Iiiits Johnny...back with the promised third WA this weekend – celebrating the birth of my daughter. This one is different from the usual beat. Who is Eli Scruggs? Well, he is a character in the famous serial “Desperate Housewives” who really struck chord within and coagulated random related thoughts inside me into a mission statement for life. Before we go any further – yes I have begun watching Desperate Housewives or DH (came across it because only 2-3 channels work on my TV here) though this is a series from some earlier season. Ok, so let the brickbats come – he watches DH – how gay is he (I do agree to that argument, after Karan Johar, I am the second Indian man who is saying he watches the serial publicly, but I am very much straight) – folks, but this serial is enjoyed by many men as well because it is a very well made, tightly scripted, fast paced and illuminating story. If you don’t watch it, please do, you will like it, especially after I describe the Eli Scruggs episode and what I have learnt from that here.
A short background – the serial is about 5 housewives who are desperate (off with your dirty thoughts – they are desperate for freedom, happiness, comfort, love and many intangible things). They live in suburban America in a town called Fairview on a street called Wysteria Lane. The lead characters are awesome women - Susan Myer (Terri Hatcher – plays the fumbling, always falling in and out of love housewife), her beau Mike, Bree (an upright, fastidious, old fashioned wife who is also a great organizer and cook), Lynette (mother of 4-5 children, always in control and strong woman, excellent mother and wife) married to Tom, Katherine (friend of them all, a deputy of Bree and divorced from abusive husband), Edie (sexy blonde who flirts and steals others’ husbands but very tough character) and finally Gabrielle (Gaby – this is played by Eva Longoria - the lady who posed with Aishwarya Rai at Cannes – she is an ex model and is very straight forward and brutally honest with everyone).
The episode with Eli Scruggs is my favourite. The story of DH is told by Mary Alice who committed suicide and is also a friend of the women above. Eli Scruggs is the handy man on Wysteria Lane who does jobs of fixing things on Wysteria Lane example a broken tap, drainage, roof tiles or anything else. At the beginning of the episode, Eli is fixing the roof of Susan’s house and declares to all that it is his last job since he is going to retire. That is when he suffers a heart attack and dies. Through the episode, every lady mentioned above remembers difficult moments from their lives when Eli stepped and with a gentle nudge, helped them get through their vulnerable times.
It begins with Gaby, she remembers the time her husband Carlos forces her to move to the suburb – she has been a famous model and used to a happening life and being pampered. She finds the suburban life boring and says that to every woman. All the ladies visit her house for a chat. Gaby makes a dramatic entry and goes off about her modelling life and how boring the suburb is. The others leave unhappy and from then on, Gaby is not invited for any events. That is when Eli shows up to fix something and gently advises her that she would need friends to survive in life and potential friends won’t admire her for showing off. Gaby humbly goes to the ladies bridge afternoon and apologizes and asks for friendship. She joins the group from then on.
Lynette remembers the time she has had her fourth baby. She is still working and is struggling with the baby and trying to match the demands of her work. During one such afternoon, she has just returned from shopping and is talking to her boss on phone and explaining things to him and she enters her house – forgetting the baby in the car. Eli walks in with the baby and hands it over to Lynette. He gently tells her that he understands that she is very stressed in life right now with the job and baby and so it is natural that the baby got left outside. At that moment, Lynette realizes that she is trying to hold on to her job when her real priority is her baby. She silently thanks Eli for the help.
Bree remembers the time she is with her earlier husband and decides to write a book of her recipes. She pens down a few of them, when her husband sees them he chides her saying why would she need to do something so stupid and who would want to read such a book. Eli is working under the sink on the drainage. Bree is disappointed and throws the recipes away in the dust bin. The next scene is when her husband is now dead and she is sitting alone and forlorn. That is when Eli walks in, gives his condolences and hands over her recipes to her saying he has preserved them for when she would need them and says he thinks she might need them now. Bree discovers the strength within herself and moves on. Eventually, Bree opens a successful catering company and publishes a book with her old fashioned recipes.
Edie remembers the time Eli is working in the bathroom and overhears the conversation she is having with her husband where she wants sex and he charges her with being too demanding. The scene cuts to two years later when Edie’s husband has moved out since he realizes he is gay. Eli walks in to fix something to a devastated Edie. He comforts her and points out that so beautiful is she that she could hold on a gay man with her for two years. He gently kisses her hand and they end up sleeping together but that brings the confidence back in Edie.
Susan remembers the time one of her boyfriends leaves and she is sitting on the door ledge crying. That is when Eli comes and sits next to her and tells her that he really admires her. Eli says, “All my life, I have been wondering what love is and kept away from it thinking that I might get hurt. I look at you and see the courage with which you look for love and keep trying for the perfect love. Hats off to you.” Susan cries on his shoulder but she is over the hump.
Finally, Mary Alice who is narrating this story tells her memory. This is when Eli who has first moved in to Wysteria Lane and is trying to set up shop. He asks Mary Alice for a job, she looks at his torn shoe and asks him to fix her vase. That is Eli’s first job on the street from which he grows and becomes prosperous. Eli walks in to Mary’s house on the day she kills herself, she is sitting with her back to him and asks him to keep the vase he had fixed for her. She is speaking weird but Eli doesn’t realize that she is so troubled. He goes away with the vase. After a while, a big crowd has gathered around Mary’s house since she has killed herself. Away from everyone in a corner is Eli who is sitting in his car and crying. That is when he resolves that he will help anyone in need and not let something like this happen again. The episode ends with Bree and friends near Eli’s grave. When they are leaving, Bree notices a flower out of place on his grave, she goes back and fixes it and says, “This is how Eli would have liked it”.
My take:
So what did I learn? Simple, there are moments in everyone’s lives when they are in trouble because of circumstances and are extremely vulnerable. Such times could come to anyone. Depending on the intensity, people may come out of the state of mind or sink further. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an Eli Scruggs around who would gently show the way. More often than not, people need that pat on the back saying “I know you can do it” and they are on their way. Sometimes they need more tangible help. This is what I have decided for myself then – I will help anyone who comes to me with all the efforts the same way I would make for myself. A small phone call here, a little mail there may really change someone’s life. This what I have learnt the hard way when I needed help and I was hearing closed doors. I found my Eli Scruggs and survived. I intend to do the same for others. If nothing, it will earn you good karma. That always helps. Isn’t that what God is about? After all, if your car is stuck on the highway, a simple mechanic who comes and solves the problem seems like God to you. Let us all try to be Eli Scruggs to people we know – this will not only help us with the “duas”, but also make the world a better place.
Regards,
Abhijit Kothiwale
Meanings of Indian words (for my non Indian readers):
Dua – blessings or request of happiness to god for a certain person who has helped you
Karan Johar – A very successful director/producer from Bollywood who is rumoured to be gay
Aishwarya Rai – the most gorgeous lady in Bollywood, former Miss World
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Wide Angle 43 - SuperFreakonomics
Most of the educated but “non-Chetan Bhagat” reading junta has heard of the book “Freakonomics”. At least I have heard a few talk about it i.e. how it is cool and that they plan to read it someday. This Wide Angle is meant to introduce you to the Freakonomics series by a quick delve into the second part of the series “SuperFreakonomics” which I read last week. I hope to arouse your curiosity enough to have you all pick up the books and read them. The books are not only enlightening, they are highly entertaining as well. For those of you have read it, hope you enjoyed it.
The Freakonomics (FS) series is a product of thought of Stephen Levitt who is an economist at the University of Chicago. He is famous in the Economists’ world as a “rogue” economist. The reason is that since the day he gave his first dissertation, he has produced work which does not have any “unifying theme”. Economists typically weave their discourse around a theme or a theory and tend to stand for an idea or a collection of ideas that drive their narrative. Levitt has no such theme. Stephen Dubner is a journalist for the New York Times who got interested in Levitt’s work and wrote columns about him. The two got together and wrote down a collection of the theories all completely unrelated to each other and produced the book called “Freakonomics”. Their publisher was very sceptical about printing it but when published the book was a runaway success and made FS a household name.
A quick glance into FS before we move to today’s topic i.e. SuperFreakonomics (SFS). The opening story of FS sets the tone for the interesting reading that is the two books. It is an “a-ha” moment for whoever reads it. Basically, there was a path breaking case in the US called Roe vs Wade that was ruled on by the Supreme Court in 1973. The court basically settled in favour of women’s right to abortion thus paving the way for removing the restrictions put by many states on abortion. The story then moves to the state of crime in the US which was very bad through the 70s and 80s with everyone predicting the demise of society if the rate of crime increased that way. Suddenly, after the mid 90s, the crime rate dropped significantly. Experts were puzzled with this and started figuring out why this was so – different reasons were put out – increased prosperity due to the economic boom, increased policing, educational incentives but nothing could entirely explain the crime rate drop. What FS proposed was simple – after Roe vs Wade, many poor girls who would have to give birth to unwanted kids who they could not support adequately could now abort them. That meant less kids growing up in poverty and thus lesser criminals. Essentially – the kids who would eventually turn criminals were just not born. Simple but amazing.
SFS is an extension on the FS book. They talk about completely unrelated things but each very interesting and complete in its own way. The chapters are “How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa”, “Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance?”, “Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism”, “The fix is in – and it’s cheap and simple”, “What Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in common?” and the epilogue “Monkeys are people too”. I will write few lines about what is in each chapter and leave it that – you all can read the book for more.
Chapter on Prostitutes:
The message here is about the economics of prostitution. Street prostitutes are poor, addicts and vulnerable to arrests and violence from customers. About 100 years ago, there was a famous brothel called the Everleigh Club in South Chicago which housed the priciest and most skilled prostitutes. The speciality of this place was that the women could be highly wise and well read, make wine, give massages and did anything in bed. The Everleigh club was extremely successfully and popular for many years until it was closed down under political pressure for “moral” reasons. The wages of prostitutes that were so high suddenly dropped after the World War 2 primarily because of women’s lib as per the book. The sex that was so rare before which drove people to prostitutes and made them pricey started to be freely available from girlfriends that made the market a buyer’s market. However, on the one hand where there are street prostitutes, SFS tells the story of a very successful prostitute called Allie who quit a corporate job to start this one woman business and over the years discovered that she could up her price from $350 to $550 in one week and still keep her clientele but work less. She finally quit after making lot of money and went into real estate during the boom of 2007. After the bust of the market, she is studying to become an economist due to the first hand practical experience she has got.
Chapter on suicide bombers:
Amongst many things about suicide bombers, an economist called K.Anders Ericsson is helping authorities trace down terrorists based on data on banking and financial transactions. For example, a terrorist who plans to commit suicide bombing does not buy life insurance because insurance companies don’t pay for suicidal deaths. The modelling that Ericsson has put in place has narrowed suspects down to fraction percent points of the data size and it keeps getting better. One interesting fact is at the beginning of the chapter where they write about babies in Southeastern Uganda who if born in May next year would be likely to have visual, hearing or learning disabilities as adults. Three years from now, May would be safe, but the problem would be in April. The same pattern has been identified in Michigan, USA, a baby born in Michigan might carry a greater risk with a May birth than in Uganda – the reason is simple – the month of Ramadan. According to the study, babies that are in utero during the month of Ramadan have greater possibility of these disabilities, why Michigan – because it has a significantly high Muslim population and has longer days during summer than Uganda.
Chapter on Apathy and Altruism:
This chapter talks on the much talked about altruistic tendencies of human beings. Studies conducted with various combinations like having two players and one having to pay another under different circumstances and incentives produce fascinating results that confirm that human beings are naturally altruistic. There was however a rogue economist named John List who overturned Nobel winning studies proving altruism by demonstrating that when conducted unsupervised, the same experiments produced opposite results. People were much more selfish when they knew no one was watching them i.e. they tailored their behaviour to altruism subconsciously when they knew the experiment was being monitored.
Cheap and simple fixes:
This is one of the most interesting chapters, confirms my beliefs as well. The solution to extremely unsolvable and difficult problems is very cheap and simple. During the mid nineteenth century, there was a prevalent disease in the European hospitals called puerperal fever, perfectly healthy women came in for delivery and died within hours with a strange fever. This disease ranged across class and health divide. Interestingly, women who delivered at home never caught the disease. The reason was found by Dr. Semmelweiss who figured out that the germs of the disease originated in dead bodies and the doctors who worked on dead bodies before the delivery transmitted them to the mothers who had no resistance against them. The cure was simple – doctors had to wash their hands with disinfectant before going for the delivery. Another instance is about deaths that happened in the US in the 1950s because of accidents involving motorists. The problem was so huge that there were campaigns against owning cars till the time Robert Macnamara (who later became the Secretary of State during the Vietnam war and was responsible for escalating it) found a simple solution that solved the problem – the seat belt.
The authors suggest a simple solution for checking the devastating hurricanes that visit Florida and the South of US before summers. These happen because of the surface of the sea getting heated up and causing convective currents in the air that causes turbulence and thus creates a hurricane. Once created, the hurricanes cannot be stopped. The solution designed by a scientist Nathan and his friends is simple – a big cylindrical ring that would simply push the warm water below and make the cold water rise up this cooling the surface down and not letting the hurricane develop at all. The most expensive such float would cost only $100,000. No one has bought and implemented this yet but they are hoping that they would.
Chapter on Al Gore:
Similar to the previous chapter, a small company called Intellectual Ventures (IV) has devised a simple solution for Global Warming which is extremely outrageous so no one will implement it. It is basically global cooling. Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 and scientists observed that the temperature world over went down by a couple of degrees. The point is that big volcanoes push huge amounts of sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere. Instead of quickly returning to earth there, the sulphur dioxide absorbs stratospheric water vapour and forms an aerosol cloud that circulates rapidly, blanketing most of the globe. This if done on a large scale would decrease ozone, diffuse sunlight and produce a drop in global temperature.
IV’s idea is to create a huge pipe that would reach the stratosphere supported by strategically placed balloons at different heights that would pump SO2 at the poles where most of the warming hurts thus cooling that area. Revolutionary idea which if tried out could transform the world – of course, no one will.
Monkeys are people too:
This is the final chapter and also very interesting. Two Harvard economists Keith Chen and Venkat Laxminarayan devised an experiment through which they induced commerce in monkeys called capuchins. They were taught to value a set of chips which brought them bananas or a treat. Pretty soon, the capuchins had learnt that this was something to hold on to and thus started taking rational decisions example opting for good behaviour if it won them the chips. After a while, the female capuchin in the group exchanged sex with a male when the male offered her a couple of chips. The experiment was stopped by the authorities because they feared that introducing money to the primates might damage their social structure – weren’t they right.
This article is kind of disjointed and maybe boring but the theory of FS is about finding and applying economics to normal life and trying to understand it better too. I strongly suggest you read these books – they are very good fun.
The Freakonomics (FS) series is a product of thought of Stephen Levitt who is an economist at the University of Chicago. He is famous in the Economists’ world as a “rogue” economist. The reason is that since the day he gave his first dissertation, he has produced work which does not have any “unifying theme”. Economists typically weave their discourse around a theme or a theory and tend to stand for an idea or a collection of ideas that drive their narrative. Levitt has no such theme. Stephen Dubner is a journalist for the New York Times who got interested in Levitt’s work and wrote columns about him. The two got together and wrote down a collection of the theories all completely unrelated to each other and produced the book called “Freakonomics”. Their publisher was very sceptical about printing it but when published the book was a runaway success and made FS a household name.
A quick glance into FS before we move to today’s topic i.e. SuperFreakonomics (SFS). The opening story of FS sets the tone for the interesting reading that is the two books. It is an “a-ha” moment for whoever reads it. Basically, there was a path breaking case in the US called Roe vs Wade that was ruled on by the Supreme Court in 1973. The court basically settled in favour of women’s right to abortion thus paving the way for removing the restrictions put by many states on abortion. The story then moves to the state of crime in the US which was very bad through the 70s and 80s with everyone predicting the demise of society if the rate of crime increased that way. Suddenly, after the mid 90s, the crime rate dropped significantly. Experts were puzzled with this and started figuring out why this was so – different reasons were put out – increased prosperity due to the economic boom, increased policing, educational incentives but nothing could entirely explain the crime rate drop. What FS proposed was simple – after Roe vs Wade, many poor girls who would have to give birth to unwanted kids who they could not support adequately could now abort them. That meant less kids growing up in poverty and thus lesser criminals. Essentially – the kids who would eventually turn criminals were just not born. Simple but amazing.
SFS is an extension on the FS book. They talk about completely unrelated things but each very interesting and complete in its own way. The chapters are “How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa”, “Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance?”, “Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism”, “The fix is in – and it’s cheap and simple”, “What Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in common?” and the epilogue “Monkeys are people too”. I will write few lines about what is in each chapter and leave it that – you all can read the book for more.
Chapter on Prostitutes:
The message here is about the economics of prostitution. Street prostitutes are poor, addicts and vulnerable to arrests and violence from customers. About 100 years ago, there was a famous brothel called the Everleigh Club in South Chicago which housed the priciest and most skilled prostitutes. The speciality of this place was that the women could be highly wise and well read, make wine, give massages and did anything in bed. The Everleigh club was extremely successfully and popular for many years until it was closed down under political pressure for “moral” reasons. The wages of prostitutes that were so high suddenly dropped after the World War 2 primarily because of women’s lib as per the book. The sex that was so rare before which drove people to prostitutes and made them pricey started to be freely available from girlfriends that made the market a buyer’s market. However, on the one hand where there are street prostitutes, SFS tells the story of a very successful prostitute called Allie who quit a corporate job to start this one woman business and over the years discovered that she could up her price from $350 to $550 in one week and still keep her clientele but work less. She finally quit after making lot of money and went into real estate during the boom of 2007. After the bust of the market, she is studying to become an economist due to the first hand practical experience she has got.
Chapter on suicide bombers:
Amongst many things about suicide bombers, an economist called K.Anders Ericsson is helping authorities trace down terrorists based on data on banking and financial transactions. For example, a terrorist who plans to commit suicide bombing does not buy life insurance because insurance companies don’t pay for suicidal deaths. The modelling that Ericsson has put in place has narrowed suspects down to fraction percent points of the data size and it keeps getting better. One interesting fact is at the beginning of the chapter where they write about babies in Southeastern Uganda who if born in May next year would be likely to have visual, hearing or learning disabilities as adults. Three years from now, May would be safe, but the problem would be in April. The same pattern has been identified in Michigan, USA, a baby born in Michigan might carry a greater risk with a May birth than in Uganda – the reason is simple – the month of Ramadan. According to the study, babies that are in utero during the month of Ramadan have greater possibility of these disabilities, why Michigan – because it has a significantly high Muslim population and has longer days during summer than Uganda.
Chapter on Apathy and Altruism:
This chapter talks on the much talked about altruistic tendencies of human beings. Studies conducted with various combinations like having two players and one having to pay another under different circumstances and incentives produce fascinating results that confirm that human beings are naturally altruistic. There was however a rogue economist named John List who overturned Nobel winning studies proving altruism by demonstrating that when conducted unsupervised, the same experiments produced opposite results. People were much more selfish when they knew no one was watching them i.e. they tailored their behaviour to altruism subconsciously when they knew the experiment was being monitored.
Cheap and simple fixes:
This is one of the most interesting chapters, confirms my beliefs as well. The solution to extremely unsolvable and difficult problems is very cheap and simple. During the mid nineteenth century, there was a prevalent disease in the European hospitals called puerperal fever, perfectly healthy women came in for delivery and died within hours with a strange fever. This disease ranged across class and health divide. Interestingly, women who delivered at home never caught the disease. The reason was found by Dr. Semmelweiss who figured out that the germs of the disease originated in dead bodies and the doctors who worked on dead bodies before the delivery transmitted them to the mothers who had no resistance against them. The cure was simple – doctors had to wash their hands with disinfectant before going for the delivery. Another instance is about deaths that happened in the US in the 1950s because of accidents involving motorists. The problem was so huge that there were campaigns against owning cars till the time Robert Macnamara (who later became the Secretary of State during the Vietnam war and was responsible for escalating it) found a simple solution that solved the problem – the seat belt.
The authors suggest a simple solution for checking the devastating hurricanes that visit Florida and the South of US before summers. These happen because of the surface of the sea getting heated up and causing convective currents in the air that causes turbulence and thus creates a hurricane. Once created, the hurricanes cannot be stopped. The solution designed by a scientist Nathan and his friends is simple – a big cylindrical ring that would simply push the warm water below and make the cold water rise up this cooling the surface down and not letting the hurricane develop at all. The most expensive such float would cost only $100,000. No one has bought and implemented this yet but they are hoping that they would.
Chapter on Al Gore:
Similar to the previous chapter, a small company called Intellectual Ventures (IV) has devised a simple solution for Global Warming which is extremely outrageous so no one will implement it. It is basically global cooling. Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 and scientists observed that the temperature world over went down by a couple of degrees. The point is that big volcanoes push huge amounts of sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere. Instead of quickly returning to earth there, the sulphur dioxide absorbs stratospheric water vapour and forms an aerosol cloud that circulates rapidly, blanketing most of the globe. This if done on a large scale would decrease ozone, diffuse sunlight and produce a drop in global temperature.
IV’s idea is to create a huge pipe that would reach the stratosphere supported by strategically placed balloons at different heights that would pump SO2 at the poles where most of the warming hurts thus cooling that area. Revolutionary idea which if tried out could transform the world – of course, no one will.
Monkeys are people too:
This is the final chapter and also very interesting. Two Harvard economists Keith Chen and Venkat Laxminarayan devised an experiment through which they induced commerce in monkeys called capuchins. They were taught to value a set of chips which brought them bananas or a treat. Pretty soon, the capuchins had learnt that this was something to hold on to and thus started taking rational decisions example opting for good behaviour if it won them the chips. After a while, the female capuchin in the group exchanged sex with a male when the male offered her a couple of chips. The experiment was stopped by the authorities because they feared that introducing money to the primates might damage their social structure – weren’t they right.
This article is kind of disjointed and maybe boring but the theory of FS is about finding and applying economics to normal life and trying to understand it better too. I strongly suggest you read these books – they are very good fun.
Wide Angle 42 - Flip side - Western media coverage of the CWG preparation and Games
In WA 41, I waxed eloquent about the execution abilities of our people. I believe that was all well and true and justified. Let me balance that out with showing the other side of the coin. I do pride myself in being an equal opportunity offender so today I will offend our anna-datas. I was waiting for the games to finish successfully before writing about this. I believe the controversy about our preparedness broke in the media here with the toilet photos from BBC and Fenell’s “escalation”. At that point, I was looking at this whole thing rather amusedly since I knew the mess was going to happen. However, the sustained coverage from that point onwards in the media and the tone adopted confirmed a few things to me. I am not going to write any opinion in this piece, will just state what was reported. What I was doing during that time was comparing the news I watched, the web sites I read of the English and Australian newspapers with the Indian news sites and live feeds from NDTV, IBNLive etc. What I will present down here is a brief on what I found. Please form your own conclusions, the only thing I’d like to say is that it is akin to the zamindar of the village who is slowly going bankrupt and who cannot stomach the fact that the kid of the poor peasant who was indentured to him is now a doctor and has set up a hospital in his village and is doing well. We have our task cut out like I said earlier.
Beginning:
I believe the muck hit the fan around the 26th when the famous photos came out. At that point, there was convergence of the news between India and here. However, Sky news went two steps further and showed 2 year old kids apparently being made to “work” on the site. Also, there were trips to slums around Delhi and the usual comparison. Of course, the reporters were having a field day with the collapsing roof, the bridge and the security concern with the bogus security sting by that Aussie reporter. I distinctly remember a very repulsing interview that the anchor in the studio did with a lady in Delhi from some Australian channel asking how the conditions were. The body language of the lady was appalling – there was rolling of the eyes, the disbelief that the games were being held here, statements like “And you know about the bridge that collapsed, the roof that collapsed,...an almost audible sigh..”. The entire tone was that the games were going to be cancelled.
Next couple of days:
That was when Sheila Dikshit mobilized many cleaners and the whole cleanup started. Over the next two-three days, positive news started coming out in the Indian media. However for the next 4-5 days, the media here was showing the same toilet, soiled bedsheet and the collected rain water pictures again and again whenever the news of CWG was being aired. The stories went from “Oh how can they pull it off, it is such a huge task for Delhi”...to Fennel and Hooper’s daily negative comments to the Australian OC head’s comments that “The games shouldn’t have been awarded to India” (this one was incidentally repeated as a headline every half hour). When the army engineers came and started rebuilding the bridge, it was shown here that India has deployed the army to bring the entire games on track. Through the week, there were no pictures of the fabulous stadia, the games village with its awesome rooms etc. There was added focus on the athletes who were dropping out as well.
On the eve of the athletes departure:
This was the funniest part. Around the end of that week was when athletes from Wales, Scotland, England started leaving for India. The entire atmosphere created was that the athletes were going off on a war. I saw interviews of quite a few (4-5 through the day whenever I saw news) athletes who were leaving for India on the airports. The questions were “Do you have any concerns about going to Delhi”, “What do you think about the cleanliness, do you think it will be safe”, “Do you think Delhi should have been awarded the games, the Australian OC chairman said they shouldn’t have been, what do you think”, “Do you think the federation has taken a right decision by deciding to send you”. To their credit, the athletes gave extremely diplomatic answers to all questions. On one day, I saw them interviewing the Chef-de-mission of the English squad in Delhi who was asked how the conditions were, he said they were good etc. Then the bit was cut and the only part that was played was “Well, the facilities are not Five star as promised but three star, but we will manage”.
After the opening ceremony:
Things did turn around after the ceremony, when news were better, Sky however just banished the news off the channel until one Indian official in the Games Village came down with Dengue. That ran as a ticker below the screen “First case of Dengue reported in Delhi”. Then some silence. When the swimmers got ill, another ticker and news that said “Unhygienic water in the swimming pools makes 50 athletes ill”. This ran for a whole day.
During the games:
By and large there was no news, however, I saw one or two tickers about umpiring judgements etc. The next big story was on the athletics stadium not being ready on time. Again the same thing about “Looks difficult, don’t know how they will fix it”. To their credit, BBC was much better, they had good and bad stories and blogs and tweets from correspondents in Delhi. There were lot of comments on empty seats, ticketing problems and monkey and langurs and of course the noise in the stadiums.
Finally:
The closing ceremony was barely mentioned on Sky while BBC wrote gloriously about it. The whole feeling was of course of “India pulled it off”. Any report was qualified with “There were problems and it was thought the games wouldn’t happen but they were able to get it together in the end”.
You folks are free to figure out what you want from this. Just a small story to underscore the point – me and my son (Vedant) were visiting the rail museum in Swindon where it was “Thomas” day. This being a paid event that cost £7 per entry, there were not many desis around. A balloon lady was making different shapes out of balloons. She would only hand the finished balloon to a kid if he answered her question correct. We were one desi father and son amongst many locals. We did not get many answers right and Vedant was about to get weepy. That’s when she asked the colour of a character and after many wrong attempts by all, Vedant answered “Yellow” which was the correct answer. Obviously Vedant got the balloon, he was very happy and smiling, I was smiling and looked around, all the parents were looking at us with a murderous “Who are they and how did they win” look in their eyes (I could see contempt in their eyes – must be my imagination). We walked away from there since the mission was accomplished. Enjoy.
Beginning:
I believe the muck hit the fan around the 26th when the famous photos came out. At that point, there was convergence of the news between India and here. However, Sky news went two steps further and showed 2 year old kids apparently being made to “work” on the site. Also, there were trips to slums around Delhi and the usual comparison. Of course, the reporters were having a field day with the collapsing roof, the bridge and the security concern with the bogus security sting by that Aussie reporter. I distinctly remember a very repulsing interview that the anchor in the studio did with a lady in Delhi from some Australian channel asking how the conditions were. The body language of the lady was appalling – there was rolling of the eyes, the disbelief that the games were being held here, statements like “And you know about the bridge that collapsed, the roof that collapsed,...an almost audible sigh..”. The entire tone was that the games were going to be cancelled.
Next couple of days:
That was when Sheila Dikshit mobilized many cleaners and the whole cleanup started. Over the next two-three days, positive news started coming out in the Indian media. However for the next 4-5 days, the media here was showing the same toilet, soiled bedsheet and the collected rain water pictures again and again whenever the news of CWG was being aired. The stories went from “Oh how can they pull it off, it is such a huge task for Delhi”...to Fennel and Hooper’s daily negative comments to the Australian OC head’s comments that “The games shouldn’t have been awarded to India” (this one was incidentally repeated as a headline every half hour). When the army engineers came and started rebuilding the bridge, it was shown here that India has deployed the army to bring the entire games on track. Through the week, there were no pictures of the fabulous stadia, the games village with its awesome rooms etc. There was added focus on the athletes who were dropping out as well.
On the eve of the athletes departure:
This was the funniest part. Around the end of that week was when athletes from Wales, Scotland, England started leaving for India. The entire atmosphere created was that the athletes were going off on a war. I saw interviews of quite a few (4-5 through the day whenever I saw news) athletes who were leaving for India on the airports. The questions were “Do you have any concerns about going to Delhi”, “What do you think about the cleanliness, do you think it will be safe”, “Do you think Delhi should have been awarded the games, the Australian OC chairman said they shouldn’t have been, what do you think”, “Do you think the federation has taken a right decision by deciding to send you”. To their credit, the athletes gave extremely diplomatic answers to all questions. On one day, I saw them interviewing the Chef-de-mission of the English squad in Delhi who was asked how the conditions were, he said they were good etc. Then the bit was cut and the only part that was played was “Well, the facilities are not Five star as promised but three star, but we will manage”.
After the opening ceremony:
Things did turn around after the ceremony, when news were better, Sky however just banished the news off the channel until one Indian official in the Games Village came down with Dengue. That ran as a ticker below the screen “First case of Dengue reported in Delhi”. Then some silence. When the swimmers got ill, another ticker and news that said “Unhygienic water in the swimming pools makes 50 athletes ill”. This ran for a whole day.
During the games:
By and large there was no news, however, I saw one or two tickers about umpiring judgements etc. The next big story was on the athletics stadium not being ready on time. Again the same thing about “Looks difficult, don’t know how they will fix it”. To their credit, BBC was much better, they had good and bad stories and blogs and tweets from correspondents in Delhi. There were lot of comments on empty seats, ticketing problems and monkey and langurs and of course the noise in the stadiums.
Finally:
The closing ceremony was barely mentioned on Sky while BBC wrote gloriously about it. The whole feeling was of course of “India pulled it off”. Any report was qualified with “There were problems and it was thought the games wouldn’t happen but they were able to get it together in the end”.
You folks are free to figure out what you want from this. Just a small story to underscore the point – me and my son (Vedant) were visiting the rail museum in Swindon where it was “Thomas” day. This being a paid event that cost £7 per entry, there were not many desis around. A balloon lady was making different shapes out of balloons. She would only hand the finished balloon to a kid if he answered her question correct. We were one desi father and son amongst many locals. We did not get many answers right and Vedant was about to get weepy. That’s when she asked the colour of a character and after many wrong attempts by all, Vedant answered “Yellow” which was the correct answer. Obviously Vedant got the balloon, he was very happy and smiling, I was smiling and looked around, all the parents were looking at us with a murderous “Who are they and how did they win” look in their eyes (I could see contempt in their eyes – must be my imagination). We walked away from there since the mission was accomplished. Enjoy.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Wide Angle 41 - CWG, execution and cleanliness of Indians
Apologies for the break in writing. I know the third part of the write up on Great Depression is due. However, this particular thing has dominated the headlines so much that I am too tempted to add my two pence worth of thoughts on it. So breaking with the routine to write about the CWG mess, the Indian execution abilities and our general aversion to cleanliness. Once I am done with it, you will see what I see and that is all these are related to each other and have their origin in the way our society is and the mode of society/government we have followed since independence. Before we begin, this post is slightly radical and may offend you, if it does, good, it is meant to, to get a message across, sometimes shocking people works.
I am not in the least bit surprised by the CWG fiasco since we in Pune saw what happened on a smaller but rather accurate scale before the Commonwealth Youth Games. If the manager is same, you’d expect more or less the same results from the team right? I also believe that the foreign press jumped the gun, they should have waited for the last day to report – it would all have been cleared up by the last day – they were too impatient weren’t they?
Before I begin, please don’t conclude that I am one of those NRIs who think they are successful just because they have left India and thus seem to have “solutions” to all of India’s problems. On the contrary, I think of everything from the Indian perspective (since I plan to be back in some time), I feel proud that we have achieved some success in IT, auto manufacturing, space and some other stuff. I also believe that the demography is to our advantage for the next few decades as well – that is mightily under-recognized. I also believe that despite all its imperfections, our democracy and open society in the midst of so many problems is very encouraging. The only problem with India is its government – it does everything it is not supposed to do (for example running hotels and bread factories) and does not do pretty much anything it has to (example sanitation, providing security, making lives of people easier). Since we are improperly governed, we do not have rule of law as it should be and hence things are haywire the way they are. More on less government (which is my pet theme) later.
Back to today’s topic, the CWG is an example of how we are not at all good at execution. We are great with thoughts, excellent at planning and very insightful with our observations and comments. However, all that is left out at the door once you start execution. While we have been pretty good at execution in the private sector, I still feel we are not there. With such a big government presence in all aspects of life in India, we cannot expect the private sector to execute and improve everything. How does one define good execution? I simply define it as finishing something before time (at least 2 days in advance of the deadline), with good quality and within the cost defined at the start – cost, schedule, quality – the old chestnuts. Does anything in India that gets done (except for the Infosys “block” buildings) this way. No is the answer.
Before moving further, I would like to say that there have been instances where I have achieved good execution and sometimes bad and hence that gives me the authority of experience to talk about good execution. Execution is simply about getting things done. You need a plan, which most of us have. This part many get right but the plan is more often than not loosely defined and is not really a plan but a scheme of how to do things. Till here, the Indians are well ahead of anyone else since we create some excellent plans and great reports. So why does execution become such a problem? Very simply put, it is the lack of monitoring and re-planning and monitoring and re-planning again – essentially being on top of things.
Now since we often come close to good execution, someone at some level is being on top of things and working his butt off but it is obviously not the people at the top. My firm belief in these matters is that unless the leader (s) monitors all the time, things will not get pushed – like Lou Gerstner says “People don’t do what you expect, they do what you inspect”. The second very important thing that is missing in good execution is the unwillingness of leaders to get their hands dirty if need be. This is where the entire Wide Angle series more or less compresses it’s message and gives you – leaders cannot afford to live in ivory towers, cannot talk in the air and cannot simply expect that things will move along because they are in charge. Wherever that does not happen, things will go wrong.
I know I am talking tired old management clichés here so let me get right back to my analysis and my original thought. I think good execution fails in our country because “work” is looked on only as something that buys you basics (if you are at the bottom of the pyramid) and luxuries (as move you higher). Work has to be to achieve something, it has to be an end in itself. If work does not have an element of “I built that” or “I created that” element attached to it and if it does not have “pride” associated with it, it will not motivate, it will only impose. One has to gauge work, look for gaps, fix gaps, pitch in if no one else is doing it, use the stick, yell, grovel, call 10 times a day if the work is to be done well. The only person who can do this on the team is the leader because everyone else is supposed to execute and won’t have the time nor the inclination or the abilities to do this.
The reason why people don’t “work” enough in India and many other countries also is about the PDI (Power Distance Index) concept from Wide Angle 23. The boss is supposed to be in the cabin with a PA (remember the imagery from Hindi movies) and barking orders, he cannot be seen to be creating slides or code for example. To reach that cabin is what work is for according to us (a prime reason why kids in Infy want to do a MBA and get out of coding?). Essentially this is associated with dignity of labor which is absolutely not present in Indians. There are “good” jobs and “bad” jobs and if one is stuck in a bad job, one is either doomed for life (in which case one will not work and probably drink and curse) or else one will change the job. As long as this is the view, “work” will not get done the way it is supposed to be. And this is what the caste system is about isn’t it? People will be stuck in their jobs because they were born like that and there is no chance of moving ahead, without that why would anyone be motivated.
The caste system is an extreme form of such a society but I hope you get what I mean. If the feeling of “hierarchy” exists and if that is too rigid, the people below in the hierarchy have nothing to gain by working for the sake of an outcome and will only look at it as a money making device. To not have this feeling in the team, it is the boss who has to stoop and be seen to be shouldering an equal burden with the people, if this does not happen, no one will be interested in executing well, they will just wait for a final yelling and grumblingly work. Hasn’t this been seen everywhere and isn’t it the same in CWG?
One last thing, folks, when you get a project with a deadline, please finish the bulk of the work in the beginning so that you can sleep at the end. I have learnt a lot from my spouse here, whenever we have a project like moving home (which we have done 6-7 times since marriage now) or anything else, she makes lists of tasks, then she makes a smaller list the next day and so on. The list is revised, reviewed and re-done every day or sometimes hour. We completed a move from Swindon (when she was 6 months pregnant) to London (for me) and Baroda (for them) in 1 week and we were idle on the last day because we had used this approach of execution.
So what does this have to with cleanliness you ask me. The whole execution bit completely ties up with the visible lack of cleanliness so visible in the public domain in India. I had gone to China Town in Central London and was extremely surprised to find it spank clean, well laid out and without any chaos (as opposed to Eastham). That pretty much sums up the difference. We have unclean public domains, it is because the cleaners are doomed to these tasks which are deemed to be “dirty”. The so called “leaders” of society, government, business in India are mostly men who would not lift a finger at home. If one cannot do one’s own work, how will one know how to execute complicated projects, all one will know is to talk big. The reason why me and my brother have been relatively good at execution is because we grew up in Mumbai (which is the most egalitarian city in India) and considering that our mother used to be ill, many times we had to do many of the chores at home for example cleaning the basin, toilet, tidying the house, dusting the house, sometimes doing the dishes, unfolding the folding cot every night and folding it back along with the “gaadis”. That brought the “instinct” of work within us and that is what helps us.
Did you get it, if you want your children to grow up and work well, have them do manual work sometimes, make them in charge of projects and give them responsibility. Finally, expose them to physical hardships, only then will they understand the “value” of each job (including cleaning the toilet which I think is one of the most noble job to do). The simple thing about dirt is, it is just dirt and gets cleaned by the brush – most of the Indian gentry likes to avoid dirt. I feel good looking at a sparkly bathroom or cleaned utensils or clean floor – isn’t a completed project or proposal the same thing – equivalent to a clean bathroom/floor/clothes? If you get what I mean, I think you will realize the reason why executions are a problem in our country.
I know this is a very radical thought, had to be said though, if we have to move forward, this has to change else we will see stinky photos all the time that the foreigners will throw in our faces.
I am not in the least bit surprised by the CWG fiasco since we in Pune saw what happened on a smaller but rather accurate scale before the Commonwealth Youth Games. If the manager is same, you’d expect more or less the same results from the team right? I also believe that the foreign press jumped the gun, they should have waited for the last day to report – it would all have been cleared up by the last day – they were too impatient weren’t they?
Before I begin, please don’t conclude that I am one of those NRIs who think they are successful just because they have left India and thus seem to have “solutions” to all of India’s problems. On the contrary, I think of everything from the Indian perspective (since I plan to be back in some time), I feel proud that we have achieved some success in IT, auto manufacturing, space and some other stuff. I also believe that the demography is to our advantage for the next few decades as well – that is mightily under-recognized. I also believe that despite all its imperfections, our democracy and open society in the midst of so many problems is very encouraging. The only problem with India is its government – it does everything it is not supposed to do (for example running hotels and bread factories) and does not do pretty much anything it has to (example sanitation, providing security, making lives of people easier). Since we are improperly governed, we do not have rule of law as it should be and hence things are haywire the way they are. More on less government (which is my pet theme) later.
Back to today’s topic, the CWG is an example of how we are not at all good at execution. We are great with thoughts, excellent at planning and very insightful with our observations and comments. However, all that is left out at the door once you start execution. While we have been pretty good at execution in the private sector, I still feel we are not there. With such a big government presence in all aspects of life in India, we cannot expect the private sector to execute and improve everything. How does one define good execution? I simply define it as finishing something before time (at least 2 days in advance of the deadline), with good quality and within the cost defined at the start – cost, schedule, quality – the old chestnuts. Does anything in India that gets done (except for the Infosys “block” buildings) this way. No is the answer.
Before moving further, I would like to say that there have been instances where I have achieved good execution and sometimes bad and hence that gives me the authority of experience to talk about good execution. Execution is simply about getting things done. You need a plan, which most of us have. This part many get right but the plan is more often than not loosely defined and is not really a plan but a scheme of how to do things. Till here, the Indians are well ahead of anyone else since we create some excellent plans and great reports. So why does execution become such a problem? Very simply put, it is the lack of monitoring and re-planning and monitoring and re-planning again – essentially being on top of things.
Now since we often come close to good execution, someone at some level is being on top of things and working his butt off but it is obviously not the people at the top. My firm belief in these matters is that unless the leader (s) monitors all the time, things will not get pushed – like Lou Gerstner says “People don’t do what you expect, they do what you inspect”. The second very important thing that is missing in good execution is the unwillingness of leaders to get their hands dirty if need be. This is where the entire Wide Angle series more or less compresses it’s message and gives you – leaders cannot afford to live in ivory towers, cannot talk in the air and cannot simply expect that things will move along because they are in charge. Wherever that does not happen, things will go wrong.
I know I am talking tired old management clichés here so let me get right back to my analysis and my original thought. I think good execution fails in our country because “work” is looked on only as something that buys you basics (if you are at the bottom of the pyramid) and luxuries (as move you higher). Work has to be to achieve something, it has to be an end in itself. If work does not have an element of “I built that” or “I created that” element attached to it and if it does not have “pride” associated with it, it will not motivate, it will only impose. One has to gauge work, look for gaps, fix gaps, pitch in if no one else is doing it, use the stick, yell, grovel, call 10 times a day if the work is to be done well. The only person who can do this on the team is the leader because everyone else is supposed to execute and won’t have the time nor the inclination or the abilities to do this.
The reason why people don’t “work” enough in India and many other countries also is about the PDI (Power Distance Index) concept from Wide Angle 23. The boss is supposed to be in the cabin with a PA (remember the imagery from Hindi movies) and barking orders, he cannot be seen to be creating slides or code for example. To reach that cabin is what work is for according to us (a prime reason why kids in Infy want to do a MBA and get out of coding?). Essentially this is associated with dignity of labor which is absolutely not present in Indians. There are “good” jobs and “bad” jobs and if one is stuck in a bad job, one is either doomed for life (in which case one will not work and probably drink and curse) or else one will change the job. As long as this is the view, “work” will not get done the way it is supposed to be. And this is what the caste system is about isn’t it? People will be stuck in their jobs because they were born like that and there is no chance of moving ahead, without that why would anyone be motivated.
The caste system is an extreme form of such a society but I hope you get what I mean. If the feeling of “hierarchy” exists and if that is too rigid, the people below in the hierarchy have nothing to gain by working for the sake of an outcome and will only look at it as a money making device. To not have this feeling in the team, it is the boss who has to stoop and be seen to be shouldering an equal burden with the people, if this does not happen, no one will be interested in executing well, they will just wait for a final yelling and grumblingly work. Hasn’t this been seen everywhere and isn’t it the same in CWG?
One last thing, folks, when you get a project with a deadline, please finish the bulk of the work in the beginning so that you can sleep at the end. I have learnt a lot from my spouse here, whenever we have a project like moving home (which we have done 6-7 times since marriage now) or anything else, she makes lists of tasks, then she makes a smaller list the next day and so on. The list is revised, reviewed and re-done every day or sometimes hour. We completed a move from Swindon (when she was 6 months pregnant) to London (for me) and Baroda (for them) in 1 week and we were idle on the last day because we had used this approach of execution.
So what does this have to with cleanliness you ask me. The whole execution bit completely ties up with the visible lack of cleanliness so visible in the public domain in India. I had gone to China Town in Central London and was extremely surprised to find it spank clean, well laid out and without any chaos (as opposed to Eastham). That pretty much sums up the difference. We have unclean public domains, it is because the cleaners are doomed to these tasks which are deemed to be “dirty”. The so called “leaders” of society, government, business in India are mostly men who would not lift a finger at home. If one cannot do one’s own work, how will one know how to execute complicated projects, all one will know is to talk big. The reason why me and my brother have been relatively good at execution is because we grew up in Mumbai (which is the most egalitarian city in India) and considering that our mother used to be ill, many times we had to do many of the chores at home for example cleaning the basin, toilet, tidying the house, dusting the house, sometimes doing the dishes, unfolding the folding cot every night and folding it back along with the “gaadis”. That brought the “instinct” of work within us and that is what helps us.
Did you get it, if you want your children to grow up and work well, have them do manual work sometimes, make them in charge of projects and give them responsibility. Finally, expose them to physical hardships, only then will they understand the “value” of each job (including cleaning the toilet which I think is one of the most noble job to do). The simple thing about dirt is, it is just dirt and gets cleaned by the brush – most of the Indian gentry likes to avoid dirt. I feel good looking at a sparkly bathroom or cleaned utensils or clean floor – isn’t a completed project or proposal the same thing – equivalent to a clean bathroom/floor/clothes? If you get what I mean, I think you will realize the reason why executions are a problem in our country.
I know this is a very radical thought, had to be said though, if we have to move forward, this has to change else we will see stinky photos all the time that the foreigners will throw in our faces.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Getting old, am I?
God save me, i am turning into my parents (if i can be them, that would be awesome, but that is besides the point). My dad and mom dont drink tea/coffee in the evenings because they cannot sleep if they do. I used to think that happens when one gets old but has started happening to me. Slept only 3 hours last night because i had coffee at 9.30 pm last night after having a couple of beers. Has happened a couple of times before as well (the coffee-sleep thing, not the beer thing). On the upside, had my first good dream in ages, where i built a very successful Consulting company and was being interviewed by Simi Garewal on TV with the wife.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Last thing i want for my child
Is what cooed one of my wife's "lovely" friends (her "friends" are typically the mums of other kids studying with him) while they were waiting to pick up their respective royal ones outside the Sapling Nursery in Pune a couple of years ago. Little Vedant (my royal one) was in Nursery then and the great race to join a "proper" school at Junior KG was about to begin. The topic under discussion was which school should our "special" kids go to. One of the schools under consideration was XYZ where apparently the teachers spoke to their kids in Marathi (The Horror!!). That is when the "lovely" friend said "That would be the last thing i want for my child".
So what is it about Indian languages that gets us "Arrived" crowds in India so riled about. To put it another way, what is it that everyone suddenly has this compulsive need to speak to everyone else who is from this class (wives of IT folks mainly) and to their little ones in English at home and everywhere else. I have seen this enough to rant about it. I am assuming this is going to get us Kothiwales less invitations in the "lovely" wives' homes but i have to say it.
I think the whole premise is that one should speak to their children in English because apparently it would give them a better platform in life and "improve" their spoken English and thus make them successful in life. Poppycock!! The entire Indian Junta successful abroad speaks excellent English and I can only hypothicate with empirical evidence that they speak native at home. I read only Marathi books till 12th though i studied in English medium where the language of conversation was Marathi, Hindi and sometimes Malayalam (when i was in Cochin). If i had spoken English at home, my granny would have given me one tight slap.
Folks, jokes aside, please consider this - your home is the only place where your kid will learn your mother tongue - do you hate your mother tongue so much that you want to deprive your kid of that learning experience too? Secondly, 95% of the Indian population speaks native, so are you raising your kid to only converse with the 5% that are like him/her? Of course, you assume that the child will get out of India after a while (as his destiny would be according to you), but what if the future belongs to India and the world comes here in 2030?
Our languages are rich in literature (every one of them), history and science (of the language) as well. English is like Java, a good language to conduct business in. Your kid will learn it and be fluent as well. Please dont deprive them of the richness of your culture which is translated to you via your language. I'd say more power to your kids, why stop at English and your mother tongue, let them learn as many languages as they can Tamil, Telugu, Haryanvi, French, German (Aah, i got your attention on the last two ones didnt I?).
Now, not mentioning the unmentionable, is this some sort of colonial hangover still within us that we think languages that whites speak are "superior" and the ones that us natives speak are "downmarket".
Hell, i believe my invitations have already dried up since i have spoken the taboo subject in our "Class". Ouch the kick on me behind hurts. Cheerio then, i am going to watch my English programs while reading my English book probably afterwards will watch my English movie (Oops..).
So what is it about Indian languages that gets us "Arrived" crowds in India so riled about. To put it another way, what is it that everyone suddenly has this compulsive need to speak to everyone else who is from this class (wives of IT folks mainly) and to their little ones in English at home and everywhere else. I have seen this enough to rant about it. I am assuming this is going to get us Kothiwales less invitations in the "lovely" wives' homes but i have to say it.
I think the whole premise is that one should speak to their children in English because apparently it would give them a better platform in life and "improve" their spoken English and thus make them successful in life. Poppycock!! The entire Indian Junta successful abroad speaks excellent English and I can only hypothicate with empirical evidence that they speak native at home. I read only Marathi books till 12th though i studied in English medium where the language of conversation was Marathi, Hindi and sometimes Malayalam (when i was in Cochin). If i had spoken English at home, my granny would have given me one tight slap.
Folks, jokes aside, please consider this - your home is the only place where your kid will learn your mother tongue - do you hate your mother tongue so much that you want to deprive your kid of that learning experience too? Secondly, 95% of the Indian population speaks native, so are you raising your kid to only converse with the 5% that are like him/her? Of course, you assume that the child will get out of India after a while (as his destiny would be according to you), but what if the future belongs to India and the world comes here in 2030?
Our languages are rich in literature (every one of them), history and science (of the language) as well. English is like Java, a good language to conduct business in. Your kid will learn it and be fluent as well. Please dont deprive them of the richness of your culture which is translated to you via your language. I'd say more power to your kids, why stop at English and your mother tongue, let them learn as many languages as they can Tamil, Telugu, Haryanvi, French, German (Aah, i got your attention on the last two ones didnt I?).
Now, not mentioning the unmentionable, is this some sort of colonial hangover still within us that we think languages that whites speak are "superior" and the ones that us natives speak are "downmarket".
Hell, i believe my invitations have already dried up since i have spoken the taboo subject in our "Class". Ouch the kick on me behind hurts. Cheerio then, i am going to watch my English programs while reading my English book probably afterwards will watch my English movie (Oops..).
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wide Angle 40 - - Lords of Finance - The Great Depression Explained - Part 2
Will not waste much time, moving on to the next part of the story. Bear with me for this entire feature will be long, I will make a third part of this and it will end there, hope you will find it interesting.
German Hyperinflation:
This is one famous story that you may have heard. As part of the Versailles treaty, Germany had to cede Alsaces and Lorraine provinces to France, it also had to cut down its army to 100000 and finally agreed to pay $12 billion to the Allies as reparations. However, due to weak coalition governments, country on brink of revolution, large residual expenses from the war i.e. pensions to veterans and war widows and compensation to those who had lost territories, the German fiscal position was precarious. In addition, the democratic governments took up new social obligations like an eight hour workday, insurance for the unemployed, health and welfare for the sick and poor. This led to an even bad fiscal condition on top of which they had to stick to the reparation payment schedule. To finance this gap, the different governments simply resorted to printing money.
Figures again – in 1914, the mark stood at 4.2 to the dollar, by 1920, the mark had fallen to 65 marks to the dollar. Over the next 18 months, the inflation slowed down and foreign currency speculators moved in $2billion into the country since this was Germany, the epitome of discipline and orderliness and it had to perform well right. A series of events in mid 1921 (French intransigence over reparations, political murders by right wing death squads) changed the tide and broke the confidence of public in the mark who abandoned it in droves. As the mark went down, Germany got caught in a downward spiral. Prices rose forty fold during 1922 and the mark fell from 190 to 7600 per dollar. By 1923, the inflation had acquired a momentum of its own and the demand for Germany to print currency was a major logistical operation – 133 printing works with 1783 machines and more than 30 paper mills. In a country awash with paper, the demand for currency could not be met by the official press hence towns and private companies began to print their own notes.
Over the next few months, Germany experienced the single largest destruction of monetary value in human history. By August 1923, a dollar was worth 620,000 marks and by early November, 630 billion – to think this had happened to the third largest economy of the world was what made it horrendous. Basic necessities were priced in billions – a kilo of butter cost 250 billion marks, a kilo of meat cost 180 billion and a simple ride on a Berlin street car, which had cost 1 mark before the war now cost 15 billion.
The impact of all this was that the middle class lost most of its savings and was reduced to penury, discontent rode high in the populace and foreigners made hay by buying major German assets because of the currency rate. For one hundred dollars, a Texan hired the full Berlin Philharmonic orchestra for an evening. This difference in living rankled the Germans and agitated them further against the Versailles Treaty.
Schacht to the rescue:
In stepped Hjalmar Schacht who was made Currency Commissioner by the Government to supersede Von Havenstein who was the Governor of the Reichsbank and ardent supporter of inflation. Schacht convinced the government to launch a new currency the Rentenmark which would be backed by something tangible – Land. The whole idea was to make the currency stable. Schacht waited for the mark to fall to 4.2 trillion to the dollar and then set the conversion rate of Rentenmark to 1 trillion Reischsmarks to 1 Rentenmark. The Reischsmark became so worthless that the government was able to buy back its trillions of debts valued at $30 billion when first issued for 190 million Rentenmarks equivalent to $45 million. This signaled to the world that the new currency was stable and the German public which had simply got rid of cash before now started to began to buy it back. Farmers, their confidence in money restored, began bringing produce to the market, food reappeared in shops and queues began to melt away. The currency was stable and hope was back.
The question of reparations still remained which was solved by a group of Americans led by businessman Charles Dawes. The brain of the group was Owen Young, the chairman of GE and now the president of RCA. The plan mainly laid out that the total figure of $12.5 billion be kept aside, Germany was to pay $250 million in the first year, to be progressively increased to $600 million by the end of the decade. In addition, a loan of $250 million was to be raised to help Germany pay the first installment and kick start the economy. If Germany failed to pay, they would get a year’s break so the currency would not be impacted. The result of all this was that the confidence was back in the German economy and soon, American money began pouring into Germany in form of loans thus swelling its currency reserves and making it increase its interest rates.
The French story:
France was in big fiscal trouble around 1924 with its currency dropping in value. This was mainly due to the short term bonds and loans that had become due for payment, chronic political instability (6 governments in 5 months at one point) and German reparations not coming through any time soon. Another reason was the unearthing of an accounting scandal by the Banque authorities in order to cover up for deficit in revenue by printing money but not showing it on the books. This was a temporary solution but it never stopped and when unearthed amounting to 5 percent of money in circulation. The government refused to raise taxes and the Banque refused to let go of some gold to balance the deficit. This led to confidence dropping in the Franc and the currency slipped from 5 Francs per dollar before the war to 30 francs per dollar. The currency was in balance now but the money was short. French efforts at raising loans came to nought with both UK and US refusing to lend them.
It is at this point that Raymond Poincare took over power in France and appointed Moreau as head of the Banque – the franc was at 50 per dollar. This appointment provided a turnaround in confidence and brought back speculative attentions and financiers’ money to the franc. The Franc started rising and went rapidly up to 25. It is at this time that Moreau decided to cap the rise of the Franc by fixing the rate of the currency. If the franc had risen too high, the value of French goods in the world market would have risen thus making exports uncompetitive and leading to recession. The Franc was kept in control by buying up other currencies with the enormous gold that France had. By mid 1927, waves of French capital that had fled to London or New York came back home with the foreign exchange held by the Banque at $500 million in pounds. At 25 francs to the dollar, French goods were the most competitive in the world and France was back on the Gold standard.
The British story:
Last week, I had mentioned that Montagu Norman not only wanted to return Britain to the Gold standard but also wanted to not devaluate the pound so that it could retain its prime status. Like mentioned before, between devaluation and deflation, Norman chose deflation thus leading to a recession. After 3 years, the currency had come back to within 10% more than the dollar. In 1924, the socialist government fell and brought the Conservatives led by Stanley Baldwin to power. Baldwin appointed Winston Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Meanwhile, most of the other countries had moved to the Gold Standard and Britain (Norman) was being pushed to join by Benjamin Strong. Keynes opposed this tooth and nail because he believed that joining would join Britain too much with American fortunes since they owned most of the gold. Instead, he recommended devaluating the currency so that British exports could be competitive again. At 10% higher than America, British prices were still too high and this would cause a problem when tethered to the Gold Standard, Britain would lose control over its currency.
The debate raged far and wide and ultimately Churchill called in a conference of a handful of colleagues and intellectuals representing both sides – Keynes being one of them. Everyone agreed that the prices were a bit too high but also that the best time was now since the economy was in good shape (Pound was at 4.3 dollars, though British hold over manufacturing had been lost) and Americans could help Britain with $250 million in loans. Finally, Churchill decided in favor of the Gold Standard, Norman was the Hero of the Hour as he promised to make Churchill the “Golden Chancellor”. The Pound went to Gold and its value was raised to 4.86 i.e. pre-war levels. Because the exchange rate rose, the prices of British goods rose outside as well and the staple export industries of coal, steel and shipbuilding were hit. Strikes resulted and tempers flew. This did not lead to flight of capital because there was continued inflow of capital was because of the high interest rates in London market and escaping the escalating crisis in France.
To keep this “hot” money from flooding back out, interest rates had to be kept higher than other countries for the rest of the decade. Everyone realized in 1927 that the return to Gold was a mistake because British manufactures were losing steam and competence in the international market whose prices were falling every year at 5 per cent. In addition, Britain was now tethered to the health of America which was now in boom and had lower interest rates thus keeping money in Britain, but the day the interest rates had to be increased due to domestic considerations, all this hot money would have to flow back due to Gold Standard adherence.
The American Story:
The country that came out the strongest of the war was also now in command. Its chief banker Benjamin Strong was also a very strong character who ran the whole show on his discretion. He was directly beholden to the other three bankers i.e. Norman (who was his closest friend), Schacht and Moreau. America had plenty of gold, its manufacturing was booming and its economy was going great guns because of new inventions e.g. the Ford Model T, the radio, the washing machine etc. The biggest thing that was booming was of course its stock market. The situation pretty much became like what we saw before the current crash. Stock prices went through the roof since money was cheap and everyone was getting rich. Every person started investing in the market and there were specialist loans offered by banks to stock brokers called broker loans. This was accompanied by land price booms, a strip of land in Miami that cost quarter million dollars before the boom was priced by early 1925 at close to $5 million. Everyone was getting in on the action and magazines were being run for housewives on how to invest in stock etc.
Keeping this boom going was the decision of the Fed to keep lowering interest rates in America so that Britain could keep on the gold standard with higher interest rates. This caused money to become freely available. There was a lot of resistance in Washington on the speculative “orgy” on wall street and in the country but Benjamin Strong felt that as long as prices were falling (there was a worldwide drop of prices of commodities due to more gold being available and good harvests) and the demand was high he could afford some inflation. Till 1928, everyone was expecting a crash and the Fed tried a couple of times to increase rates to dampen the market but could not succeed much. Any negative sentiment against the roaring stock market was seen as a statement against the American economy. Worst, this boom meant capital from all over the world was getting sucked into the stock market vortex in America thus resulting in a recession in Germany due to flight of capital. It is very telling that most of the bigger stock brokers liquidated their portfolios around the end of 1928 since they expected the market to crash. Joe Kennedy (JFK’s father) liquidated his holdings in the market because he heard his shoeshine boy giving tips on stocks which prompted him to say ,”The day I heard my shoeshine boy and my butler know as much as me about the market, I knew something was wrong and I had to get out.”.
The world was coming closer to a precipice, Britain was sustaining higher interest rates despite being in a slump, Germany was tottering on bankruptcy again due to flight of capital and America was living in a dream world from which it was about to wake rudely.
So much for this week, will conclude the story in the next part.
German Hyperinflation:
This is one famous story that you may have heard. As part of the Versailles treaty, Germany had to cede Alsaces and Lorraine provinces to France, it also had to cut down its army to 100000 and finally agreed to pay $12 billion to the Allies as reparations. However, due to weak coalition governments, country on brink of revolution, large residual expenses from the war i.e. pensions to veterans and war widows and compensation to those who had lost territories, the German fiscal position was precarious. In addition, the democratic governments took up new social obligations like an eight hour workday, insurance for the unemployed, health and welfare for the sick and poor. This led to an even bad fiscal condition on top of which they had to stick to the reparation payment schedule. To finance this gap, the different governments simply resorted to printing money.
Figures again – in 1914, the mark stood at 4.2 to the dollar, by 1920, the mark had fallen to 65 marks to the dollar. Over the next 18 months, the inflation slowed down and foreign currency speculators moved in $2billion into the country since this was Germany, the epitome of discipline and orderliness and it had to perform well right. A series of events in mid 1921 (French intransigence over reparations, political murders by right wing death squads) changed the tide and broke the confidence of public in the mark who abandoned it in droves. As the mark went down, Germany got caught in a downward spiral. Prices rose forty fold during 1922 and the mark fell from 190 to 7600 per dollar. By 1923, the inflation had acquired a momentum of its own and the demand for Germany to print currency was a major logistical operation – 133 printing works with 1783 machines and more than 30 paper mills. In a country awash with paper, the demand for currency could not be met by the official press hence towns and private companies began to print their own notes.
Over the next few months, Germany experienced the single largest destruction of monetary value in human history. By August 1923, a dollar was worth 620,000 marks and by early November, 630 billion – to think this had happened to the third largest economy of the world was what made it horrendous. Basic necessities were priced in billions – a kilo of butter cost 250 billion marks, a kilo of meat cost 180 billion and a simple ride on a Berlin street car, which had cost 1 mark before the war now cost 15 billion.
The impact of all this was that the middle class lost most of its savings and was reduced to penury, discontent rode high in the populace and foreigners made hay by buying major German assets because of the currency rate. For one hundred dollars, a Texan hired the full Berlin Philharmonic orchestra for an evening. This difference in living rankled the Germans and agitated them further against the Versailles Treaty.
Schacht to the rescue:
In stepped Hjalmar Schacht who was made Currency Commissioner by the Government to supersede Von Havenstein who was the Governor of the Reichsbank and ardent supporter of inflation. Schacht convinced the government to launch a new currency the Rentenmark which would be backed by something tangible – Land. The whole idea was to make the currency stable. Schacht waited for the mark to fall to 4.2 trillion to the dollar and then set the conversion rate of Rentenmark to 1 trillion Reischsmarks to 1 Rentenmark. The Reischsmark became so worthless that the government was able to buy back its trillions of debts valued at $30 billion when first issued for 190 million Rentenmarks equivalent to $45 million. This signaled to the world that the new currency was stable and the German public which had simply got rid of cash before now started to began to buy it back. Farmers, their confidence in money restored, began bringing produce to the market, food reappeared in shops and queues began to melt away. The currency was stable and hope was back.
The question of reparations still remained which was solved by a group of Americans led by businessman Charles Dawes. The brain of the group was Owen Young, the chairman of GE and now the president of RCA. The plan mainly laid out that the total figure of $12.5 billion be kept aside, Germany was to pay $250 million in the first year, to be progressively increased to $600 million by the end of the decade. In addition, a loan of $250 million was to be raised to help Germany pay the first installment and kick start the economy. If Germany failed to pay, they would get a year’s break so the currency would not be impacted. The result of all this was that the confidence was back in the German economy and soon, American money began pouring into Germany in form of loans thus swelling its currency reserves and making it increase its interest rates.
The French story:
France was in big fiscal trouble around 1924 with its currency dropping in value. This was mainly due to the short term bonds and loans that had become due for payment, chronic political instability (6 governments in 5 months at one point) and German reparations not coming through any time soon. Another reason was the unearthing of an accounting scandal by the Banque authorities in order to cover up for deficit in revenue by printing money but not showing it on the books. This was a temporary solution but it never stopped and when unearthed amounting to 5 percent of money in circulation. The government refused to raise taxes and the Banque refused to let go of some gold to balance the deficit. This led to confidence dropping in the Franc and the currency slipped from 5 Francs per dollar before the war to 30 francs per dollar. The currency was in balance now but the money was short. French efforts at raising loans came to nought with both UK and US refusing to lend them.
It is at this point that Raymond Poincare took over power in France and appointed Moreau as head of the Banque – the franc was at 50 per dollar. This appointment provided a turnaround in confidence and brought back speculative attentions and financiers’ money to the franc. The Franc started rising and went rapidly up to 25. It is at this time that Moreau decided to cap the rise of the Franc by fixing the rate of the currency. If the franc had risen too high, the value of French goods in the world market would have risen thus making exports uncompetitive and leading to recession. The Franc was kept in control by buying up other currencies with the enormous gold that France had. By mid 1927, waves of French capital that had fled to London or New York came back home with the foreign exchange held by the Banque at $500 million in pounds. At 25 francs to the dollar, French goods were the most competitive in the world and France was back on the Gold standard.
The British story:
Last week, I had mentioned that Montagu Norman not only wanted to return Britain to the Gold standard but also wanted to not devaluate the pound so that it could retain its prime status. Like mentioned before, between devaluation and deflation, Norman chose deflation thus leading to a recession. After 3 years, the currency had come back to within 10% more than the dollar. In 1924, the socialist government fell and brought the Conservatives led by Stanley Baldwin to power. Baldwin appointed Winston Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Meanwhile, most of the other countries had moved to the Gold Standard and Britain (Norman) was being pushed to join by Benjamin Strong. Keynes opposed this tooth and nail because he believed that joining would join Britain too much with American fortunes since they owned most of the gold. Instead, he recommended devaluating the currency so that British exports could be competitive again. At 10% higher than America, British prices were still too high and this would cause a problem when tethered to the Gold Standard, Britain would lose control over its currency.
The debate raged far and wide and ultimately Churchill called in a conference of a handful of colleagues and intellectuals representing both sides – Keynes being one of them. Everyone agreed that the prices were a bit too high but also that the best time was now since the economy was in good shape (Pound was at 4.3 dollars, though British hold over manufacturing had been lost) and Americans could help Britain with $250 million in loans. Finally, Churchill decided in favor of the Gold Standard, Norman was the Hero of the Hour as he promised to make Churchill the “Golden Chancellor”. The Pound went to Gold and its value was raised to 4.86 i.e. pre-war levels. Because the exchange rate rose, the prices of British goods rose outside as well and the staple export industries of coal, steel and shipbuilding were hit. Strikes resulted and tempers flew. This did not lead to flight of capital because there was continued inflow of capital was because of the high interest rates in London market and escaping the escalating crisis in France.
To keep this “hot” money from flooding back out, interest rates had to be kept higher than other countries for the rest of the decade. Everyone realized in 1927 that the return to Gold was a mistake because British manufactures were losing steam and competence in the international market whose prices were falling every year at 5 per cent. In addition, Britain was now tethered to the health of America which was now in boom and had lower interest rates thus keeping money in Britain, but the day the interest rates had to be increased due to domestic considerations, all this hot money would have to flow back due to Gold Standard adherence.
The American Story:
The country that came out the strongest of the war was also now in command. Its chief banker Benjamin Strong was also a very strong character who ran the whole show on his discretion. He was directly beholden to the other three bankers i.e. Norman (who was his closest friend), Schacht and Moreau. America had plenty of gold, its manufacturing was booming and its economy was going great guns because of new inventions e.g. the Ford Model T, the radio, the washing machine etc. The biggest thing that was booming was of course its stock market. The situation pretty much became like what we saw before the current crash. Stock prices went through the roof since money was cheap and everyone was getting rich. Every person started investing in the market and there were specialist loans offered by banks to stock brokers called broker loans. This was accompanied by land price booms, a strip of land in Miami that cost quarter million dollars before the boom was priced by early 1925 at close to $5 million. Everyone was getting in on the action and magazines were being run for housewives on how to invest in stock etc.
Keeping this boom going was the decision of the Fed to keep lowering interest rates in America so that Britain could keep on the gold standard with higher interest rates. This caused money to become freely available. There was a lot of resistance in Washington on the speculative “orgy” on wall street and in the country but Benjamin Strong felt that as long as prices were falling (there was a worldwide drop of prices of commodities due to more gold being available and good harvests) and the demand was high he could afford some inflation. Till 1928, everyone was expecting a crash and the Fed tried a couple of times to increase rates to dampen the market but could not succeed much. Any negative sentiment against the roaring stock market was seen as a statement against the American economy. Worst, this boom meant capital from all over the world was getting sucked into the stock market vortex in America thus resulting in a recession in Germany due to flight of capital. It is very telling that most of the bigger stock brokers liquidated their portfolios around the end of 1928 since they expected the market to crash. Joe Kennedy (JFK’s father) liquidated his holdings in the market because he heard his shoeshine boy giving tips on stocks which prompted him to say ,”The day I heard my shoeshine boy and my butler know as much as me about the market, I knew something was wrong and I had to get out.”.
The world was coming closer to a precipice, Britain was sustaining higher interest rates despite being in a slump, Germany was tottering on bankruptcy again due to flight of capital and America was living in a dream world from which it was about to wake rudely.
So much for this week, will conclude the story in the next part.
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