Are we at a Global Financial Inflexion Point?

The current global financial crisis rings a very strong bell for people who are aware of the 1929 Great Depression and the global socio-political and socio-economic climate then. The Great Depression was the lowest point for capitalism and preceded massive socialistic movements globally, including the rise of fascism. A major part of the world was still under imperial rule and was quite unaware of what was happening in the US and Europe. But the effect was there, and it changed the world significantly. It was certainly an Inflexion Point, using Andy Grove's term for a singular disrupting event that changes the rules of the game in business. It was not the first event that had repurcussions across the globe - the Great War, or the WWI as we know it, was the first one. And it led to major social upheavals and changes primarily in the participating nation-states. Turkey lost the Caliphate, blamed the Armenians for losses in Dardanelles and summarily executed hundreds of thousands in an uncannily similar fashion that the Nazis used decades later. USSR overthrew their Tsar and put in place the first Communist regime in the 20th century. European monarchies were abolished. Then in the '20s the Great Depression happened. Financial terms that were not very familiar the world over ,such as Inflation, became everyday household words. They led in a way to the coming to power of the NSDAP in Germany and the other fascist governments in Europe. 

We all know our history. And thats the keyword today - knowledge. That is the biggest differentiator between all the major events that changed the world earlier and now. Every major crisis is preceded by a string of sub-events. The Holocaust was preceded by the Kristallnacht, the WWII by the rising unrest in Germany over the Versailles reparation terms, compounded by the Depression conditions. Today, in a complicated, globalized world, everyone is aware and impacted by any financial event. Ofcourse, in the early days of the US sub-prime crisis, laypeople across the world, even in the US, did not anticipate the turn of events that have ensued since, but analysts the world over could sense something amiss. Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman, Merill Lynch, AIG, etc joined a host of names that are now familiar in even quaint, remote towns in India. The first reaction in many cases was, has Capitalism as a concept maxed out? Even before Bear Stearns happened, we have been witnessing various crises the world over - and all of us are quite aware of them. Some global - like the Iraq war, the War on Terror , Al Qaeda, and some local - our naxal situation, the Kashmir problem. But these have been largely chronic issues gripping economies and nations over longer duration. A financial crisis ofcourse poses a much clearer danger - in the past few days, in India, we have seen a few major problems already. The Tata-Singur crisis, for one. But a more sinister, ominous event that seems far more disturbing, something that one could perhaps expect in and around 1929 but not in 2008. A CEO of an Italian Multinational getting lynched by a mob of retrenched employees represents that fear. Is this a one off event or could this be a sign of more to come? Things are not so simple today as they were earlier. Events or causes in those times could be stemmed at one place because of lack of awareness. Today, radical extremist organizations only need to use the email or the ubiquitous cell phone to reach out to their recruits, quite like corporate organizations. Rising inflation, spiked up gas prices, exponential rise of consumerism with every individual aspiring to have a better lifestyle, increasing disparity between the rich and the poor  have created a very dangerous cocktail that is laced with other myriad local and not-so-local issues such as ideological or communal differences. Any measure to bridge this apparent gap, by way of reduced/competitive pricing (an oversimplistic example), only results in reduced margins for organizations and further layoffs - like in the case of Granzino Transmissioni which saw the recent unfortunate incident. And that makes the current Global Financial crisis truly ominous. We can only wait and watch how this unfolds.

Won a medium AI skirmish in C&C3!!

Played a C&C3 skirmish and defeated the GDI forces, playing as a Scrin unit...and that too in medium AI mode!! Finally!! Lots of learnings - moving the drone ship to the blue tiberium field early, creating multiple warp centers and producing multiple harvesters, and then queue up scores of vehicles - esp. anti-aircraft ones..Well, I still need to play and win a Kane's Wrath game though.
By the way, this is my 101st post! And to think I opened this blog in 2005/2006 - well, its been a slow start but a good one though. I love blogging now..:-\
Shveta's mom is recuperating, by god's grace. And I hope she really recovers fast. She has an indomitable willpower and she should sail through easily...

Delhi Trip

Just returned from a great trip to Delhi. It was basically meant for my medical examinations at AIIMS and fortunately turned out good - no abnormal condition, but I guess I would need to reduce my weight fast. Nilu is around and we could spend some quality time together - talking, watching movies, playing C&C3-Kane's Wrath over the wi-fi LAN (and did I lose the games royally!), and ofcourse, sharing data with each other. Nilu has a very good repository of stuff and it was a pleasure checking it out. I also got to check out Bapa's new office - at the Bhikaji Cama Complex. A sea change from his earlier offices, the new office is located in a major market complex (which surely is also a matter of concern looking at the importance of his new post and the lack of security there). But what has been inspirational about Bapa always has been his taking everything in his stride without any apparent betrayal of emotions. Ma recently witnessed this oh so prestigious event where the National School of Drama staged one of her plays. Could anything be better than that??

And also could watch Buli mamu and his family for a whole week on TV. The last day was rather eventful - with the Delhi blasts. Bonnie apparently travelled that day via Barakhamba Road, one of the blast sites and we were naturally quite worried about her. My thoughts were also with Shveta and my mom-in-law, who still continues to be sick. I was constantly in touch with them. Bonnie landed up on the last day and spent a few hours with us. She is looking very sprightly and pretty now - which is a great thing. Hope she also manages to get a guy of her liking soon - which would be so much better for her, esp. because she is so well educated and smart....

I also got to show some of my Steven Seagal movies to Bapa and Ma, and also one of the gems of my prized collection - the World at War. 

Lastly, our dear pets - Chaman and Godot - were looking their cutest best - playing around with their baby beanies and trying to hump each other (jeez!)..hope the horny Chaman gets a real mate before he dies humping an occasional human leg and a distraught US returned , male, Shih-tzu much older than himself...

I headed back to Bhopal on Sunday after having a rather good break. Wished my dear parents-in-law were better because I feel quite guilty thinking about all the good things as they suffer from ill-health.

Another Lazy Weekend

Spent the weekend downloading Spore, watching TV, playing some Scrabulous and listening to some music..The speed of the net was so bad, I thought our broadband's Road Kill compared to the US' Road Runner. Anyways, as I posted earlier, the lowside was my mom-in-law's getting hospitalized. Got to know she threw up. Poor girl Shveta is all tied up and emotionally distraught right now - I guess a few diseases, such as coronary ailments, cancers and tumors, refuse to let go that easily. They almost always resurface after sometime. Perhaps its like an appliance or a product that  - once it goes out of whack and gets repaired -never remains the same again and has something or the other cropping up that is in some ways related to that ailment. In anycase, the worst part about old people is that they don't stop worrying about their children.

Shveta's mom

Today got to know that my mom-in-law had a relapse of the brain clot she had earlier. For the whole day today, as I was trying to divert my mind elsewhere, my thoughts were with them and I could not stop myself from calling Shveta again and again...I feel so so bad for her and imagine how difficult it is to see one's parents age and suffer from ailments...May God give them strength and quickly heal her..

Swamped with work today!

The last two days have seen a frenetic time in the office, and am inundated with a lot of new projects getting set-up...would have 2-3 more projects setting up by next week and I would be ending up supporting at least 10 projects, and 5 teams besides them!..:((

Memento, Anterograde Amnesia...

Today I saw Memento, another one of Christopher Nolan's psycho thrillers - the last I saw was the American Psycho. The great thing about this movie is its near accurate depiction of a person suffering from anterograde amnesia, a form of short-term memory loss, in a murder mystery setting. The end result is a confusing story that moves backward..I guess IMDB and Wikipedia contain enough spoilers and synopses so I would spare us the details, but it surely is a must see. Thanks, Betu, for recommending this one...

World At War IV

Finally...wrapped up the last two episodes! Whew! I wonder what effort must have been invested in collecting all the information, editing all the footages, sewing all that together into a hell of a series! The advisor to the series was Noble Frankland, the then director of the Imperial War Museum. The last two episodes, though, were not that impressive. Ofcourse, there was no dearth of material, and the first 24 series talked in detail about various aspects of the war: for all the theaters, the scope of the series was covering the strategic, tactical and operational aspects of the war on land, air and at sea. Episode 25 dealt with the aftermath - the process of reconstruction in the devastated lands, the epicenter of all the battle. Huge swathes of refugees moved across continental Europe, quite like zombies. Permanently displaced even at home, since their homes were bombed out. The episode also talked about how other Asian nations, still under European colonial rule got inspired by Japan's exploits - Japan had routed the British out of Malaya , Singapore and many other places, restricting them to a few strongholds such as India. Nationalistic aspirations of many of these countries compounded by a weakened British/European presence made things easy for many to break free. The episodes show colored footages of celebrations across England and many other places, of the American homecoming. Absolutely invaluable stuff, this series. The last one talks about Remembering the Dead - 55 million died officially. Add to this figure the millions who died before the war in related events such as the Great Purge in USSR, the Japanese invasion of China, the partition of India in 1947. All within +/- 5 years of the war.
Back to life post World At War. Spent some time reading some books and playing Scrabulous before dozing off...