Before I go ahead with the basic content of this post, I would like to warn the readers that what I am writing is my own idea, it may seem incredulous. The veracity of whatever is posted should not be taken for granted.
The stock markets are tumbling; the only thing I see on the news channels is sub prime crisis. So I went about searching for the meaning of that term. From what I could make out, it is a case in which a particular amount of money is lent to people with low credit, for mortgages. In better words, people with low credit, or the people with little money take loans that the think, they could repay in the near future. Mind You! Loans for housing are pretty high there. They payment downtime was about 20 years or so with a pretty high interest rate.
People of the ‘sub prime’ group are the people, who have a low income, so if my guess is that these people are the people who live with a low income and hope to generate enough income to pay their dues.
So this is what happens, people take loans and then purchase houses, and then pays monthly installments to repay the loan.
People with constant income or rising income can afford to do this. Here is where retail market comes into play.
The manufacturer produces the goods, but these goods are sold only in the markets. Large retail markets obtain the goods from the manufacturer directly and other small markets get the goods through a middle man who acts as an interface between the small market and manufacturer. But the catch is that a large retailer controls the manufacturer by his throat. This leads to outsourcing and thus loss of jobs. This is explained in the post:
http://vignesh23.blogspot.com/2008/02/controlling-manufacturer-retailers-way.html
Outsourcing is the phenomenon through which the manufacturer sets up manufacturing plants (factories) in third world countries, to reduce the cost of production and to obtain larger profit margins.
The process of outsourcing leaves the country with no manufacturing units and thus cutting jobs and when there are no jobs, the people can’t repay their loans.
The house that had been purchased through these loans, are taken over by the bank. The land value dips to a low value because with no manufacturing units and large scale lay offs, there are no takers for that house for the same original price. The bank in turn looses heavily due to the dip in real estate values. There are plentiful people who have opted for that type of loan, so huge losses are incurred by the bank.
To obtain the lost amount the banks try to recover other loans from a myriad of people. These people, many of who invest in over seas stock market, sell their shares in the stock market. When large numbers of shares are dumped into the stock market the value of the stocks reduce drastically, thus leading to a down fall in the stock market.
Therefore the Retail market in a very indirect way causes the stocks and economies to tumble world wide. I have nothing against the Retail markets, but this is just an opinion, an idea, nothing else. Readers can help me by thinking about this and also point out any logical errors, and share their own ideas and views.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Eyes Off The Road
I haven’t posted for quite some time. I couldn’t think of anything else, so here is a day’s experience.
My first YRC (Youth red cross) assignment. I had to reach the hospital by 9 in the morning. One of the oldest hospitals of its kind, the Madras Ophthalmic Hospital is some where near Mt. Road as far as I can recollect. It was four years ago, that I went, with my friend.
We reached the hospital at about 9am and we could see, lot of patients, many with an eye covered. We reported to the head nurse, and registered our names. Next was the job assignment, I was excited, but all the excitement went away when I started with my first assignment. Being a receptionist, without understanding tamil was like being in the ‘Tower of Babel’. I didn’t know much of Tamil four years ago. With a ‘red cross’ jacket, I stood in front of the table that showed ‘receptionist’. Many people came and asked me the where bouts of rooms, I was baffled as the numbers they mentioned were in tamil, I could understand one to ten, with some confusion in the 5th and 6th numeral, but above ten I couldn’t make out. I went up to my friend for the translation every time I encountered some problem. With the answers came more questions and I was shuttling from my table to my friend’s assigned place, outside the ward. The patients had to put up with me and many a times I got a piece of their mind. It’s a rigmarole for them and with me creating communication voids, the situation was getting abominably out of control.
I needed a change for the good of both the patients and me. My friend, wasn’t budging from his place and then I got a chance to swap with my college mate, who was controlling the traffic approaching Mt. Road. The hospital was one side and the ward on the other side of the road. Often patients had to cross the road in order to make pay a visit to the doctor. Traffic had to be stopped when a suitable number of people came on either side, for them to cross.I swapped places with him immediately, I had the jacket on but now I also got a ‘STOP’ sign that could fit my hand, like the one the policemen sport at traffic junctions.
I took charge of the traffic going towards Mt. road and another guy was on the opposite side regulating traffic from Mt. road, though there were very vehicles from that side. We had to coordinate and stop traffic as the patients can cross only when the traffic from both sides stop.
I came to the middle of the lane and displayed the stop sign, the traffic came to a standstill. I felt powerful with my ‘Stop sign’ weapon. I just had to lift it up and the traffic stops. I had a stupendous time at the road.
At times we wouldn’t coordinate properly and the patients would be stranded in the middle of the road. Though that happened once, we were in an obvious predicament.
The power of the ‘stop sign’ took over my mind and I kept showing it even when a single patient had to cross.
I was at the acme of glory, but then I suddenly saw an auto racing towards me. ‘Oops’, I had brought down the ‘stop sign’, it was a green signal, with me forgetting to move out of the lane, he just missed, and his acerbate words put me in a predicament. All the same I didn’t know much of tamil so I didn’t bother about what he said. After a tiring half hour, I went back in as my substitute had arrived. The other assignments were fairly simple. It was a fun filled day, an experience that was different from the banality of the class rooms.
My first YRC (Youth red cross) assignment. I had to reach the hospital by 9 in the morning. One of the oldest hospitals of its kind, the Madras Ophthalmic Hospital is some where near Mt. Road as far as I can recollect. It was four years ago, that I went, with my friend.
We reached the hospital at about 9am and we could see, lot of patients, many with an eye covered. We reported to the head nurse, and registered our names. Next was the job assignment, I was excited, but all the excitement went away when I started with my first assignment. Being a receptionist, without understanding tamil was like being in the ‘Tower of Babel’. I didn’t know much of Tamil four years ago. With a ‘red cross’ jacket, I stood in front of the table that showed ‘receptionist’. Many people came and asked me the where bouts of rooms, I was baffled as the numbers they mentioned were in tamil, I could understand one to ten, with some confusion in the 5th and 6th numeral, but above ten I couldn’t make out. I went up to my friend for the translation every time I encountered some problem. With the answers came more questions and I was shuttling from my table to my friend’s assigned place, outside the ward. The patients had to put up with me and many a times I got a piece of their mind. It’s a rigmarole for them and with me creating communication voids, the situation was getting abominably out of control.
I needed a change for the good of both the patients and me. My friend, wasn’t budging from his place and then I got a chance to swap with my college mate, who was controlling the traffic approaching Mt. Road. The hospital was one side and the ward on the other side of the road. Often patients had to cross the road in order to make pay a visit to the doctor. Traffic had to be stopped when a suitable number of people came on either side, for them to cross.I swapped places with him immediately, I had the jacket on but now I also got a ‘STOP’ sign that could fit my hand, like the one the policemen sport at traffic junctions.
I took charge of the traffic going towards Mt. road and another guy was on the opposite side regulating traffic from Mt. road, though there were very vehicles from that side. We had to coordinate and stop traffic as the patients can cross only when the traffic from both sides stop.
I came to the middle of the lane and displayed the stop sign, the traffic came to a standstill. I felt powerful with my ‘Stop sign’ weapon. I just had to lift it up and the traffic stops. I had a stupendous time at the road.
At times we wouldn’t coordinate properly and the patients would be stranded in the middle of the road. Though that happened once, we were in an obvious predicament.
The power of the ‘stop sign’ took over my mind and I kept showing it even when a single patient had to cross.
I was at the acme of glory, but then I suddenly saw an auto racing towards me. ‘Oops’, I had brought down the ‘stop sign’, it was a green signal, with me forgetting to move out of the lane, he just missed, and his acerbate words put me in a predicament. All the same I didn’t know much of tamil so I didn’t bother about what he said. After a tiring half hour, I went back in as my substitute had arrived. The other assignments were fairly simple. It was a fun filled day, an experience that was different from the banality of the class rooms.
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Raid! – Part 3 (Bottom Line)
I could not afford to get all my bags checked. I had five pieces of luggage. Two suit cases on the loft, one suitcase below my table: illegal items contained: Multi meter and Soldering gun. Two trolley bags under my bed, one had a CD player and the other my cell phone, the only source of communication to the outside world, since the hostel phones were pathetic and the STD booth in the campus had exorbitant rates. It was a ‘save my cell’ mission. I wouldn’t like to loose my CD player too as it was the only source of entertainment and music was the only inoculation to my glum mood. I had to come up with something concrete. I had an English Movie CD in my drawer.
If I would give him something that would satisfy him, he might not check all my bags.
With this assumption, I acquiesced when he asked me if I possessed any CDs or cell phones. I took out my drawer key and opened the draw and handed him the movie CD.
I looked at him once and then looked down abashed. I was hoping he falls for the trick. I looked at him from the corner of my eye; I could see what I wanted to see. His eyes showed the sense of achievement and just to make things went smoothly, I offered to open a suitcase that was on the loft, before he could reply I opened it, it had nothing but a few clothes and an encyclopedia CD, he took that CD too. His face gleaming with pride, he took the two CD and put then in a cover and asked me to write my name, I did that immediately. He still stood there, it was now or never, I had to make my move before the other raiders joined the party. The other raiders were checking my room mates.
I mustered up the courage and asked him, “Can I leave now? ”.
“Yes”, he said and I hurried away from there, leaving my drawer key near my bed. That ‘yes’ was the word that would finish this nightmare. I walked past the other rooms as fast as I could, before he could call me again. I went to the lobby towards the way out.
Many eyes were staring at me and I could see the question marks on their pupils. I gave a broad smile, and said “Nothing caught”, and leapt out of the hostel gates and made my way through the college building to my class to announce my triumph.
I was very lucky as i made my way out without getting my cell phone seized. There were many who weren’t that lucky, their phones seized and placed in a plastic bag and kept in the office. They had to go through the rigmarole get it back.
My friend who owned one of the talkies saw this coming and wrapped all his CDs’ in a plastic bag and dumped it in a bucket of water, the night before. He placed his dirty clothes in the water to prevent suspicion. He didn’t loose any of his CDs’, but poor chap couldn’t do that to his hard disk drive and neither did he delete the movies, so his computer got confiscated. Another friend of mine saved his skin, thanks to the ignorance of the raider who just couldn’t figure out that a metallic notebook like structure was capable of playing and storing movies. I felt like a refugee that day and that incident would always remain in my memory lane.
This was the first raid, and unfortunately not the last.
If I would give him something that would satisfy him, he might not check all my bags.
With this assumption, I acquiesced when he asked me if I possessed any CDs or cell phones. I took out my drawer key and opened the draw and handed him the movie CD.
I looked at him once and then looked down abashed. I was hoping he falls for the trick. I looked at him from the corner of my eye; I could see what I wanted to see. His eyes showed the sense of achievement and just to make things went smoothly, I offered to open a suitcase that was on the loft, before he could reply I opened it, it had nothing but a few clothes and an encyclopedia CD, he took that CD too. His face gleaming with pride, he took the two CD and put then in a cover and asked me to write my name, I did that immediately. He still stood there, it was now or never, I had to make my move before the other raiders joined the party. The other raiders were checking my room mates.
I mustered up the courage and asked him, “Can I leave now? ”.
“Yes”, he said and I hurried away from there, leaving my drawer key near my bed. That ‘yes’ was the word that would finish this nightmare. I walked past the other rooms as fast as I could, before he could call me again. I went to the lobby towards the way out.
Many eyes were staring at me and I could see the question marks on their pupils. I gave a broad smile, and said “Nothing caught”, and leapt out of the hostel gates and made my way through the college building to my class to announce my triumph.
I was very lucky as i made my way out without getting my cell phone seized. There were many who weren’t that lucky, their phones seized and placed in a plastic bag and kept in the office. They had to go through the rigmarole get it back.
My friend who owned one of the talkies saw this coming and wrapped all his CDs’ in a plastic bag and dumped it in a bucket of water, the night before. He placed his dirty clothes in the water to prevent suspicion. He didn’t loose any of his CDs’, but poor chap couldn’t do that to his hard disk drive and neither did he delete the movies, so his computer got confiscated. Another friend of mine saved his skin, thanks to the ignorance of the raider who just couldn’t figure out that a metallic notebook like structure was capable of playing and storing movies. I felt like a refugee that day and that incident would always remain in my memory lane.
This was the first raid, and unfortunately not the last.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
THE RAID! – Part 2
Sweat pouring all over; I had no choice but to wait. Wait until the raid party raided my room. It was 1:30 in the afternoon all the residents of the first floor arrived. There were 20 rooms in the first floor, each room labeled with its room number above the door. The Raiders went to the first floor and asked us to stay put. I didn’t know what they had in mind; it was like a nightmare coming true during the day. The martinet head warden and his adjutant were the last to leave the lobby. We could see a few rooms from where we were. Then the watchman came running, and asked the residents of the first room to go to their room. They complied immediately. Four students occupied each room with a separate bed and a concrete shelf.
The students from the first room came one by one, three of them sad and one in a jubilant mood. All of us went and enquired and the morose three were dispossessed of their cell phones, and the one very happy managed to dupe the raider allotted to him. They went on to attend their classes. Cell phones were banned in my hostel and a person who is caught with one would be dispossessed of it and would get it back only if their parents paid the college a visit and paid an exorbitant fine. Owing to the location of the college the visit would itself be an expensive affair. Some parents would try and negotiate the fine, but that would be futile, and at the end of the day an exorbitant fine is paid from the pocket and from the mind.
Ten rooms were covered and many lost their phones and CDs’ but some lucky people escaped, many were cursing the raiders as the toppled over their books and ruined their ironed clothes. In brevity they made a big mess of the place. There were 4 talkies in all. The room that bared the name talkie was mutilated the most. One such room was visible from the lobby and I could see all the raiders devoting all their time to that room, up setting things in search of a bounty.
The room reminded me of an isolated twister. The only thing they didn’t check in the living quarters were the CPU cabinets. A few CD’s were all what they got, and I was surprised too, as the talkies all together had enough CDs to open a retail CD store.
Then it happened, I was called. A shiver ran down my spine, I was on the way to my room, a raider waiting outside to welcome me. The raider allotted to me a office staff, who was not a regular, white and black. White and Black are people in my college who dress up in white shirt and black pants and their only job is to roam around the college premises and penalize the defaulter. They were known for their impudent nature, and were strict to the core. I was happy that no of them showed for my room.
I possessed a lot of illegal items, ranging from a Cell phone to a CD player. He walked into my room and asked me if I had any cell phone or CD’s. I had both, and I stammered. He asked me to open my bags and I duly complied. I was nervous because if he checked all my bags I would have a lost a lot of things and maybe even my ID card at the end of it. It would be suspension, entry into the bad books, etc. The paranoia gripped me.
Then an idea struck me!
To be continued…………
The students from the first room came one by one, three of them sad and one in a jubilant mood. All of us went and enquired and the morose three were dispossessed of their cell phones, and the one very happy managed to dupe the raider allotted to him. They went on to attend their classes. Cell phones were banned in my hostel and a person who is caught with one would be dispossessed of it and would get it back only if their parents paid the college a visit and paid an exorbitant fine. Owing to the location of the college the visit would itself be an expensive affair. Some parents would try and negotiate the fine, but that would be futile, and at the end of the day an exorbitant fine is paid from the pocket and from the mind.
Ten rooms were covered and many lost their phones and CDs’ but some lucky people escaped, many were cursing the raiders as the toppled over their books and ruined their ironed clothes. In brevity they made a big mess of the place. There were 4 talkies in all. The room that bared the name talkie was mutilated the most. One such room was visible from the lobby and I could see all the raiders devoting all their time to that room, up setting things in search of a bounty.
The room reminded me of an isolated twister. The only thing they didn’t check in the living quarters were the CPU cabinets. A few CD’s were all what they got, and I was surprised too, as the talkies all together had enough CDs to open a retail CD store.
Then it happened, I was called. A shiver ran down my spine, I was on the way to my room, a raider waiting outside to welcome me. The raider allotted to me a office staff, who was not a regular, white and black. White and Black are people in my college who dress up in white shirt and black pants and their only job is to roam around the college premises and penalize the defaulter. They were known for their impudent nature, and were strict to the core. I was happy that no of them showed for my room.
I possessed a lot of illegal items, ranging from a Cell phone to a CD player. He walked into my room and asked me if I had any cell phone or CD’s. I had both, and I stammered. He asked me to open my bags and I duly complied. I was nervous because if he checked all my bags I would have a lost a lot of things and maybe even my ID card at the end of it. It would be suspension, entry into the bad books, etc. The paranoia gripped me.
Then an idea struck me!
To be continued…………
Saturday, March 8, 2008
THE RAID! Part 1
It was a day two years ago. My abode was a hostel, a jail, to be precise. When I say jail I mean it. Strict rules were the order of the place. I have described the hostel in another post –‘monkeys in the attic’, in which I mentioned watching movies and the authorities being unaware of that.
It was one of those days, my friend, the proud owner of ‘Durga talkies’ as we call his room, had inadvertently left a movie C.D right on the top of his desk, in full public view. It was careless on his part, and it was the cause of a series of events that changed many things in the hostel.
The sun was setting in, that didn’t mean that people could go out for a stroll, it meant people were to sit and study as the evening study time was coming near.
The Bell rang and silence filled the ambience, the warden was expected to visit the rooms, without being invited of course. We were in the first floor, we saw him coming and we pretended to study. The C.D still on my friend’s table. He briskly walked into each room as if he were entering his own bed room. Then came Durga talkies, he barged in and saw the C.D and confiscated it. He went on to complete his rounds and left the hostel and went to the office to report the incident to the head warden, a martinet. We were unperturbed, as it was just a Movie C.D. He would be let off immediately, with some scolding or at the most a couple of slaps. But what happened the next day was completely unexpected and took us all off guard.
It was the Lunch break and I was eating in the mess, when suddenly the mess in charge comes up and asks if my room were in the first floor. I said yes. He asked me to go to the hostel after Lunch. I acquiesced. I was appalled by his diction. I asked him but he wouldn’t reply. I tossed something into my mouth as I lost my appetite.
I went to the hostel straight away. I could see the head warden his adjutant, with many other students of the first floor and I saw the owner of ‘Durga talkies’ too, without his ID card. In my college if a person is without his sling ID card he is in big trouble.
I came in and it was no vicarious meet when I saw the head warden. He told me to wait, and I duly complied. Nobody would like to mess with him. He was the Jailor of our jail, this jail being the college.
All the students arrived after lunch and then came 5 office assistants; I still didn’t know the reason for this untimely get-together in the hostel premises when the college was working.
It was then I realized that the raid party had just been formed. I was alarmed as I had a lot of things in my luggage that I shouldn’t be having.
To be continued…..
It was one of those days, my friend, the proud owner of ‘Durga talkies’ as we call his room, had inadvertently left a movie C.D right on the top of his desk, in full public view. It was careless on his part, and it was the cause of a series of events that changed many things in the hostel.
The sun was setting in, that didn’t mean that people could go out for a stroll, it meant people were to sit and study as the evening study time was coming near.
The Bell rang and silence filled the ambience, the warden was expected to visit the rooms, without being invited of course. We were in the first floor, we saw him coming and we pretended to study. The C.D still on my friend’s table. He briskly walked into each room as if he were entering his own bed room. Then came Durga talkies, he barged in and saw the C.D and confiscated it. He went on to complete his rounds and left the hostel and went to the office to report the incident to the head warden, a martinet. We were unperturbed, as it was just a Movie C.D. He would be let off immediately, with some scolding or at the most a couple of slaps. But what happened the next day was completely unexpected and took us all off guard.
It was the Lunch break and I was eating in the mess, when suddenly the mess in charge comes up and asks if my room were in the first floor. I said yes. He asked me to go to the hostel after Lunch. I acquiesced. I was appalled by his diction. I asked him but he wouldn’t reply. I tossed something into my mouth as I lost my appetite.
I went to the hostel straight away. I could see the head warden his adjutant, with many other students of the first floor and I saw the owner of ‘Durga talkies’ too, without his ID card. In my college if a person is without his sling ID card he is in big trouble.
I came in and it was no vicarious meet when I saw the head warden. He told me to wait, and I duly complied. Nobody would like to mess with him. He was the Jailor of our jail, this jail being the college.
All the students arrived after lunch and then came 5 office assistants; I still didn’t know the reason for this untimely get-together in the hostel premises when the college was working.
It was then I realized that the raid party had just been formed. I was alarmed as I had a lot of things in my luggage that I shouldn’t be having.
To be continued…..
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)