Ideal Blog

New year is here and I hope this year brings in the change we always look for and which always seems to fall short..the new year is like a clean slate , we can make this year into whatever we would like it to be- good , bad, ugly..err not ugly, I hope! So let us do our very best and work towards this year being the most productive year of our life!! I know that is going to be my resolution! I plan to outdo myself…try hard even if it means going to the brink , to the precipice..and hopefully not fall off the cliff trying

With that bit of optimism, here’s something I want to share ( with permission from author)- this is from a dear friend of mine, who happens to be my classmate from IIT Kanpur, and who is a senior executive in a Technology firm might I add We fondly call him Ramki.

Ramki this is dedicated to you!!

[In the spirit of re-living the lost pleasure of writing letters, minus the handwriting]

To,

A few more tears of happiness listening to soulful music,
A little more tiredness as you work yourself towards a worthy goal,
A few more thoughts towards the plight of the less fortunate,
A little less annoyance at the machinations of the keepers of power,
A few more hearty conversations with your best friends(for life),
A lighter load of worries of the past and anxieties for the future,
An increased zest in the service of those whom you love unconditionally,
An increased responsibility towards the world which made you,

From,

The blessings of those who helped you be what you are, and
The company of those who truly make you live your life to the fullest,

Subject: to the best of health, happiness and fun,

Dear Sir/Madam,

I humbly request your New Year visit you, and stay all year long!

as ever,
Ramki

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As the year 2010 draws to a close, lets see how am I going to remember this year. I want to document this because days will turn into months and months will turn into years and I can open up my diary and look back on the concluding year of the first decade in 21st century!

I will divide this post in couple of headers- Political, Economics, Finance, Technological, Entertainment, Geo Political and Climate. So let us get started:

Political- This was the year when we saw Obama slipping in approval ratings, Democrats losing Congress and the emergence of Tea Party in the national politics. What it means is , although Obama has done commendable work in dealing with this great recession, people in general are disillusioned with the pace of progress, particularly with unemployment still at 9.8%. Clearly Mr. Obama needs to get his act together and work with a vigor if he wants to get reelected in 2012 and seems like White House has already started a major overhaul in its administration.

Economics- This was the year which added a new word to our daily vocabulary – QE2 or the second coming of Quantitative Easing. So far it seems to have worked, as the stock markets close near 2 year highs. Does that mean economy is out of the wood? Not by a far shot, the unemployment is still close to 10%, the seven million jobs lost in recession have not been recovered and are probably not going to come back in near future either, the GDP although growing, it is pretty anemic like 1%. Corporate profit has registered some 20% year over year gain this year , but the outlook for 2011 is still murky. The deficit is only ballooning and with the recent extension of Bush era tax cuts, is only set to get worst. The extension of tax cut at a price tag of whopping $858 billion, although looks good short term, seems more like a sign of desperation in the fiscal policy think tank of the country.

Finance- This has been a crazy year for the markets and I would think the feds QE2 policy may have played a role. Here are some numbers in terms of price increases we saw this year(Source FT.com).
Silver : 72%, Gold:28%, Crude Oil:22%, Corn:52%, Wheat 48%, Cotton- 103%, Lumber- 46%, Coffee- 60%…the list goes on. Although the readers of this blog know that I am a Gold bull for a long time, but this rapid price increase in essential commodities is really worrying trends for the common man. I hope in 2011 Central Bankers around the world will stay guard for inflation to rear its ugly head.

Technology- Of course Mark Zuckerberg got Person of the Year recognition from Time magazine for his obscenely successful brainchild Facebook. The other notable trends are Cloud Computing really becoming main stream.Ebay, US department of Agriculture and other such big entities have moved to cloud services, picking Microsoft’s Azure as platform of choice. Read somewhere that the US Government is planning to consolidate its 800 data centers and moving to cloud. The iPad form Apple marked the arrival of tablets in a big way and the Smart Phone adoption continued its surge.

Entertainment- We broke some records this year in Hollywood and also the gaming industry. The epic tale “Avatar” really blew me away with its grandeur , extravaganza and the message itself by director James Cameron. I had truly never seen a movie quite like that in my life, the money spent on 3D IMAX seemed quite worth it. I later picked the Blue Ray disc as well just to find out what the Director had to say about his experiences making this film. There is something about these extraordinary successes, and it all starts with great thinking and here’s a quote from the genius Cameron himself “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s successes”. Avatar has been the biggest grossing movie ever, with $4 billion in revenue and counting.The other notable success of the year was the video game- Call of Duty, black Ops, this may have set a new record in gaming too, with total sales already crossing the billion dollar mark!

Geo Political The year is closing with tension between North Korea and South Korea, we need to see what is in store for 2011. This year was also notable for leaking of sensitive US government document by Wikileaks. The founder of Wikileaks , Julian Assange , was the most popular choice for becoming person of the year online poll by Time magazine, he ended up becoming the runner up. The leaks have created embarrassing situation for US government which now has some explaining to do to its partner countries….and i know that’s an understatement…there’s lot more to it, probably deserves a separate blog post in itself.

Climate This year we saw devastating flooding in Pakistan, and the catastrophe in Haiti by the 7.0 magnitude earth quake which killed some quarter million people in minutes. Lessons, humans are but at the mercy of mother nature…let’s take good care of it otherwise the day of reckoning is not far away

As the year 2010 draws to a close, lets see how am I going to remember this year. I want to document this because days will turn into months and months will turn into years and I can open up my diary and look back on the concluding year of the first decade in 21st century!

I will divide this post in couple of headers- Political, Economics, Finance, Technological, Entertainment, Geo Political and Climate. So let us get started:

Political- This was the year when we saw Obama slipping in approval ratings, Democrats losing Congress and the emergence of Tea Party in the national politics. What it means is , although Obama has done commendable work in dealing with this great recession, people in general are disillusioned with the pace of progress, particularly with unemployment still at 9.8%. Clearly Mr. Obama needs to get his act together and work with a vigor if he wants to get reelected in 2012 and seems like White House has already started a major overhaul in its administration.

Economics- This was the year which added a new word to our daily vocabulary – QE2 or the second coming of Quantitative Easing. So far it seems to have worked, as the stock markets close near 2 year highs. Does that mean economy is out of the wood? Not by a far shot, the unemployment is still close to 10%, the seven million jobs lost in recession have not been recovered and are probably not going to come back in near future either, the GDP although growing, it is pretty anemic like 1%. Corporate profit has registered some 20% year over year gain this year , but the outlook for 2011 is still murky. The deficit is only ballooning and with the recent extension of Bush era tax cuts, is only set to get worst. The extension of tax cut at a price tag of whopping $858 billion, although looks good short term, seems more like a sign of desperation in the fiscal policy think tank of the country.

Finance- This has been a crazy year for the markets and I would think the feds QE2 policy may have played a role. Here are some numbers in terms of price increases we saw this year(Source FT.com).
Silver : 72%, Gold:28%, Crude Oil:22%, Corn:52%, Wheat 48%, Cotton- 103%, Lumber- 46%, Coffee- 60%…the list goes on. Although the readers of this blog know that I am a Gold bull for a long time, but this rapid price increase in essential commodities is really worrying trends for the common man. I hope in 2011 Central Bankers around the world will stay guard for inflation to rear its ugly head.

Technology- Of course Mark Zuckerberg got Person of the Year recognition from Time magazine for his obscenely successful brainchild Facebook. The other notable trends are Cloud Computing really becoming main stream.Ebay, US department of Agriculture and other such big entities have moved to cloud services, picking Microsoft’s Azure as platform of choice. Read somewhere that the US Government is planning to consolidate its 800 data centers and moving to cloud. The iPad form Apple marked the arrival of tablets in a big way and the Smart Phone adoption continued its surge.

Entertainment- We broke some records this year in Hollywood and also the gaming industry. The epic tale “Avatar” really blew me away with its grandeur , extravaganza and the message itself by director James Cameron. I had truly never seen a movie quite like that in my life, the money spent on 3D IMAX seemed quite worth it. I later picked the Blue Ray disc as well just to find out what the Director had to say about his experiences making this film. There is something about these extraordinary successes, and it all starts with great thinking and here’s a quote from the genius Cameron himself “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s successes”. Avatar has been the biggest grossing movie ever, with $4 billion in revenue and counting.The other notable success of the year was the video game- Call of Duty, black Ops, this may have set a new record in gaming too, with total sales already crossing the billion dollar mark!

Geo Political The year is closing with tension between North Korea and South Korea, we need to see what is in store for 2011. This year was also notable for leaking of sensitive US government document by Wikileaks. The founder of Wikileaks , Julian Assange , was the most popular choice for becoming person of the year online poll by Time magazine, he ended up becoming the runner up. The leaks have created embarrassing situation for US government which now has some explaining to do to its partner countries….and i know that’s an understatement…there’s lot more to it, probably deserves a separate blog post in itself.

Climate This year we saw devastating flooding in Pakistan, and the catastrophe in Haiti by the 7.0 magnitude earth quake which killed some quarter million people in minutes. Lessons, humans are but at the mercy of mother nature…let’s take good care of it otherwise the day of reckoning is not far away

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Came across the following few lines, epiphany of sort..for me anyways.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words
Watch your words, for they become actions
Watch your actions, for they become habits
Watch your habits, for they become character
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny

Author Unknown.

Character is not built overnight, it is a long arduous journey, it is going to test you on many occasions and sometime it could be tempting to dump it…but should we ever? My answer is no,,, when the going gets tough , the tough get going. You beat the odds by perseverance, you beat the odds by tenacity and above all you beat the odds by following a good plan. I am a Project Manager and one of the basic thing you learn in Project Management is the mantra of -Plan, Execute, Control and Review. I for one do not believe in cutting corners, taking shortcuts, deceiving people, resorting to lies…I find my self sleeping peacefully at night when I follow these principles. As a certified Project Manager (my PMP designation) , I am bound by ethics, I can lose my designation for being dishonest…get it, for me it is not just a moral obligation it is how I make a living!

Given the preponderance of evidence in support of good character, is it any surprise that the above quote resonated deep inside me? Yeah I know that is a rhetorical question, but I mean it in all its seriousness and as the opening line of above quote tells you…it all starts with your thoughts. So let us make a pledge to cleanse our thoughts of the negatives, purge the defeatism, the pessimism and build a strong character!

This post is dedicated to all my friends and well wishers who have stood by me all these years… thank you

Came across the following few lines, epiphany of sort..for me anyways.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words
Watch your words, for they become actions
Watch your actions, for they become habits
Watch your habits, for they become character
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny

Author Unknown.

Character is not built overnight, it is a long arduous journey, it is going to test you on many occasions and sometime it could be tempting to dump it…but should we ever? My answer is no,,, when the going gets tough , the tough get going. You beat the odds by perseverance, you beat the odds by tenacity and above all you beat the odds by following a good plan. I am a Project Manager and one of the basic thing you learn in Project Management is the mantra of -Plan, Execute, Control and Review. I for one do not believe in cutting corners, taking shortcuts, deceiving people, resorting to lies…I find my self sleeping peacefully at night when I follow these principles. As a certified Project Manager (my PMP designation) , I am bound by ethics, I can lose my designation for being dishonest…get it, for me it is not just a moral obligation it is how I make a living!

Given the preponderance of evidence in support of good character, is it any surprise that the above quote resonated deep inside me? Yeah I know that is a rhetorical question, but I mean it in all its seriousness and as the opening line of above quote tells you…it all starts with your thoughts. So let us make a pledge to cleanse our thoughts of the negatives, purge the defeatism, the pessimism and build a strong character!

This post is dedicated to all my friends and well wishers who have stood by me all these years… thank you

>
Have you heard about the Starfish story? I came across it recently. Although unaware of the story per se, I have unconsciously done this all my life…. trying my bit…however small……
Here’s the story by Loren Eisley:

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, “It made a difference for that one.”

The story left me shocked..initially and then it sank in. Just like the wise man, we think high about ourselves…even narcissistic sometimes…all talk about doing good and believing in this cause , that cause … but a lot of time it is just that…mere talks- we the arm chair philosophers!

Greatness is not in having opinion, true greatness lies in doing something. Greatness lies not in talking the talk but walking the talk. Helping someone, making a difference..even if for very few. Let me leave you with this thought…how many people you think you have helped in your life and made a difference? When you think of success, I urge you to assess yourself in that matrix

Have you heard about the Starfish story? I came across it recently. Although unaware of the story per se, I have unconsciously done this all my life…. trying my bit…however small……
Here’s the story by Loren Eisley:

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, “It made a difference for that one.”

The story left me shocked..initially and then it sank in. Just like the wise man, we think high about ourselves…even narcissistic sometimes…all talk about doing good and believing in this cause , that cause … but a lot of time it is just that…mere talks- we the arm chair philosophers!

Greatness is not in having opinion, true greatness lies in doing something. Greatness lies not in talking the talk but walking the talk. Helping someone, making a difference..even if for very few. Let me leave you with this thought…how many people you think you have helped in your life and made a difference? When you think of success, I urge you to assess yourself in that matrix

>

A dear friend of mine, a classmate from IIT Kanpur, who is a very senior official in the Indian Police Service (IPS), notified us of the Indian Penal Code celebrating its 150th year! Shame on me, I didn’t know that! Here’s the article he published- in case you wanted to know more about IPC, the back bone of the Indian criminal justice system!

Amitabh Thakur, IPS, the author of this article is on a study leave these days at IIM, Lucknow, India- one of the best business schools in that part of the world! I hope super cops like him continue to inspire the current generation Indians and work towards unity and integrity of the resurgent India! Hats off to you Amitabh!!
(Published by permission from Amitabh)

A dear friend of mine, a classmate from IIT Kanpur, who is a very senior official in the Indian Police Service (IPS), notified us of the Indian Penal Code celebrating its 150th year! Shame on me, I didn’t know that! Here’s the article he published- in case you wanted to know more about IPC, the back bone of the Indian criminal justice system!

Amitabh Thakur, IPS, the author of this article is on a study leave these days at IIM, Lucknow, India- one of the best business schools in that part of the world! I hope super cops like him continue to inspire the current generation Indians and work towards unity and integrity of the resurgent India! Hats off to you Amitabh!!
(Published by permission from Amitabh)

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Continuing on the theme of fall colors, the above picture is from my garden too. Maple leaves falling off from that little thing I planted over five years ago. That little thing ( the maple tree) has now grown over 10 feet

I wanted to touch on the state of the market as we close the month of October. The last two months have been a very strange market. despite watching this market every single day the last 10 years, I could not put my finger on its pulse. Of course if anything I have learned all these years , it is that, expect the unexpected
Normally when bonds rally, when Yen rallies one concludes that there is risk aversion in the air and you would expect a sideways to down equity market, a contracting commodities market. The last two months have been anything but normal, every thing has rallied in sync, the correlation that existed the last few years seems to have all turned upside down.

I have looked for what the pundits are saying in terms of explaining these moves. One answer the QE2 ( Quantitative Easing 2) program which the feds are supposedly going to launch first week of November…although no one knows for sure…yours truly included. Why on earth fed will do quantitative easing when the last easing has not helped much. Doesn’t the fed run the risk of stoking inflation if they did that? In my criticism, I guess I am being moderate , the bond guru Bill Gross has taken it a step further and calls it a Ponzi scheme.

I don’t think this weird market can continue for very long. Something gotta give- either the bonds are going to sell off hard ( which they have already started with a recent 35 basis jump in yields) or Gold, Silver and the likes are going to come crashing down. In the meanwhile, this liquidity driven market has one clear victim- USD is selling off across the board, here are some of the popular currency pairs:

Euro has been flirting with 1.40 , from a recent low of 1.18 ( April 2010)
GBP is above 1.60 compared to a recent low of 1.44 ( April 2010)
CAD ( Canadian Dollar), AUD (Australian dollar)- almost at par with USD (99.9) , compared to in 80s (AUD) and 90s(CAD) back in April. Even slightest of move in the market, and these currencies will overtake USD.
CHF (Swiss Franc) – new all time high: 1.06 from .9 something back in April ( so it has actually overtaken USD).
Japanese Yen -new 15 year high at 80.35 from 90 something back in April ( within striking distance of 79.70- the all time high for this pair).

Precious metals are also on fire
Gold at life time high near $1375 /oz from $1100/oz in April ( not adjusted for inflation).
Silver at life time high $24/oz from $19/oz in April ( not adjusted for inflation).

Other metals like Copper, Iron, Zinc are all in steep bull run.
Agricultural commodities like Wheat , Rice, Sugar, Soybean, Corn are all breaking to new highs ( wheat has jumped 46% since June).

Given the deficit US is running, these macro moves are not unexpected, what worries me is the speed with which these moves are unfolding. A real threat of stagflation- where there is inflation (even hyperinflation), but no growth in real wages or economy to support it. All these forces have been unleashed on the financial markets, thanks to the speculation of QE2 which is now priced in the market. I am not sure if fed ( Federal reserve) will really follow through with its (implied) promise for QE2, it all seems to be setting up for a big disappointment. Meanwhile we are in uncharted territory… with uncontrolled forces unleashed in the markets…time for a new normal.