owners, bid a little more than what they were advised to thereby upsetting the apple cart for Ahmedabad who had already paid for and been committed to.

When the proverbial sh... hits the ceiling, a lot of unrelated stuff spills out, such as Shashi Tharoors

external affairs, Lalit Modis graduation from armed robbery to daylight robbery, Sunanda Pushkars nose and other jobs..

Wow...why cant they postpone the rest of the IPL matches so we can pay undivided attention and play the role of cheerleaders for this soap opera?