Feed the Fed

Alright, it’s been way too long since I brewed something… So... Let’s get to work.

The Context:

October Jobs Report.  It seems that companies have added about 271,000 jobs in October. This sudden surge in the number of jobs added has been the fastest rate change yet and as an effect has sent the unemployment rate to 5% which is the lowest level since April 2008.

Ok, what does that mean?

Well, according to Economics, inflation rises as unemployment goes down. I know sounds strange at first because we are used to associating negatives with negatives… but Economics thinks otherwise.. for every good, there is bad. Hence, as more and more people get employed, they have money to spend, and as their spending ability increases, so does the demand for things and hence price rise or inflation. Tada!

All right ok we understood that employment increases inflation, what’s next?

Coming to that; USA’s central bank rate has been practically 0% for almost a decade now... 8-8.5 years actually. So now they want to increase that. Now maybe you’re thinking, wait increase bank rate or as its popularly called Fed rate in USA, wouldn't it increase the cost of loans? That would make it harder for people to get their hands on more money, that’s bad, why does USA want to do that??

Weeeelllll…. Inflation in USA has also come to about 0% and now that there’s a sudden drop in unemployment, this inflation will go up and they don’t want that to happen. Simple right? Wrong! Nothing is ever simple!

 Think about it, if inflation goes from 0 to 0.5 or even 1% what’s the big deal? Growth and inflation are directly proportional, so if inflation rises (up to a certain extent, not like Zimbabwe) it means somewhere you are making growth. So the story of wanting to keep inflation under check is bogus.

Wow, ok boss, so what does all this mean then? Why do they really want to increase the fed rate?

I’ll tell you… because they want to look good.

For a stable economy, the Bank rate needs to be respectable, well at least not 0. Japan’s central bank rate has been at zero for almost 15 years, and everyone knows Japan is a saturated economy. They don’t want the same to happen to USA.

Alright… We get it now... so they want to give the Fed rate a hike because they want to look good and look like they made a recovery from the 2008-09 crash. But if this make believe stunt is what they want to do, then why didn’t they do this earlier?

Good question. Frankly, I believe they are doing this because of the presidential elections. However, this post is about a conspiracy theory. Now, where’s the theory??

The Theory

We know what the context is, how Recession, Recovery, Fed Rate, Inflation, Growth and Unemployment are related to each other. And we also know that unless Obama and his govt. show some proof of recovery, it will be really hard to get a third term for the Democrats. So, there’s but one option to show this for sure, increase the fed rate.

This might choke cash flow in the system but! And I mean a serious But! This fed cut is not to choke or pour money into the common man of USA, but it is to show the outsiders that USA is on track for recovery. We must note that people are really wry of the situation. Japan is in a recession, China is looking unstable, and India is still volatile. Everyone else is anyway insignificant. So investors will put their money into USA.

But sir, what about the employment? The govt. can’t simply cook it up, how did nearly 200 thousand new jobs come up within a month??

Ask yourself that question again! How did nearly 200 thousand jobs come up within a month?? Come on!!

I looked it up; the October jobs report a little and I found and I quote

“White-collar businesses added 78,000 profession jobs. Health care added 45,000 positions. Retailers took on 44,000 new workers, and restaurants hired 42,000 people.”

I’m not chasing after everyone, but I got curious at the restaurants and so did a little more digging. About three companies did 80% of this 42000. And surprisingly, these three are Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. All three belong to the same parent organization of Yum Brands, Inc.

Now about this Yum Brands, Inc.

Yum Brands stock tanked 11% in October. They said it’s because the company didn’t meet the analyst's expected quarterly revenue... seriously? 11% because it missed “analyst estimates”?? Ok I'll believe even that… But listen… The quarterly revenue actually grew by 2.2% and increased the "adjusted earnings" by 14%.

Now the stock, even after recovery is at 5% below last year’s price, but the earnings are high and they just hired 42000 people!!

Here’s where I come in... US wanted to hike the fed rate so bad... But they couldn’t just do it.. Neither could they leave it at 0 and be another Japan... sooo.. They called some of the big guys... like Yum and a few others… and said, look guys, you need to hire more people.

We just saw, that the sales revenue of Yum isn’t that great, the stocks tanked 11% but still its profits are awesome. How?? Think! Universities and Hospitals are known all too well for Govt. indulgence... Sooo… I’m just thinking… somehow someone made a big donation or an “adjustment” leading to a growth in numbers, then the hiring boom and hence creating a clean, unsuspecting and natual green signal for the fed rate hike.

But the question is … will you buy this natural green signal??? Is it all that natural in the first place? Will you invest in USA after knowing this??? Or is Obama really looking for investment in America and the American people or is it all just to get money for a short term till the elections are over??

As it Turnsout

I always have an opinion about votes, but I almost always shy away from debates on voting. It’s frankly because till date I haven’t had an opportunity to vote.  (I’ve seem almost 6 to 8 elections pass by btw) You can simply say I’m lazy, I don’t care about electing, or I still don’t feel empowered enough to actually believe that my vote can make a difference. 

The General Elections of India are probably one of the biggest democratic exercises on the face of earth, and with it comes a lot of drama, games, schemes, garlands, and well... some shoes too. The problem in the Indian electoral system since the earliest times has been the voter turnout. People don’t see it to be worth the effort.   The average voter turnout in the General Elections is around 60% meaning less than two thirds of the people were responsible for deciding whom to elect and assuming two thirds voted for the party(ies) forming the government, only about 40% of the total (voting) population of India chose the ruling party. So about 60% were in no way responsible for the central government! But I’m sure they had their share of complaining on how dysfunctional the government is. (Me included)

Ok here’s little info,

Voter turnout can actually say a lot, they are generally used to send political messages too. The 72% voter turnout in the Assembly election of Arunachal Pradesh in 2009 was hailed by the media and a few voices in India as a message against the Chinese aggressive pursuit of annexing Arunachal Pradesh. Similarly this time around (2014) certain groups... well ok terrorists (I was just trying do a Reuters and not use the word terrorist :D ) put up signs and distributed flyers telling people not to vote, in an attempt to show that Kashmiris don’t feel like voting or participating in the democratic system of India. 

www.mirror.co.uk

Now lemme tell you why I haven’t had a chance to vote yet. When I turned 18 I was sure I could cast my vote in the coming election, I was born in the beginning of the year and by the time the next election came in 2008 I was eager and well, had not yet figured anything in politics but wanted to vote, I was eager and was taken by the ‘right to vote’ thing. But my name was not in the list, disappointment. The next election was in 2009, I tried to register myself, the clerk at the official looking koisk asked me to fill form and took 2 or 3 photos, loksabha election 2009 – ‘sorry your name is absent in the list’, ok. 2010 – Municipal election, the guys came home (supposedly) and we weren’t at home; result – no vote. It’s been so through till now.  In the initial days I wanted a voter ID so that I can have an address proof, (then I got my passport, so lost interest all the more) Oh I forgot, last time I registered online, after everything is done, they want us to take a print of the sheet and goto the election commission office of our district, I got the print, but sadly never found time to do the submitting part. OK enough about me.

Speaking of Democracy itself, I feel it doesn’t work too well with India. I mean, in a country like India, the biggest and most diverse democracy of the world, we need to tailor the idea of democracy. What we currently have is a crude form of democracy that involves participation of everyone at once. How can you actually expect one hundred crore people to actually come out and vote? In fact if the 100 crore came out to vote, I’m not sure we have enough logistics to support that kind of a turn out. What I’m trying to say is this idea of total participative democracy is actually a failure. It doesn’t work. We cant have everyone voting at once... because ‘everyone’ is NOT everyone. Maybe we need stages, maybe increase the levels, cut the power, maybe increase hierarchy... who knows that might have its own problems, but my point is, low voter turnout will remain a problem in this crude form of total participation. Thats it!

Btw facebook pics, all the ‘be responsible’ ads and everything is making voting a glamorous thing, which is good.. might just get the urbans to vote.. but hey.. I still haven’t voted.. not even fashion can me vote.. I wonder how anyone would vote.

Right to Piggy Ride

Amul’s comic snippets are loved by everyone. Marketing teachers are especially fond of them. I’m not sure how the professionals see it and what’s the correlation of those cartoons and sales, but it sure does a hell of a job with the TOMA. 

What Amul does is it releases 1 comic per week and whatever happens that week is generally the theme of the comic. So people read the comic, relate to the news, smile to themselves and remember Amul. It’s ingenious, using news to sell yourself. No one calls them cheap or piggy back riders. Same happens to everyone during cricket season, FIFA world cup season etc etc.

So what caught my attention? The new ad of Hero Hf Deluxe.  The ‘Talent’ theme. Here’s the vid.

Hero piggy back rode the elections. Make the buyer of Hf Deluxe look great, intelligent, rational, responsible and so damn patriotic. Oh btw Hero Honda took a dig at being patriotic a million years ago. Ok 8-10 years ago, Remember ‘desh ki dhadkan’ ??  Back when CBZ was new, I think I was in highschool. Bajaj was already famous for its Hamara Bajaj and came up with a new Hamara Bajaj for the new times, beautiful ad, you gotta watch it. Here,

 So, now we have political parties taking it to the tv, online media and stuff, so why not use the elections as a USP? You know play a little with the Consumer’s head, Idea cellular also did that, the new ‘no ullu banao-ing’ thing, ofcouse, Idea has a history of making videos of showing idea users  to be righteous and awesome but this thing about using elections to sell yourself is awesome! TATA tea started with the ‘Jagore’ program almost 6 to 7 years back. 

It’s as the guy says says in the new Hf Deluxe ad, the elections are India’s biggest talent show. How can anyone refrain from making a buck, right?

AAP Bhi Aadmi Ho

Arvind Kejriwal was sworn in as the 7^th Chief Minister of Delhi about 15 days ago. It was a big day in the politics and democracy of India. I wasn’t really happy about the Aam Aadmi Party taking Congress support to form the government in Delhi. The day when the news broke that AAP will form the government in Delhi  with Congress aid, I made a sad facebook post. Here’s the pic:

Yeah, call me a sadist, and heres a comment by one of my high school teachers

And another friend of mine said:

Ofcouse I only had this to say:

And then the status died away.. and 5 days later Arvind Kejriwal was sworn in as the CM and he made quite a decent speech that day. 

I made a status:

I realized that I was missing something and this congress alliance may not prove that damaging and AAP would still be able to play a dominating role and provide the people of Delhi some good governance.

The days that followed saw a lot of changes and decisions like the transfer of DJB higher management, 700 liters of free water per day and maybe a few more that I don’t remember. But all the while and media, other political parties and sympathizers and supporters of the NaMo Movement started posting pictures, excerpts and quotes of how Kejriwal and the AAP were switching sides, changing tunes etc etc.. the 3 biggest things that the people have found hardest to forget and forgive are:

1.       Kejriwal won’t fight an election – He contested and became CM

2.       Kejriwal won’t take VIP security or government facilities (car, house etc) – Well he did that

And the worst

3.       Kejriwal swore on his children that there would be no support taken from BJP or Congress – Well, we all know what happened.

Now, ofcourse I’m writing this post to well somewhat justify his statements, now these three have not risen from different sources. The one reason is, he’s green, that’s it.

Being a.. well talkative person I know that sometimes you go overboard, get carried away and say something of paramount proportion when you don’t know the complete picture. Haven’t we all seen people who are ‘confidently wrong’? That’s what happened here, it’s practically impossible to have a CM walking the streets without security. I’m not talking about the CM, the people would swarm the place and hurt one another.. its so with any celebrity and he or any celebrity has no control over it.. so this was an innocent ‘confidently wrong’ statement. How can he say something and we take his word for something that isn’t in his control?

Speaking of the swearing on children part, the same goes here, he was ‘confidently wrong’ because of his innocence, as I said, he’s still a little green, now what do we do of an innocent first timer? Do we show some consideration or we scrutinize and criticize his every move? Expect him to be perfect from day 1? That’s just too much expectation from us, the media and other politicians. Given time, maybe he’ll learn his limitations and learn that every word is counted.

To be a little neutral here, I really am concerned about the ‘370 pages of evidence against Shiela Dixit’ statement. Ofcouse, thinking realistically, there’s no such thing as ‘unconditional’ support. Lets leave it as that.

Finally, why did he enter politics, contest and become CM? well, We must think of why AAP was formed in the first place, there was no option left, right? No Lok Pal Bill would be passed with all the Anshans and people were simple getting bored and eventually fizz out. 

This was a right decision, but sadly, we have a perception that nothing can be changed or that people who get down in the pit to clean also end up smelling like shit.. or people have no hopes of ever having a clean political system. Maybe.. but the one line I remember from The Shawshank Redumption is “No one can ever take away hope” So I’m gonna hope, hope that change is possible, change will happen and I will do my part. (by making blogs and fb posts? Sure why not)

Aasaan Over Assam

The disgrace of Indian Politics shines from the State of Assam this July. More than 40 lives were lost before I came to realize the seriousness of the situation. Thousands devoid of homes, roofs and a village are now being held at refugee camps. Some of the oldest inhabitants of India are now living on bread crumbs and wet canvas over head. 

Just after the Rain Gods showered fury on the people of Assam, the fury of men belittles that of the god’s. The ethnic riots that broke out in the first half of July took me down by surprise. The riot was not the surprise, it was the complete lack of coverage or attention it received from the country that made me raise my brows and then bring down my fist. 

The apathy of the people, the inability of the state government, lack of concern of the central government and the shocking uninterest of the media makes my bones itch. 

The Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi, is all too very well known in Assam for his vote bank politics. The illegal immigrants from Bangladesh receive a fresh start from Indian soil. Food, shelter, clothing and everything a native would receive is on the menu; for free. The game is simple; the Congress party wants to prove its sovereignty by extending its hand to the Bengali speaking Muslims.  

Out of the 4 states that border with Bangladesh, Assam has the highest number of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. It’s also a fact that Tripura has more incidents of immigrant initiated crimes than Assam; and that the Illegal Bangladeshi immigrants caught in Meghalaya are sometimes sent to Assam. Meghalaya again is ruled by the congress party. One can actually say that Assam’s tolerance to these Bengali Speaking Muslims is a trade off for the congress and congress allies to prove their sovereign intentions. 

To make proposals of a farfetched theory, the acceptance of Muslims into Assam over a hostile communist state of Tripura could have got Mamta Banerjeethe the Muslim vote banks of West Bengal. 

Leaving that apart and focusing on the riot, It haunts me to see that the country is least bothered about what’s happening in Assam. The electronic media in specific is more interested in talking about The 13^th President’s first speech, Anna Hazare’s fast, Indian cricket team and god knows which product Samsung is going to release next. 

The Center Had not bothered to dispatch security forces to the riot affected areas till it was inevitable to turn its head from the fish curry on Pranab’s table. Over that, there are loathful people like Sharad pawar who want to throw threats of destabilizing the government for personal gains. Caught between such unruly allies, swinging knifes of economic slowdown and a blunt Obama and Co. hell bent on driving investors away from India, the central govt hardly has the time or priority to look at Assam.

This lack of action from the governments in deploying security was the sole reason for the elevation of the aggression. The innocent Bodo’s of Assam had to seek help in form of security from the Militants. This might sound drastic, but with no help from any govt body, they had to fend for themselves. Choosing a familiar Devil over an uncertain God is not a hard choice. The consequences of this would be a growth in public sympathy for the militants, Assam, or in general the north east of India has no shortage of militant groups looking for local support. Once with the help of local public if the militants succeed in getting control of the siliguri corridor, then we can kiss the shivalik Himalayas of India a final goodbye. This news however will not be made public, because most of the print and emedia is either on immigrant sympathy mode or politician loyalty mode. Who gives as damn to the people?

My dissatisfaction with the politicians doesn’t end there. I’m also angry at the opposition, when the opposition leaders can pass comments at magazine covers and openly criticize for deaths of pilgrims, then what makes then stay mum at the situation in Assam???

The Answer – BJP doesn’t have a chance of winning an election in the north east. Except for a few distant stars of hope, the north east has been impenetrable for the BJP. Making comments and forcing the government to act won’t win any votes in the congress/communist/regional party bound states of the north east. So the BJP decides to throw small pebbles at congress and not make a real effort at getting things done.

This episode of ethnic/communal or whatever you want to call riots between indigenous Bodos and the refugees is a disgraceful situation for the whole country. The truth about the ineffectiveness of the greed based political system, the powerlessness of the common man, the crooked vote bank politics, and the euphoric media that turns at shiny objects are all evidence of the apathy for the North East of India.  

Just what the separatists need. Proof of disownment.