Finansial Atyachar

I twisted my ankle the other day and went to buy Relispray.

"How much," I asked.

"Rs 100", said the chemist.

My daughter butted in,"Is se chhota size nahin hai?"

The guy returned with a smaller version and we paid sixty bucks.
"See,"she beamed."We saved forty rupees."

Her logic was that I don't need twist my ankle everyday, so the smaller can should be fine.

The next day she stepped out of the bath and declared,"I used soap today and it is nice."

Not that I don't know the benefits of soap but over the last couple of years we've switched to shower gels. Bas yun hi. Now my nine year old declares that the good old sabun ki batti is cheaper - and lasts longer!

What surprised me was how sensitive she's become about the need to 'save money'. Almost like she is reacting to the current economic scenario.

Now technically Nivedita does not read business newspapers or track the stock market. Neither have I overtly communicated the idea to her. But something in the air is telling her.. times are tough.

Sadly, the folks at Wall Street who've created this giant, gaseous global MESS don't get it. That is clear from two recent pieces of news:

* Despite the current crisis, Wall Street paid itself bonuses worth $ 18.4 billion in 2008. Yahoo finance reports:

That pool is down 44% from the prior year but still represents the sixth-largest bonus haul on record, according to the NY State comptroller's office.

No wonder Obama went ballistic!

* Nero was playing his fiddle while Rome was burning. John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch was busy remodelling his office and deliberating on the colour of his $ 87,000 rug.

Thain was ousted last week by Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis after Merrill Lynch posted an 'unexpectedly' large loss in the fourth quarter. Well we certainly expect no less from these frou frou financial whizkids!

I am no expert on the current crisis at Wall Street but last week I happened to attend a talk by Prof Marti Subrahmanyam, Charles E. Merrill Professor of Finance and Economics in the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Of the many wise and wonderful insights he shared one comment stuck with me. The good professor remarked that in recent times financial instruments had become so complex that most of the people trading these products (such as CDOs) had no idea what they were buying and selling.

"They may as well have been trading onions or potatos," he stated.

I have taken the liberty of applying that analogy to the crisis as whole and this is how ridiculous it looks...

I am a trader in the Azadpur sabzi mandi. I deal in potatos but I don't really know what potatos look like. Neither do I know what they smell like or taste like.

But someone has told me these are potatos and I trust that guy. Actually even he does not know what potatos look like but someone told him these are good quality potatos...

And so it goes. What kills me is that these were supposedly the smartest people, the 'best talent money could buy'. The people who are trained in the whole art and science of harvesting money on the financial farms of Wall Street.

And none of them had a clue. What's more, they are now happy to hide behind a convenient scarecrow.

Daniel Gross of Newseek, reporting from Davos, has a telling piece on why the world's economic leaders blame the catastrophe on the system instead of themselves.

For centuries, historians have debated whether history is propelled by Great Men (and Women), human forces of nature who bend events and systems to their will, or by vast impersonal forces (communism, capitalism, globalization) that render even the most powerful of us a mere reed basket floating in a massive river.

There's no session on the subject at the World Economic Forum in Davos. But at least with regard to finance and business, the consensus seems to be clear: Success is the work of Great Men and Great Women, while failure can be pinned on the system.

People make mistakes, sure. But as Nicholas Taleb, author of 'The Black Swan' noted recently, we can't have a system where profits are privatised and losses socialised.

If the industry is to get a massive bailout they better learn to tell their onions from their potatos. And good potatos from bad ones.

And meanwhile, all ye farmers, tauba tera bonus, tauba teri car...
Methinks you deserve some finansial atyachaar!

Lehman: Going, going, gone

There will be no more bright eyed IIM grads flying to London and New York to do their summers with Lehman Bros.

It's the death of a Dream.
The end of the Formula.

Sure, in time, i-banking may bounce back but right here, right now the idea that clearing one entrance test, followed by two semi-educative years on campus lead you straight into the 'global league' (in terms of greenbucks).

That, for the next couple of batches, is over.
And honestly, I think it's actually a very good thing.

I don't hate i banks or i bankers. But I do have a problem with the fact that these jobs offered so much more money than ANY other sector that even the thinking bschool grad could not help being dazzled. It was like a thousand watt bulb shining in your face -blinding you to all else.

2007 was actually the peak year for the global i-banks, in 2008, they remained strong but consulting and private equity were seen as 'hotter'. One 2008 grad from IIMA who had offers from a global i bank in New York as well as McKinsey chose the latter. Two reasons: I banking he felt was more 'risky' and secondly, he wanted to stay in India.

Here's the sector-wise break up of who got placed where @ IIMA in 2008

That will change because Lehman & ML apart, there are just very few jobs now on offer in the financial sector. Global or otherwise. The regulars will come and pick up a couple of students, just to keep the relationship with the institute. But that will be a light drizzle, not a downpour.

We won't be seeing (I think) any new records being set in terms of dollar-converted-to-rupee salaries (last year's record: Rs 1.44 crores).

We also won't be seeing (I hope) the crazy one-upmanship among the top three IIMS about which one bagged the most PPOs and global ibanking offers.

What will happen? No IIM grad will be wanting for a good job, but there will be no auto-pilot choice. Students will think and choose more carefully.

The traditional recruiters like FMCG marketing (HLL, P & G), Indian companies (TAS, Aditya Birla group) and emerging sectors like retail and telecom will attract more attention and interest.

Consulting and PE of course will be red-hot.

An interesting phenomenon (pointed out by a former i banker friend) is that in the US, whenever there is a slowdown, applications to MBA programs surge. If you're out of a well paid job you may as well go back to school. By the time you graduate, the economy would also have recovered.

In India though, I wonder if all this news may not have the opposite effect. I don't think the aam junta will STOP wanting to do an MBA but we may see the numbers taking the CAT stabilise. Instead of the year on year surge.

Also watch for the hot new trend of i bankers returning home. And when asked "What are your plans"? the response I'm hearing a lot of is "Starting up".

That could be a respectable way of remaining unemployed until the markets correct themselves. Or a case of i bankers who've 'made enough money' deciding to hang up their ties for good.

In which case - welcome to the club!