Durable Election Time

Election: noun: A wonderful season playing right now in India

The TV channels have the countdown clocks prominently displayed. Leaders zig-zag the country addressing rallies and making promises. And of course, spend lots of time cobbling up alliances that they call durable. Webster.com defines durable as 'lasting'. Before we know it, the alliance hits a 'bumpy patch'. There are 'differences' over seat adjustment. Soon they become 'irreconcilable'. Finally, the alliance 'breaks down'. And a 'New Front' is in the making. I guess durability in these days refers to that lovely pristine medium where the alliance lasts only until the differences cannot be managed???? "Of course", say the spinmeisters, when they come back to the television to justify why the alliance broke down & adding "we have no problems going it alone".

The shifting meaning of words over time is very confusing to blokes like me whose grammar is still based on Wren & Martin written decades ago and whose knowledge of varied English words, including 'durable', solely came about by playing book cricket for hours with the Oxford Dictionary. We scratch our heads. And wonder how it all adds up. We are even OK with 2+2=5. But the value of the permutations and justifications and the calculations that we are presented every day is as volatile as the BSE Sensex has been for the past 6 months.

Mind you, not a single vote has yet been cast. And it is a wonderful season.

We hear these terms in various fora. Pre-poll alliances; No-alliances-but-seat-adjustments; No-alliances-or-seat-adjustments-but-we-will-not-put-up-our-candidates-against-them; No-alliances-or-seat-adjustments-and-we-will-put-up-our-candidates-against-them; I-did-not-get-a-ticket-and-I-will-contest-elections-as-a-rebel-candidate; He-did-not-get-a-ticket-and-he-will-contest-elections-as-a-rebel-candidate-but-our-candidate-will-thrash-him.

Did I say that not a single vote has been cast? The wonderful season is in full bloom.

TV channels ask "Is it important for a party to project a candidate for PM?", "While the party has a candidate for PM, is he actually a cover for moving someone else after the elections?", "How much leverage will the constituents of the Third Front have in the choice of the PM?", "Is the Era of the national parties dead?". Various talking heads give their perspective. We try to understand the logic - and when we can't, we try to fit logic into their words. When even that fails, we switch channels. Only to see a new talking head.

Not one vote cast yet. It is a great season.

Elections will begin. Different states go to polls in different phases across several weeks. Exit polls in each phase will analyze trends. We will look at gizmos on TVs that slice the electorate & dice it into meaningful chunks. We all will look forward to that magic number called 'Majority'. Talking heads will multiply. Politicians will coyly indicate that 'Exit polls are meaningless' and 'we believe our internal numbers are stronger than what you are showing'. Business folks & economists will now say that the long-term story of India is intact and that regardless of the electoral results, India will clock a 6% growth rate for another 20 years. The stock market will look at all of this. And will go up and go down. Experienced analysts will say that such volatility is to be expected in times like these.

Votes have been cast. The season remains lovely.

The counting of votes will begin. Since all voting machines are electronic in India, the results will be out in a few hours. No surprise - we will not have a single party majority. Talking heads will increase exponentially. Meanwhile, an independent MP who no one ever knew before will suddenly find himself feted. "I am evaluating all options", he will say. "When will you decide?", the reporters will ask with bated breath. His enigmatic reply - "In due course". The caption "IN DUE COURSE" will be carried on all channels under the banner "BREAKING NEWS".

An alliance will soon be cobbled. The architects of this alliance will coo that this is indeed the Durable One. "Until differences persist?" we ask. "What differences? The media is playing it all up", they will say.

Suddenly, it will all be over. The anticipation of result. The thrill of crowning a victor. The commiseration we extend to the loser. Parliament will convene. The Prime Minister & the cabinet will be sworn in. And we will get on with our lives while secretly waiting another 5 years for more such exciting times.

What will I do till then? Didn't you know? The new edition of the Oxford Dictionary is out. In the interest of understanding 'durability', it is time to play book cricket.

Fallout at General Motors

Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, has been ousted. The latest casualty in the current economic saga of approaching the US Federal Govt for helping in the bail-out of the private sector.

I was just commenting to one of my friends a few hours earlier that while I was generally comfortable with the bail-out of the financial sector (including AIG), bailing out Detriot was something else. Not trying to save (temporarily in some cases) AIG and other financial firms clearly had the risk of a global meltdown (see Carol Loomis). I also have no doubt that the ripple effects of the fall of the American auto makers will be profoundly felt (including in my former home-state of Michigan). But the fact remains that there are better managed and more efficient companies to drive the industry forward when we all come out of this horrendous economic mess (yes - we will come out; after all, nothing ever lasts). I am not talking just about the Japanese. Even Ford has been making a number of much required changes for some time now.

Make no mistake. Rick Wagoner was a very good executive. Alex Taylor mentions this in Fortune - and some.

The markets may not like this. The Dow is down as I write. Asian markets fell today. But no one will doubt that GM's existence, at least in its present form, was clearly untenable.

Taking Ownership & Interesting Takes

Reading Peggy Noonan columns. Guess this is what owning up means. And Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post has this interesting take.

The Difficult Part of a Blog

I am amazed at how much some folks write on their blog every day. I am not talking about professional bloggers; it is the content generated by the 'go to work in the morning & blog when you come home' crowd that fascinates me. I was going through a blog of an acquaintance recently. He has been fairly regular over the past 3 years and I noticed that he had not added much in a month. And a comment on his site mentioned that he probably had a writer's block. I thought about it, and truly empathized with him. I go through that quite often :-)

But what is more difficult, at least according to me, is getting the design of a blog right. The current avatar of Random Thoughts went through multiple iterations. Colors, fonts, icons, links. And my reaction? See below.

So, at least for some more time, I think I will quit worrying about layout and think about writing.

Now for some other stuff.... Been catching up on past issues of Fortune over the past 3 weeks. While I am a regular subscriber, issues go unread for a few months, esp. if I am on to something else. Reading articles on the scale of the current global economic crisis stun me. Who would have thought that a toxic mix of financial shenanigans, reduced savings, excessive leverage and the willingness of some nations to continue to fund this disparity by buying American debt would lead us to this mess? While there are many articles that point fingers on who must be blamed, I would submit that the past 4 years is a bad example of universal global greed in play. The recovery will be long, tough and painful. Hopefully we will all have learned some good lessons.....

Read here about the collapse of Bear. And this was interesting as well. Note for posterity: Been reading some articles about Peter Orzag (Director, OMB). I think the world will see more of him one day. Meanwhile, the Indian market has made some good gains recently. I was personally disappointed. Stocks I wanted to buy got expensive. Grrrr.....

In the next blog, I'll talk about the Indian economy & the elections round the corner. Until then, adios.

New Beginnings

Priya asked me the other day "Are you on Facebook?" Duh !!! I am bad enough keeping track of what I have on my plate, and do I need to add something more? Quite confident that hers was a passing question, I just said No. And I expected her to drop talking about it. After all, she is quite content not going on any of these social networking sites. How wrong I was? Before long, she was spending hours. She showed me the 'wall'. She got a kick out of connecting to so many of her past friends. She was happy being online. Damn !!! all along, I thought I was the one who should be on the internet the most.

Anyways, tough times don't last forever & tough people do. So I decided to come back. To my Blog. It has been ages. And yes, I was expecting the counter to still be a measly one. It was.

Quite a number of things have happened since I last popped in. Lot of hair on my forehead has disappeared. Moved into a new home and loving it. Made new friends. Reconnected with others. Started gym-ng (Nope - did not add a pound). Did new things at work (yes - moved beyond screens and charts.) Thanks to some like-minded folks, I was inspired to read books. The big ones... you see, the ones that are about 500+ pages long which tell you to do things which you never know you will, but still keep on reading in the empty hope that you will do them some day. And for a change, I finished them.

Got into the stock market. Burnt my fingers. Am licking them, but am hooked to buy more. You see, Warren Buffett inspires me. But that niggling thought persists.... he was right for the past 40 years, and what if this time it does not pan out the same way? Priya asked me the other day "I never ask how much you put each month into the market. How much have you made so far?" I explained to her that investing in stocks was a 20 year plan & the fund is more for our retirement and golden sunsets. "How much have you made so far?" she repeated. I explained that in these depressing economic times, one does not talk profits, but how many more units can be bought at a lower price. I heard "How much have you made so far?" for the third time. I replied "I have lost less than the 55% market fall over the past 12 months". She was silent. For 2 seconds. And then said the most ominous words I have ever heard "You can live for the golden sunset. I live for today. Since you are allowed to lose money in the market, I am allowed to double my shopping budget from now". Grrrrr. My retirement age just moved up 10 years.

That is it for now. Next time, I promise there will be more pictures.

Cheers