Neo-Edwardian Calling Cards

May 27, 2010

The Art of Manliness blog recently (well, actually, a couple of years ago) had a post on how the Victorian custom of calling cards had died out, and lamented the fact:

During the heyday of calling cards, using a business card for a social purpose was considered bad manners. Today, while business cards are great for making business contacts, they still aren’t really suited for social situations. They probably have your work number and work email, and not much else on them. Think of all the times you meet someone you’d like to see again. Handing them a business card is too stiff and formal.

While this is true, a Victorian-style calling card will not fit all the situations we are confronted with in our modern world. This is a common failing of the Victorian aesthetic, which emphasised form over functionality. To achieve form and functionality, we must turn to Edwardianism. And since this is the twenty-first century – Saivite neo-Edwardianism.

What does this involve? Among other things – taking advantage of technology. To abandon Victorian straight-lacedness and adopt the more genial and creative values of the Edwardian era. To respond to problems with appropriate solutions and not with an arbitrary code of etiquette. Just as King Edward himself changed fashions to suit his waistline rather than change his waistline to suit his fashions, so too we must change calling cards to reflect the situations in which we will use them. And in this era of desktop publishing and printing on demand, that means a visiting card or calling card for every situation.

I can think of cards for at least six different situations. These are:

  1. The visiting card your employer gives you, if you are working as a salaried professional (or even a professional working on commission, come to that). You have no control over this. The email on it is your work email. The phone number on it is your company phone. And unless it’s your own company and you decide the logo and card design and suchlike, there is not much you can do to customise this. All one can do with this sort of card is to accept it and move along. Back when I was a salaried yuppie, I tried for three months to get cards printed in which my designation was ‘Corporate Ho’ but my boss refused to approve anything except ‘Associate Purchase Manager’. Then I moved to Bombay, where I was in the Corporate Head Office on a project. It finally looked like I could get away with a business card that said ‘Corporate H.O. – Special Projects’. Alas, because it was a special project I was working on secondment in a business unit that was not actually my cost centre, and nobody could decide who would pay for my new business cards. Before things could be sorted out I had quit. Such is life.
  2. The visiting card you make for yourself if you do freelance work and meet people to pitch to them. So if you’re a consultant or writer or photographer looking for clients, you have a website that shows your portfolio or lists your past work and satisfied clients, and your visiting card includes that, your dedicated email for freelance work, your LinkedIn profile, and a dedicated mobile number for this. A dedicated mobile number may seem a little extreme, but it’s three thousand rupees extra at most. Or you could put a dual SIM phone. What is there?
    The card then reads:

    Aadisht Khanna
    Quizmaster
    www.aadisht.net/quizzes

    or

    Aadisht Khanna
    Writer at Large
    www.aadisht.net/portfolio
    99808 26537

    I met Shefaly last year. She’s a freelance consultant, and she got her business cards printed by Moo. They were plain back with only her website address in white text. Very cool.

  3. A visiting card to give to shops and restaurants and sales agents and suchlike. It’s useful to get marketing offers and freebies, but not at the risk of subjecting yourself to spam. The solution is simple – create a dedicated email address for all your consumer transactions, and use that whenever you have to fill in a feedback form or purchase order form. If you want to be really ninja about this, you could get a dedicated mobile number for this as well, and use a cheap-ass Maxx Mobile that you’d switch off when you didn’t want to be disturbed with assorted personal loan offers. And then you can put the dedicated shopping email and mobile number on a visiting card, and drop it in the bowl whenever a shop or restaurant invited you to do so to get special offers. If you wanted to kick it up a notch, the card could include your monthly free cash flow, so the shop would know when not to bother sending you offers on things you couldn’t possibly afford.
  4. If you’re single, a visiting card to give to interesting members of the suitable sex. This card would have your name, personal phone number and email, and perhaps a link to your facebook page. To make it more effective, it could include a short testimonial from your best friend, or a description of your attractive qualities. Like “Consumer Banker of Repute”. Or “I drive a VW Polo”. Or “Skilled kisser. References available.” You get the idea.
  5. A card which you attach to presents or cash envelopes. This sort of card is actually wildly popular in Delhi. Actually, we take it for granted so much that I was astonished when Namy Roy and Muggesh asked if it was a Dalhi thing. This is a Dalhi innovation that works, and which the rest of the country should adopt. This card usually contains your family name (or the names of everyone in the family), the house address, and nothing else.
  6. And of course, a personal visiting card; with your personal phone number, personal email id, links to your blog or twitter id or facebook page, and so on. Your address, if you’re comfortable giving that away. If not, you could leave enough white space to write it down for the people you did want to give it to.

Visiting cards are only the beginning. To really unleash the neo-Edwardian aesthetic, we would abandon Facebook walls for personal email and even handwritten notes when possible. Handwritten notes in turn would call for personalised stationery, which too should be customised to purpose as much as the visiting cards described above. A world in which we send letters on high-GSM cream-coloured paper, with custom embossing depending on who you were writing to and why, is a much better world than the one we have today. We should do our utmost to create this world.

5 Comments | Arbit Fundaes, Domesticity | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

Women are biggest hurdles to women’s progress; more so in India

May 19, 2010

Two of my Indian friends are expecting a baby – both of them are women who have “chosen” not to work after marrying men who are better qualified then them – what shocked me was the blatant way in which both of them said they want a baby boy (they have not used any tests to determine the gender of the baby). I asked one of them why she wouldn’t want a baby girl; she pondered and then said “I don’t mind having a second child as a girl so that I have something to decorate” – I was aghast at hearing this, was she talking about a human being or a Christmas tree (sorry about the bad joke while I am trying to write a serious piece, but well, you get the point). I really wanted to ask these women if they feel so inferior/ worthless about being women that they don’t want to be responsible for bringing a girl child into the world – but there are some boundaries one doesn’t cross while dealing with not-so-close-friends! If these women would have a baby girl, they would surely try again for a boy. This incident took me back to the conversation I had with my domestic help who never had the privilege to go to school and had 5 children (all girls) in her quest to have a baby boy to please her husband – I was explaining to her to not have any more children and send her girls to school – what is the difference between this domestic help and these friends of mine who want a baby boy! Doesn’t it prove that the education that these friends of mine underwent was a waste if they think in such a manner, which is regressive according to me?

We are no longer living in an age when we need to hunt to feed ourselves – in which case it still makes some sense that men being physically stronger would go out and hunt while the women stayed at home to take care of other chores. In today’s world, the weapon is education and it is gender neutral! Let me exemplify what I am saying. I have another friend who married her boyfriend right after graduation – her then boyfriend and now husband is a qualified chartered accountant. He is an ambitious guy and moved geographies to progress in his career. My friend found it difficult to get a job outside India so she requested her husband to move back to India and this is what her husband had to say “If you can find a job in India that will pay you as much as I make here and I will gladly move back and also become a house husband”. He said this knowing very well that this would not be possible at all. I would have given this guy one tight slap and walked out of the marriage. But my friend didn’t have the “weapon”, i.e. professional education to be able to stand on her feet confidently and has given up on all her aspirations, dreams and hopes or as the MCPs would like to put it; made her husband’s dream her dream!

The biggest challenge we are facing today (not only in India, globally) is the lack of equal number of women in higher/ professional/ specialised education. In India, it’s a bigger problem with the girl child not treated at par with her brothers! If I visit someone and they make their daughter get water, make tea, help in the kitchen while the son gets to sit around playing computer games; I never like to revisit them – as this says a lot about their thinking and most of them are quite open about it; the women of the household will say they are “grooming” the girl for marriage and sending the son for education abroad. In some cases I have also seen that they encourage the girl to study so that she gets an even better qualified husband, in this case the educational qualification of the girl being of greater importance on her marital CV. The easiest way to control women is to not allow them any financial/ economic freedom; i.e. not allow them to earn money. To ensure that not too many women go out and hunt, i.e. earn money, our society does a fantastic job of not giving them the required weapons, i.e. education. Of course it would be wrong to paint all Indian families with the same brush, but unfortunately majority do fall into the stereotype I mentioned above. I admire and respect families where they don’t differentiate among siblings on basis on gender. I came across an interesting article recently written by a Canadian journalist who lives in Delhi (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/special-report/Free-societies-like-respect-free-women/articleshow/5908488.cms) she has described how “Critics say the family has gone haywire in the western world because of the feminist revolution. Women’s rights and their increasing economic power has seen divorce rates shoot up drastically”. This is very true as most of the times I come across women at work who are divorcees; being financially independent helped them to step out of a bad marriage unlike some others I know who suffer silently as they are completely dependent on their husbands. Walking out of the marriage to them would mean going to their aging parents and they think it’s not right to stress their parents at this age with their marital woes! Often my guy friends have told me “it’s different for you, you are a girl; tomorrow you can just choose to stay at home” – this is where the problem lies, working should not be a choice. Women should work; whatever work they like to do and be financially independent ALL their lives. On a separate note, I would be very interested in carrying out a survey of batches of 1988-1992 from the top b-schools in India and check how many of the women from the prestigious b-schools of our country have given up their career for the larger good of the family – as this is another problem, but at least these women have the education and can work again if they want to. Just think of how many atrocities against women would decrease if more and more women would pursue higher education and work thereafter. In some cases, I have friends who were threatened by their parents that they would commit suicide if she doesn’t marry. This comes from a stupid belief of some Indian parents, more so mothers, that if one is getting a “good match” then one should not let go of it even if it means that the guy’s family expects the girl to discontinue her education and not work.

A lot of the women in the lower classes of society in India actually work; but the work they do is not white-collar work. Most women in the upper classes are business women or high flying socialites; in any case they are a very small number when compared to the overall population of India. So when I say women are creating hurdles to progress of other women, I largely mean the great Indian middle class. Amidst all the IPL controversy recently, a journalist wrote that “we should not forget we live in the times of sunanda pushkar and sania mirza” – while these 2 women are strong headed, rebellious and hence the target of gossip columnists, what we should really not forget is that we live in the country of Rani Laksmibai and Indira Gandhi! So while we talk of women’s reservation in the parliament and in the IIMs, we should walk the talk as women, as mothers, by not differentiating between genders!

In the meantime; I pray that the two friends of mine whom I mentioned at the beginning do NOT have baby girls – not for their sake, but for the sake of the girl child!

17 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

From Shanghai to the world!

May 16, 2010

Yesterday the Japanese retailer Uniqlo opened its flagship store (39,000 sq. ft.) on West Nanjing Road in Shanghai which will be its largest store in the world – the tagline thus appropriately; From Shanghai to the world. The opening was to coincide with the world expo that kicked off in Shanghai this month.

Shanghai has been undergoing a facelift in the last few months – for the green expo. From new metro lines (which have now made the Shanghai Metro the longest in the world) to a new airport terminal to trees replete with lights that have sprouted overnight to viewing galleries in shanghai’s business district to the newly done up bund on the pudong side to new expo taxis with English speaking drivers; shanghai has had more than a lift and a tuck to look like a glittering diamond. Imagine driving to work on a Monday morning to find the road you take everyday suddenly looking completely different with trees on both sides (literally overnight) or taking a taxi one day and not having to explain the address/ give directions in Chinese! It’s almost surreal – but if anyone can do it; it’s the Chinese! In fact; even in normal taxis  (the expo taxis are bigger and better); a sticker has been put with a number to call on in case of problems communicating with the driver – Shanghai has gone all out to make it convenient for the visitor; though how many will visit only because of the expo remains to be seen. But one has to see it to believe it! Most Indians who visit Shanghai for the first time are completely in awe of what the city has to offer in terms of infrastructure and then admit rather sheepishly that they never thought China would be like this!

Let’s take a look at some of the statistics:

  • Size of expo site – 5.28 sq. km. (20 times bigger than the last world expo in Spain)
  • No of visitors expected over 6 months of expo – 70 million (most of them Chinese)
  • Participating countries and organizations – >240
  • Expense to host the event – USD 4.2 billion
  • Amount spent on infrastructure overhaul – USD 45 billion
  • Number of new taxis – 4,000 (in addition to 50,000 existing ones)

The government has spent more on the shanghai expo than they did on Beijing Olympics. A look at the fantastic pavilions put up by various countries today and one is convinced that no country wants to say no to China today! In fact; they want to go all out to use this opportunity to strengthen their ties with China. World leaders were present for the opening ceremony. This is China’s way of asserting its place in the world today by showcasing how no one can do it bigger and better than them. This is also a way for China to tell its own people about its position in the world today. Most importantly, this is the first time the world expo is being hosted by a developing country! If the Beijing Olympics made the world sit up and notice China, then there is no doubt that the Shanghai expo will go all out to make a big statement about China’s position in the world today!

Of course, all this has not been without its share of controversies; people have been relocated to make space for the expo site and the new metro lines; there have been protests which have been curtailed. The PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has been brought in to beef up security.

Everyone who has been living in Shanghai for last 6 months; has been given a free ticket to the expo; 33 million tickets have already been sold and along with the free tickets 40 million visitors are confirmed – and the expo has just begun. Keeping aside the issue of relocating the locals or causing inconvenience to some of them; one has to agree that what Shanghai has been able to do is spectacular – I have not seen so much infrastructure development in last 15 years in Bombay as I have seen in Shanghai in last 2 years. In that sense; it does live up to the “better city, better life” theme. All this infrastructure development is very futuristic and will benefit Shanghai for a long time to come. The critics say that there will be the problem of overcapacity but with the kind of growth China is seeing; most don’t see that as a big issue. Convenience and ease is top priority as Shanghai has managed to now link both the airports by metro (old airport in Hongqiao and the new one at Pudong). They have also connected Shanghai to cities like Nanjing by high speed trains and plan to do the same for Shanghai and Beijing. In addition; a 165 metre expo thermometer has been put up in the expo park in Puxi along the Huang Pu river to give real time weather information – this is the highest meteorological signal tower in the world! From low carbon consumption to odorless toilets, the expo has it all.

Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh – you said in 2005 that you want to make Mumbai like Shanghai; its 2010 and Shanghai seems to have gone ahead by light years whereas Mumbai is nowhere close to where Shanghai was in 2005 – in fact the only infrastructure development that Mumbai is proud of; the Bandra-Worli sea link (which took ten years to complete; the same time it took Shanghai to turn whole of Pudong from grasslands to a world class business district complete with a new airport and metro lines) also needed Chinese help (one of the contractors for the sea link was a Chinese infrastructure company)! So while we Indians pride ourselves on our software; when it comes to hardware we really need to keep our egos aside and take some serious help from China as they really know their stuff as showcased by the expo! Being a realist; though I am a proud Indian I would say that Mumbai cannot dream of hosting such an event at a similar scale for the next 100 years! Sigh!

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

Where is all the Rubber Going?

May 14, 2010

In the past year, the price of natural rubber has more than doubled. This, in what is supposedly a great recession. This is being blamed mostly on demand from China.

What the hell are the Chinese doing with all the rubber they’re buying? Auto sales are down globally, so making tires is pointless. So is mine output, so making conveyor belts is ruled out. Condoms just don’t use that much rubber. Neither do gasket rings and suchlike.

It’s possible that Chinese companies have decided in the face of all logic to build up stocks in the face of falling demand. But I’m worried that they’re putting the rubber to far more nefarious uses. Specifically, that they’re building giant armoured robots to more successfully persuade the United States to hand over the Pacific states when they default on their sovereign debt.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

5 Comments | Finance, Yellow Peril | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

A Much Delayed Important Announcement

May 14, 2010

I am now a columnist for Yahoo! India. My brief is to be a humour columnist, so I will try hard to be funny. The column will appear on alternate Saturdays. The first column is here, and the next one will be out tomorrow morning.

Points to note:

  • So far, I am a failure as a columnist. Almost all the other columnists in the spectacular lineup have been getting hate mail/ hate comments. I have got nothing despite being a humour columnist. I must be doing something wrong.
  • I am not going to link every column from the blog. The columns have their own RSS feed. Also, Yahoo! apparently is also working on a spiffier website with an easy to remember address for the India columnists.
  • You can’t comment on the column page itself, but there’s a link between the headline and the main text to the Yahoo Buzz discussion, where you can leave comments. I may respond to comments over there – my Yahoo! display id is double a.
  • You can send me email about the column to the stereotypist@wokay.in id mentioned in my bioline.
  • The first few columns will probably be very different stylistically, until I figure out what works best. But I’m hoping to bring back a character I created when I first started writing on the internet.
  • The Year in Preview posts will stay on this blog. Yahoo doesn’t get those.
  • I get paid for doing this! I am now officially a little bit hippie.

5 Comments | Personal, Plugging | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

That’s So Black Feathered Wound-Bird!

April 27, 2010

The Saga of Cormac the Skald, which I mentioned in my post on Icelandic awesomeness is notable for the badassery of its subjects, the beauty of its language, and many, many songs about ravens. Sample these:

The friend that I trusted has failed me
In the fight, and my hope is departed:
I speak what I know of; and note it,
Ye nobles, – I tell ye no leasing.
Lo, the raven is ready for carnage,
But rare are the friends who should succour.
Yet still let them scorn me and threaten,
I shrink not, I am not dismayed.

and

Of the reapers in harvest of Hilda
– Thou hast heard of it – four men and eight men
With the edges of Skrymir to aid me
I have urged to their flight from the battle.
Now the singer, the steward of Odin,
Hath smitten at last even Bersi
With the flame of the weapon that feedeth
The flocks of the carrion crows

and

I have smitten Toothgnasher and slain him,
And I smile at the pride of his boasting.
One more to my thirty I muster,
And, men! say ye this of the battle:
In the world not a lustier liveth
Among lords of the steed of the oar-bench;
Though by eld of my strength am I stinted
To stain the black wound-bird with blood.

The love songs are not spared:

I tell you, the goddess who glitters
With gold on the perch of the falcon,
The bride that I trusted, by beauty,
From the bield of my hand has been taken.
On the boat she makes glad in its gliding
She is gone from me, reft from me, ravished!
O shame, that we linger to save her,
Too sweet for the prey of the raven!

Nothing improves a love song like the presence of Corvidae.

Anyway, the presence of the ravens is only one instance of how hardcore the songs of the Icelandic sagas are. This led me to ask the obvious question – are there any Scandinavian metal bands which incorporate songs from the sagas into their lyrics. The natural person to ask was Rahul Raguram.

Rahul, being a cute guy, pointed me in the direction of Oakenshield and Amon Amarth. Oakenshield has in fact incorporated text from the Poetic Edda into their lyrics. At least, they claim to have done so. In their The Death of Baldr, I was hard pressed to make any lyrics out. Their name definitely takes its name from the Poetic Edda, specifically the Völuspá. And here’s a cool bit of triva – Tolkien took the name for the Dwarf Thorin Oakenshield (the one who was King Under the Mountain) from the same source. Anyhow, here’s The Death of Baldr:

Googling also turned up this delightful webpage about Norse/ Asatru/ Heathen inspired music. There is chanting, folk, and of course metal. Such joy.

But can there be true joy without ravens? No. And therefore, here’s Oakenshield again, with Twa Corbies:

Leave a Comment » | Arbit Fundaes, Books Movies and Music | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

Twenty First Century Land Purchases

April 26, 2010

This is pretty interesting. The state of New York is practically broke, but the city of New York is merely deeply indebted. To ease its fiscal crisis, the state of New York is transferring an island from joint administration to the sole administration of New York City:

After more than a year of negotiations, New York City has reached a deal to take control of Governors Island from the state, moving a prime 172-acre piece of waterfront real estate into the hands of a land-starved city and closer to an ambitious redevelopment, city and state officials announced on Sunday.

…

These agreements represent a reversal from 35 years ago, when a city on the verge of bankruptcy parted with a number of its assets and relied on the state to shore up its finances.

Raymond Horton, a professor at Columbia Business School who ran a commission that studied New York City’s finances during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, said that by taking over properties like Governors Island, Mr. Bloomberg achieved a milestone that had eluded many of his predecessors.

“What tips the balance here is the state’s fiscal crisis,” Mr. Horton said. “The state is in a dire situation. The city is much better managed at this moment. That makes possible something that was not when the two governments’ finances were in similar condition.”

(New York Times)

This is not something very novel though. Throughout the nineteenth century countries that were broke or defeated in war would sell their territories, or give them up against war reparations, or sign long or perpetual leases. Some notable examples are:

  • New York City itself! After the Dutch lost the Anglo-Dutch war, they allowed the British to keep New York in return for the island of Run in the East Indies, which at the time was the only place in the world where nutmeg used to grow. Talk about excessive discount rates.
  • The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which Cuba handed over to America as a perpetual lease back in 1903.
  • Hong Kong, which the Chinese empire leased to Great Britain for 99 years in 1900.
  • Alaska, which the Russians sold to America for 7.2 million dollars.
  • Almost a third of the continental United States, when the Thomas Jefferson administration paid Napoleon 15 million dollars in the Louisiana Purchase. They had offered him 10 million dollars just for New Orleans, but Napoleon had wars to fight and was desperate for cash, so he threw in pretty much the middle third of the United States. The extra 5 million dollars kept Napoleon’s armies going successfully until the Russian front in 1812, when famine decimated his army. On the other hand, Napoleon thought that by giving all that land to the US, he would make life even more difficult for Great Britain, which was hostile to America at that point of time. While Napoleon’s forces were being thulped at Moscow, America and Britain were actually fighting the War of 1812 which ended in a stalemate, so maybe this worked. Incidentally, the financing for the Louisiana Purchase was a fascinating piece of structuring.

Sadly Purchase, New York does not seem to fit this category.

Anyhow, it looks like the twenty-first century is going to see the return of grossly broke countries selling off their territory to keep up with the payments. The first inkling that it’s making a comeback came when two German MPs demanded that Greece sell off its islands (oh, and the Acropolis) if they wanted a bailout. It didn’t happen, but considering that Greece will probably default on its debt again soon, we may see this idea being taken up again. Portugal, Italy and Spain are also headed towards default, so we may soon witness the spectacle of Mediterranean beaches and slopes of Alpine mountains up for auction. It will be awesome.

The fiscal situation of the PIGS countries now is of course tiny compared to the fiscal situation of the United States a few years down the line. With the demographic bulge of the Baby Boom coming into Medicare and Social Security payout ages, the chances of the United States defaulting on its debt are beginning to look likely. The USA too may have to start selling its territory. Fortunately, it has a lot of empty territory to sell. Especially Michigan, which is rapidly depopulating.

The only thing is that selling something only works if there’s a buyer. That would involve either handing the territory over to whoever was holding the US debt and furious about the default, or someone with a shitload of cash.

The major holder of US debt is… the US government. Right, the major holder of US debt that is in a position to demand payments pronto is Japan, followed by China. Out of these, China is in a better position to throw its weight around.

Naturally, the prospect of China occupying Idaho or Nevada may not thrill the Americans, and they would be under pressure to sell to someone with a shitload of cash instead. Extrapolating from current trends, that would be… Apple. Steve Jobs has always been megalomaniac enough to want to own a country, but until now, it never looked like he actually would.

iDaho, iOwa, and iLlinois are on their way. We’re doomed.

2 Comments | Finance, Public Policy and Politics, Yellow Peril | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

The SEBI-IRDA Fight

April 26, 2010

As a free market fundamentalist, it is embarrassing for me to admit that a regulator is doing a good job where the market has failed. However I am so pleased about how SEBI has taken on IRDA that I shall suppress my instincts and praise a regulator to the skies. Since this will mean unleashing my inner financial regulation geek, I shall do this in an easy question and answer format, so that even Nilu can understand what I am talking about.

Shortly before everyone’s attention was occupied by Shashi-Lalit-Sunanda and Sania-Shoaib, the SEBI had released an order barring insurers from issuing ULIPs. This got the insurers and the IRDA into a tizzy. Personally, I think this was awesome.

Wait, what does that even mean?

The SEBI (Security and Exchanges Board of India) is the semi-independent regulator of everything to do with financial markets in India. It sets the rules under which stock markets, commodity exchanges, and mutual funds operate. Technically, it regulates debt securities as well; but as Percy Mistry and Ajay Shah keep lamenting, India has no debt market to speak of.

A ULIP, or Unit Linked Insurance Product is a life insurance policy that doesn’t just give you life insurance cover but invests part of your premium payments into securities. It (claims to) therefore work as a savings and investment plan as well as a life insurance policy.

A ULIP is also pure evil. It is to consumer finance what the Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno ranch dressing is to food. Actually, it’s worse, because the burger at least tastes decent. Compared to a normal life insurance policy, a ULIP gives you far less cover for the same premium – sometimes ten to twenty times less. As for the promise of investment, they deduct so much money for “administrative charges” that you might not even make the money you put in for six years at a time. There are other issues with ULIPs that make them terrible products, but that would make the post too long. If you’re interested, Deepak Shenoy has a post about how awful they are. Unfortunately, because the sales commissions on ULIPs are so high – that’s where the “administrative charges” go – insurance salespeople will keep trying to pitch you a ULIP unless you know what you’re looking for and actively demand traditional life insurance plans.

This year, the SEBI decided that enough was enough, and told insurance companies to stop coming up with new ULIPs unless SEBI approved them first.

It’s supposed to do that, right?

Ah, that’s the interesting bit. See, insurance companies are actually not regulated by SEBI, but by IRDA – the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority. IRDA was very pissed off that SEBI is encroaching on its turf.

SEBI’s position was that since the investment portion of ULIP premiums is going into mutual funds run by the ULIPs, it needs to approve the mutual funds first. Specifically, it wanted to bring the administrative charges of ULIP funds into line with those that apply to regular mutual funds (it did a big overhaul of how mutual funds could deduct loads and charges last year).

So the situation was that two semi-independent regulators under the Ministry of Finance were fighting over who was in charge. Ajay Shah has a blogpost about how this is the outcome of not having overall financial regulators. I am far ruder than Ajay Shah, so I will make I-told-you-so noises about how this is what happens when the Finance Ministry doesn’t implement the Percy Mistry report – the one that, you know, it asked Percy Mistry to write.

What happened next?

There was a media circus about Sania Mirza and Shoaib Akhtar getting married.

No, no, I mean about the SEBI-IRDA smackdown.

Oh. Pranab Mukherjee told them to take it to the courts and get it sorted out over there. Professor Jayanth Varma was absolutely delighted about this, because past history shows that courts resolve disputes much faster than bureaucracy does. The BJP was much less delighted about this, and Arun Jaitley demanded to know why it was being taken to the courts and not being resolved by the Finance Minister himself. But now that they’ve got phone wiretaps to stall parliament over, we probably won’t hear anything about that again. It’s certainly disappeared from Google News search results.

Whatever happens next will happen in court now. But SEBI has a decent case.

Hee hee. You’re actually supporting a regulator.

Oddly enough, yes. Then again, I’m pretty gleeful about IRDA being pwned. So it evens out. I should also point out that IRDA represents a lot of what is wrong with regulation, both Indian and in general. It’s far more concerned about the welfare of insurance companies than insurance consumers, and about a month ago was actually running newspaper ads about the benefits of ULIPs. IRDA, not SEBI, should have cracked down on insurance companies about excessive charges and transparency.

On a less dogmatic and free market fundamentalist note, I like regulators who are heavily involved with creating the start conditions and rules of their market, and then creating a set of rules so good that the market can run by itself with minimal interference. I dislike the other extreme of regulation, where the regulator keeps getting involved with every little thing the market players do – think of a cricket match where the umpire doesn’t just call no balls and wides, but tells the bowler how to do the run up before every ball. Over the past few years, SEBI has been moving to the space where it only addresses the rules. The RBI and IRDA are still very much in the micromanaging space.

So I think this particular spat is very exciting in that it will provide an impetus to move to the regulatory model I like.

Confession: I bought a ULIP myself six years ago. In my defence, I was a filthy undergrad at the time and knew no better. I exited it this March. Fortunately stock prices are so high right now (unreasonably so, in my opinion) that I was able to get back all the money I’d put in and then some. My mum had also bought a ULIP a couple of years after me, and that still hadn’t broken even the last time we’d checked.

4 Comments | Finance, Public Policy and Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

You Don’t Fuck With Surtr’s Own Country

April 24, 2010

Last year, when Iceland’s Landsbanki collapsed, Great Britain invoked the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act to freeze all Icesave accounts opened by British depositors. Thus, while the British government was happy to bail out Northern Rock, it decided to give Iceland the shaft.

Perfidious Albion’s treachery was not to go unpunished for long! Six months later, Eyjafjallajokull erupted; and shut down European airspace. In what seems like divine justice, the United Kingdom was worst affected. British airports opened after six days of being shut down, well after continental Europe and Ireland.

If it is in fact divine justice, the divinity responsible is probably Surtr, the Norse fire-demon who is inspired by Icelandic volcanic activity. But even if you wish to stick with a rationalist view that does not rely on gods, demons or others, the English made a terrible mistake when they decided to screw Iceland, a country that is legendarily badass, as we can see in the old Icelandic sagas.

The Saga of Cormac the Skald, for instance, has this description of what Cormac did when someone showed insufficient politeness when offering him a black pudding:

Now, in the autumn, Narfi’s work it was to slaughter the sheep. Once, when Cormac came to Tunga, he saw Steingerd in the kitchen. Narfi stood by the kettle, and when they had finished the boiling, he took up a black-pudding and thrust it under Cormac’s nose, crying:

“Cormac, how would ye relish one?
Kettle-worms I call them.”

…

And in the evening when Cormac made ready to go home he saw Narfi, and bethought him of those churlish words. “I think, Narfi,” said he, “I am more like to knock thee down, than thou to rule my coming and going.” And with that struck him an axe- hammer-blow…

That’s right, he hit Narfi with an axe-hammer-blow for dissing a sausage. When vengeance is involved, things get even worse, as we see in Egil’s Saga:

Kveldulf had in his hand a battle-axe; but when he got on board, he bade his men go along the outer way by the gunwale and cut the tent from its forks, while he himself rushed aft to the stern-castle. And it is said that he then had a fit of shape-strength, as had also several of his comrades. They slew all that came in their way, the same did Skallagrim where he boarded the ship; nor did father and son stay hands till the ship was cleared. When Kveldulf came aft to the stern-castle, he brandished high his battle-axe, and smote Hallvard right through helm and head, so that the axe sank in even to the shaft; then he snatched it back towards him so forcibly that he whirled Hallvard aloft, and slung him overboard. Skallagrim cleared the forecastle, slaying Sigtrygg. Many men plunged into the sea; but Skallagrim’s men took one of the boats, and rowed after and slew all that were swimming.

They didn’t kill everyone. They kept a couple of people alive to go back to the king with this song:

‘For a noble warrior slain
Vengeance now on king is ta’en:
Wolf and eagle tread as prey
Princes born to sovereign sway.
Hallvard’s body cloven through
Headlong in the billows flew;
Wounds of wight once swift to fare
Swooping vulture’s beak doth tear.’

You get the picture. The impression conveyed is that when the Bride told Sofie Fatale that she was allowing her to keep her wicked life, she was merely scratching the surface of threatening messages.

With heritage like this, volcanic eruptions are only the beginning. When the British treated the Icelanders like terrorists, perhaps they did not realise that this could become a self-fulfilling epithet. With their economy in shambles, the Icelanders may now turn to the way of their forefathers and return to setting out in longboats and go a-viking on the British coast. Taking the names of Thor and Tyr, their depredations shall make Brown and Darling pay. Lindisfarne!

Leave a Comment » | Arbit Fundaes, Books Movies and Music, Finance | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

History Repeats Itself

April 23, 2010

The first time as labour, the second time as capital.

This is interesting. Back in the 19th century, when Southern Pacific and Central Pacific were building transcontinental railroads in the USA, they used Chinese labourers when they hit California. Here’s a very Web 1.0 page on the subject. Precis-ing it madly, the interesting bits are:

  • When Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific was asked how small and weak Chinamen would be up to the heavy physical labour of building railroads, he said “They built the Great Wall, didn’t they?”
  • Irish labourers were paid thirty dollars a month each and given free accommodation. The Chinese got a  dollar extra but no acco.
  • The railroad companies were excited about using Chinese labour because they did not practice slavery or peonage, but had a labour agency system. The Age of Gold, a book I read a few years ago, mentioned that the railroad owners were largely northerners and antislavery; and also that the question of granting statehood to California helped trigger the US Civil War.

The Wikipedia page on Chinese American History (badly needs cleanup) points out that things weren’t quite as rosy as that:

  • The labourers usually couldn’t afford passage to America and booked their ticket against future wages. Their wages were then withheld until the ticket was paid for. And you thought TDS was bad.
  • White labourers responded with fury and racism at this competition, and the Yellow Peril meme was born.

Eventually, the Chinese labourers also started working in fisheries and agriculture, and established a massive Chinatown in San Francisco.

Cut to today. China is now offering investment and technical expertise to build California’s high-speed rail line.

That New York Times article in the link has a full circle narrative, and saying that China is now bringing technology and money instead of labour; but given the way the Chinese operate, they’ll probably bring in the labour as well. (Alas, no citations to offer here except private emails about what’s going on at Mundra port and my own observation about the Huawei office in Mumbai)

The really interesting part is on Page 2 of the article:

China’s mostly state-controlled banks had few losses during the global financial crisis and are awash with cash now because of tight regulation and a fast-growing economy. The Chinese government is also becoming disenchanted with bonds and looking to diversify its $2.4 trillion in foreign reserves by investing in areas like natural resources and overseas rail projects.

“They’ve got a lot of capital, and they’re willing to provide a lot of capital” for a California high-speed rail system, Mr. Crane said.

I have a conspiracy theory that infrastructure is only the beginning, but more on that in a separate post.

4 Comments | Infrastructure, Links, Yellow Peril | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »