Let it go

When the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras called for a referendum to allow his people to have a say on the atrocious measures of austerity, I was truly mesmerized.

And I felt almost ecstatic when the Greek population gave an overwhelming OXI against all kinds of blackmailing and bullying from Brussels.

Thought Greece just gave the world a repeat course on democracy after 3000 years.

But how my ecstasy changed into agony in just one week! It beggars belief that, the defiant Mr. Tsipras would surrender so meekly just within days.

He first tried to broker a deal while remaining in Euro, which was fair enough. He thought the overwhelming mandate from his own people will give him an edge while negotiating.

But like many of us, he also couldn't fathom the utter worthlessness of his fellow Euro-zone leaders.

None of them has any leadership qualities or a strong popular base in their own countries. They're surviving on coalition trickery,talent voids in oppositions and political agnosticism of general public in their homelands.

The popularity and support of the masses like Mr. Tsipras got in that referendum, is something beyond their wildest dreams;They can't mobilize a mass even to save their lives.

They're just a bunch of mediocre bureaucrats, who at best can serve in the boardrooms of medium size companies. But true leaders of the people, with long term visions, they are absolutely not!

Moreover, they play in the hands of big banks and business houses who want to nip any sign of socialist movement at the bud.

Hence it's no wonder that Brussels played vindictive politics. They saved the Euro (for now) but broke the spirit of the Union.

When the European politicians got the Greek prime minister on their home turf of European parliament, they savaged him for his audacity of asking for a mandate from his own people.

Soon economics took a back seat, it became a "trust issue" or in other words, game of revenge and humiliation.

The debates reached such a low that Nigel Farage's speech seemed more sensible than most of them!

But shouldn't Mr. Tsipras have had a plan B? to leave the Euro?
What's so special about it anyway? When clearly it is failing for Greece?

True, most Greeks wanted to remain within Euro. But was it for no matter what? Event at the cost of their future, their sovereignty, their standard of life?

When the  Union itself has failed...when it proved to be nothing more than a club of bully boys...why still then this obsession with Euro?

Eurozone obviously professed Grexit synonymous to unimaginable abyss, but why would Syriza, of all people, have to buy into that?

Even when eminent economists like Paul Krugman or  Mark Weisbort argued along the opposite line and Argentina did make it happen in the past!

May be Tsipras together with his Syriza colleagues should have talked to people to ease out their fear of the uncertainty by presenting an alternative plan. It's already been proved that the Greeks trust them, even when the choice is difficult!

After all there is world beyond Euro. Very many countries not only exist but also thrive with growth far beyond Euro-zone.

It would be difficult, especially the initial months, but definitely a doable and viable solution, unlike the present joke of a deal!

Euro was probably worth fighting or negotiating for; but only up to a certain point.
Beyond which, like many other once precious things in life, you've to let it go and move on!

Begining of the end?

Are the welfare states on the verge of collapse? No matter how I might dislike it, present signs increasingly point towards that.

The concept of sharing and caring, which emerged from the runis of world war II, when people understood the importance of a collaborative soceity in a hard way, seems to be easily forgotten within just sixty years.

The hurricane of biggest world war flattened many barriers quickly:  The strong class barriers and elitism were swept away. It even eroded the centuries old gender discrimination to a large degree and propelled the feminism to a new height. The scarcity of working age men opened the hetherto closed doors to women whose competence dispelled age old myths about "gender-suitable" jobs.

But all these are coming back in a new look. We are seeing a new generation of nouveau riche "celebs" whose socio-emotional gossips in page 3 attracts many more readers than the actual news. The feminism has also taken a back step in the recent years whith the increasing number of stay at home mums; espsecially where the affoardable child care is not available.

In the recent years the welfare states were under big pressure due to increasing demand of the growing population and stagnating economy of the developed nations. The recent economic downturn seemed to work like the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Yet if we look carefully, it seems to be more like a shift in attitude rather than a solely economic one. The neo-elite rich, who once again are controlling the money and power in the society care about nothing but themselves.

Their greed, incompetence and selfishness brought the banking sector to the brink. But the biggest irony is these very people were put in charge to draft the rescue plan where they protected their interest unashamedly while preaching austerity measures for the rest of the soceity.

Wheather it is Obama's incapacity to put stimulous to the economy, or EU's bailout packange to Greece with some absurd conditions of austerity or Cameron's latest rhetoric on benefit cuts....it's the different facets of the same agenda: save the interest of the rich at the expense of common public.

It's fine to destory the best public health care system in the world (NHS) or to terminate the housing benefits for unemployed youth or to cut the child care allowance for struggling families. But you can't take a farthing away from the hefty bonuses of the bank bosses.

As Gandhi once said:"There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed"!

Outsourcing Insight

Barak Obama is pitching hard to stop, or at least halt, the massive outsourcing by US companies to other countries (to India, mainly). It was always there in his political agenda and with tough November Senate elections in sight, he has sharpened his attack on outsurcing in an attempt to woo the recession trodden Americans.

Without even considering the typical American hipocrasy of banning outsourcing while trumpetting for the free market economy, let us first analyze how this is proposed to be achieved.

Obama said he is trying to change a tax rule whereby the companies outsourcing their jobs will loose the tax break which will be given to the companies creating jobs within America.

Come on, can someone as talented as Mr. Obama seriously think, that companies outsource their jobs ONLY to get some tax cuts? The money that these companies save in salaries and capital expenditures for the outsourced posts far outweighs the tax break gains.

And what about the talent pool? Though the outsourcing originally started with cheap labour in mind, now it has moved much beyond that. IT Jobs are outsourced to India because of the vast pool of educated and experienced professionals. That is why big American giants like Motorola, IBM or GE are opening more and more R&D center in Bangalore. They're not just investing in cheaply laboured support or call center.

Experienced Indian brain is no longer cheap; Some multinational biggies pay to some of its prized engineers in Banglore more than what it pays to their engineers in similar positions in Europe. They do crib about it, but can not help investing more in R&D centers in India as it cannot ignore the vast talent pool and the work quality.

Cutting the tax breaks for the outsourcing companies will just be a political gimmick which may even work with ignorant American voters; but the actual remedy is much more complex and time consuming.

If Obama is really serious in tackling the issue then America should invest in serious education. Scrapping the teaching of Creationism can be a good start! And this would be a long term project without much hope for immediate effect on the ballot boxes.

The outsourcing companies will even find ways to get arround this tax break rule. For example, they can form subsidiaries in other countries. That'll not amount to outsourcing and hence the rule will not be applicable to them. I'm sure qualified tax lawyers can find many more elegant solutions!

Anybody with the knowledge of the industry knows it. That is why neither the American companies nor their Indian suppliers are worried much.  All they have to do is come up with some new arrangements and tax consultants will walk happy to their banks.

Indian share market is running all time high, profit of the IT companies are increasing and they're hiring more than ever. No one is unduly perturbed.

In capitalism, if anything is good for the companies (capitalists) and bad for the masses then that will prevail. Profit is the almighty here which American people, in general, claim to support wholeheartedly.

Outsourcing is here to stay, not because it is bad for America, not because it is good for India, simply because it is the way the capitalism works.

The Great Bail Out

Ever since the economic recession started, trillions of dollars have been injected into the banks to bail them (and hence the economy as a whole, we were told) out.

Why? Because these banks, along with some other financial institutes, were facing total meltdown as a result of their lack of judgement and poor decisions over the past few years.

OK. So they took some bad business decisions and hence are facing the consequences now. Is that not what happens in any business in the capitalist world? Did that not happen many a times in the past in small and big businesses alike? From the small sandwich bar round the corner to the multinational giants, all went bust before due to similar reasons. That’s how the private business function, we thought; when they make good decisions then they enjoy the profit, when they make bad ones, they go bust. At least the first part, i.e, enjoying the profit bit, was similar for these banks, too. They did not share their profit with us, the common taxpaying public then. Why it then suddenly becomes our responsibility to “bail them out” of the financial mess they created, thanks to their greed and myopic vision? Especially when these bail outs do not come cheap; costs an eye watering amount that hogs up almost the entire GDP of even the wealthiest nations?

This is necessary, we were told in grim voice, the only thing left to do, to save the world form complete collapse. How? Well, the banks will then have money to function and they will lend to businesses, we were told. These loans are essential for almost all businesses and with no banks ready to lend they all face closure sparking huge job losses. With this money, we will effectively bail the whole economy out of a potentially deep recession.

Fine, let’s take that in face value, we thought, and let us expect there would be no recession, not a very painful and deep one at least.

So our respective governments took the decision on our behalf to hand out the big bucks to the banks to save the world. Each of us taxpayers became a share holder of big high street banks over night. We felt a sigh of relief and went home to watch our favourite soap or football match, happy avoiding the cruel recession monster narrowly.

But as the weeks went by a different story unfolded; more and more businesses started going bust or posting hefty losses opening the floodgates of job losses. Banks had no money to lend either to businesses or to individuals. Everyone was cash strapped and the economy was sliding fast in a downward spiral moving deeper and deeper into the recession.

But hang on a second; was that not THE thing that we specifically wanted to avoid…the deep, painful recession affecting everybody? Is that not why we footed the multi trillion dollar bill and burdened ourselves (and possibly our children, too) with huge debts for next few decades? And what happened to those astronomical sums of money the banks received, for God’s sake? How come the banks DO NOT HAVE money to lend to?

Well, the banks did not use the money for fresh lending but used it to make for the losses they made. They kept the blunder-making lot with their same obese pay packets. Where this was not at all possible they let them go either with a huge pay off or a fantastic pension or both. Some were even awarded with hefty bonuses, for their spectacular achievement in helping their companies to go bust. The rest they just kept to themselves so that they are not cash strapped like everybody else in these difficult times!

Our governments now tell us though they do not like it, they have nothing in their power to stop it. Really? Are we not the major share holders in those banks? Surely we can make them act the way we like? Apparently we can not; these greedy bankers are shielded by the law. We thought that our law makers could change the flawed laws which protects the dishonest and penalizes the honest, hard working people.

But then we thought so many things to be true which are in fact not. For one thing, we thought we have been able to ditch the recession by injecting all those cash into the banks. It is clear now that we did not. Recession is there and is spreading like a forest fire. And yes, it is quite deep; I can not see the bottom of this pit, can you?

Could we have handled things differently? May be we could have set up a fresh bank with no legacy of loss, with all those cash and that bank could lend the money to businesses and individuals to keep the economy rolling. The recession would have been confined in the sector which has created it and would have ended finishing it up for good. Instead of giving the money to the failed and corrupt banks and just hoping (with no gurantee, as we see now in retrospect) that they will lend to others we could have pumped a fraction of those trillion dollars directly into the businesses in manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Unlike the financial services sector,at least these sectors actually produces something tangible and useful; and hence could have payed back the debts in future. Laws could have been passed to pass on the interest rate cuts in full to the mortgage holders.

But these did not happen. What started as a melt down in a small, mostly private sector has blown into a deep, wide spread recession affecting all industries in every country. The economy was not bailed out, not even the financial sector. It is the handful of inefficient, greedy and corrupt people, who created this utter mess, have been bailed out. They are off to Hawaii and Tahiti to enjoy their millions where you and I toil extra hours to make sure that our jobs are not in line for next phase of cuts.