30 Jan 2012

Willkommen in Der Reich 4.0

The Forth Reich, led by financial Commissars and panzer divisions of Eurocrats are quietly marching in and taking over Europe. As in any invasion, it's starting with the continent's peripheral nations. Truth be told, the Reich is not really about the Germans, nor is it a German creation! The Reich is a concept - one extending from the Roman Empire - and the Germanic race just seems to be its most convenient tool for the past 500 years or so.

Since last year, after having appointed ex-Goldman Sachs-men as Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy, they are now openly demanding control of Greece's finances via a 'Budget Commissioner' - effectively, total control of Greek nation.

(Ironically, it is a German financier going by the name of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who was once quoted as having declared: "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws.")

Anyways, this is from Reuters,
Philipp Roesler (chairman of the Free Democrats who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel) became the first German cabinet member to openly endorse a proposal for Greece to surrender budget control after Reuters quoted a European source on Friday as saying Berlin wants Athens to give up budget control.

...

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that it had obtained a copy of the proposal showing Germany wants a new euro zone "budget commissioner" to have the power to veto budget decisions taken by the Greek government if they are not in line with targets set by international lenders.

"Given the disappointing compliance so far, Greece has to accept shifting budgetary sovereignty to the European level for a certain period of time," the document said.

Under the plan, Athens would only be allowed to carry out normal state spending after servicing its debt, the paper said.


And Greece is just the beginning...

A government source in Berlin said Germany's proposal was aimed not just at Greece but also at other struggling euro zone members that receive aid and are unable to make good on their obligations.


Auf Wiedersehen. (That, 'Goodbye' to all you soon-to-be-reichsfolk.)

28 Jan 2012

Groupthink: The nurseries of mediocrity

There's a thought-provoking article titled "The Rise of the New Groupthink" at The New York Times' The Opinion Pages.

Groupthink, which one could possibly define as being contrained by consensus-seeking, usually ends up in action that's based on what passes the lowest common dinominator... What everyone "agrees on" / is "comfortable with".

The morale-sapping cube-farms - the nurseries of mediocrity - are everywhere...

The New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools and our religious institutions. Anyone who has ever needed noise-canceling headphones in her own office or marked an online calendar with a fake meeting in order to escape yet another real one knows what I’m talking about.


Groupthink prevents truly creative outcomes because there is little room for personal intuition, initiative or inventiveness if it cannot muster enough 'ayes'! At the same time, the Groupthink environment is ideal for process-fiends zealously following the minutest rules largely blind (or ignorant) of the greater scope of their work - and contributing little of actual value. And it is a favoured refuge for those who hide behind the group to escape personal accountability.

One creative genius - the inventive half of erstwhile Apple Computers - Steve Wozniak, was an introvert seeking solitude for "the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing". He often worked alone, late in the night.

The article says,
In his memoir, Mr. Wozniak offers this guidance to aspiring inventors:

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me ... they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone .... I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team.”


Of course, teamwork is a good thing when two or more individuals get together to do what each is best at. There the capabilities are multiplied, while each one's accountibility in the outcome remains equal.

The article quotes Organisational Psychologist, Adrian Furnham...
“If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority.”


So the key priority, then, for all organisations must be to consciously acquire talented people, keep them motivated - and allow them the freedom to do things on their own.

That's 'HR 101' - and easier said than done...


UPDATE:
Another point occured to me... And that is the Risk vs. Reward paradigm - or 'incentivisation' in a Groupthink environment.


I believe that every action we choose to take is driven, consciously or unconsciously, by the inherent risk vs. the potential reward embedded in that action.

In an individual-centred environment, an employee works with 'X' amount of quantified risk (cost of failure). And an incentive, 'Y', which is the potential reward or recognition attached to a successful outcome. For an individual working alone, risk is more or less limited to starting again (i.e. mostly, lost time), whereas reward has no such obvious constraint.

So independent workers, in theory at least, are likely to take risk more often in order to maximise their rewards.

In a Groupthink environment, employees still work with 'X' amount of quantified risk (mostly, lost time) - but now MULTIPLIED by the size of the group. And their incentive 'Y' is now DIVIDED by the size of the group!

So obviously Groupthink members are likely to - in my humble conclusion - work assiduously to avoid failure since it would mean considerable total lost time, and they will also be less motivated by the reward because it is probably not in directly proportion to input.

16 Jan 2012

What if India had a Ron Paul?

Remember, India has a de facto two-party system too - the NDA and the UPA.



What if India could come up with a Ron Paul? Yeah, what if...

Blimey! Even Rupert Murdoch's shills endorse Nandan Nilekani's UID...

First chanced upon the Rothschilds' mouthpiece endorsing India's UID, now I find this from Dec 2011...

Nandan Nilekani seems to have some really powerful backers for bio-tagging Indians.

Just listen to our former masters...


BY THE WAY, I NEVER KNEW INDIA IS A WELFARE STATE!

Maybe they deduced it from the fact that just 100 Indians (and their immediate families) on the Forbes Rich List own as much as 25% of India's GDP (according to Reuters)... Or perhaps, because India is ranked BELOW in Yemen in Per Capita GDP (according to the IMF)... Or possibly, because that India ranks NEXT TO East Timor in standard of living (according to the Human Development Index)?

Or maybe, they mean that India is a welfare state for the richest (do we call it the top 0.00000001%?) Indians who have around $1,456 billion stashed in Swiss Accounts (according to the Swiss Bankers Association)! All thanks to Dr. Manmohan Singh's crony 'liberalisation' agenda?

The road paved with good intentions...

Whether it is engineering an utopian model of society or short-sighted welfare state legislations that attempt to achieve the notion of "social justice", they invariable end up accomplishing just the opposite of what was intended.

I would extrapolate this to include the 'Occupy Wall Street Movement' in the US and the 'Lokpal Bill' fracas in India. The intent of these movements are laudable... and they have certainly achieved a lot by way of waking up the majority from their TV-induced hypnosis by standing up for serious local issues. And they have redefined the way reliable news is delivered with their use of decentralised social networks.

NOW THEY SHOULD CONSIDER THEIR NEXT OBJECTIVE.

Fighting the SYMPTOMS of injustice instead of addressing the CAUSES, will essentially be paving the way for a hugely expanded 'command and control' structure that will be further out of the scope of purview of society... For example, in the US, expanding entitlements will act as a demotivation for small businesses and local productivity, and increase the viscious cycle of multinationals, offshoring and unemployment. And in India, more unaccountable bureaucratic watchdogs and red tape will only serve to eventually increase the number of hands to be greased.

This video showcase the libertarian philosophy of supply-and-demand deciding the true price/value of labour and products in an economy... This is not to be confused with unbridled, exploitative crony capitalism, which results from a few deciding what's good for the many.



P.S: When I walked in for my first copywriting job, I had no experience, so I told the employer I'll work one month for him for FREE. I didn't lose a salary, I learnt a profession.

15 Jan 2012

Now the Rothschilds endorse Nandan Nilekani's UID

When the House of Uber Profiteers - the Rothschilds - endorse something, it is usually reason enough to step back and consider their dark motives.

I had posted before about how E.L. Rothschild, based in Mumbai, has almost covertly acquired a large interest in the agriculture sector of India. And later, I'd focused on their creeping tentacles as the company's adopted some of the sinister features of an earlier heavily financed 'agriculturist-cum-government consultant' called the East India Company.

Yesterday, 14 Jan 2012, the Rothschild's very own shills at The Economist began to fawn and drool all over Nandan Nilekani's UID programme (audio clip below), with its stated intention of bio-tagging the unskilled and semi-skilled population in rural India as the ONLY means to bring them out of poverty...

Lynn Forester de Rothschild has been a non-executive director of The Economist Group since in October 2002. Her husband, Evelyn de Rothschild was chairman of the publication from 1972 to 1989. And the Rothschild family are key owners of The Economist Group.

Just listen to these patronising limeys (notice the BBC-like tone)...


There's an equally condescending online article touting the UID as a panacea of all India's ills accompanying the above audio clip.

If the involvement of the Rothschild gang of shylocks is not enough reason to suspect the very intention of the UID project, how about the well informed facts - not posturing or rhetoric - presented by some highly informed former Indian government, defence and national security officers?

The individuals in the following 30-odd minute video are:
- Col. (retd) Mathew Thomas, Former Head of Missile Manufacturing Establishment, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
- Satish Chandra, Former Deputy National Security Advisor
- Dr. R Balasubramaniam, Former Special Investigator (PDS), Lok Ayukta, Karnataka
- J.T. D'Souza, Managing Director of SPARC Systems Limited (a biometrics technology company)

Watch (pardon the inconsistent sound quality) as they take the rose-tinted glasses off the view presented by the fraudster-minions above and systematically expose the UID project for the sinister and blatant deception that it is.

My sincere thanks to amateur film-makers Abhay, Ajay and Prashant for this hugely informative must-see documentary.

11 Jan 2012

Is Reliance Comm India's next corporate debt domino?

India's shining corporate stars, like Reliance Communications, Tata Steel and Suzlon Energy, among others, sold convertible bonds - many of them Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCB) - to finance 'growth'. (Convertible Bonds are bonds that can be converted into the issuing company's equity or into cash at an agreed price.)

Reliance Communications, India's second largest telecom company, has $925 million in convertible bonds coming due on 1 March 2012. The problem, however, is that its shares are trading around 88% below the bond conversion price... This means that in less than 50 days, the company may have to repay nearly $1 billion - possibly, in cash that it doesn't have!

The title of the latest post on oft-quoted investment advisor, Mike Shedlock's (Mish's) Global Economic Trend Analysis blog is interesting... "Debt Trap Looms in India on Convertible Bonds; Borrowing Costs May Quadruple for Indian Corporations"

Mish quotes Bloomberg...
Indian companies with a record $5.3 billion of convertible bonds due this year may see borrowing costs more than quadruple after the worst performance among the world’s 10 biggest stock markets.


But according to moneycontrol.com, the actual redemption value facing India Inc is a "whopping $7.2 billion", with stock prices of "almost 90% of (them) significantly below conversion prices."

So besides having one of the worst performing stock markets... and the worst performing currency (falling about 20% against the USD since mid-2011)... India also has the dubious honour of a corporate sector that's holding its highest foreign currency debt ever!

But wait, the bad news isn't over...

According to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, corporate earnings in India are expected to see the biggest drop in three years in the Financial Year ending March 2012!

One bond trader in London put it ever so eloquently: “(Indian) Companies are heading into a debt trap...”

Funny, how neither India's exalted (double doctorate) professor nor his "chief economic advisor" saw this one coming when they were cheerleading the nonsensical notion of 'double-digit GDP growth'!

UPDATE...
Last heard on Reuters, Reliance Comm was in talks with state-owned China Development Bank (CDB) for a loan at a higher interest rate to - ahem, repay the earlier loan.

The company is also looking to hawk-off some 50,000 microwave towers for around $3 billion to pay off part of its "$6.5 billion in net debt" as on 31 September 2011!

By the way, if I were a member of the Chinese Politburo, I'd advise the CDB to stall negotiations till mid-February when Reliance Comm share prices would plunge lower - and then arrange for the Red Army to purchase 50,000 'listening posts' in India at a bargain basement price.

4 Jan 2012

Watch what you say on TV

Oops! CNN conveniently 'loses' transmission at a crucial moment while interviewing military veteran, Jesse Thorsen.

(I can't say what I find more frightening to imagine: That some appointee of the 'Ministry of Truth' has a finger on the 'lose transmission' button? Or, that this individual is actually vested with the authority to decide what views can't be aired?)



Later, the 'unelectable' Dr. Ron Paul (who, by the way, is ahead of most of the electable candidates) calls Jesse Thorsen on-stage (at 9:45) to finish what he was saying...



It is perhaps obvious why the good Dr. Goldstein - er, Dr. Paul, is 'unelectable'?

1 Jan 2012

Ever wonder why a coup d'etat invariably starts at the TV station?

Because nothing is credible till it's on TV.

Of course, the corollary is that the public is conditioned to believe that if it is on TV, it must be true!

Think about the relationship we have with our TV set. Our homes are organised around it. Our social lives many times depend on its whims. We tell ourselves that OTHER members of our family (not us) can't live without it. We only need it so we're not "out-of-touch" with what's happening! And for the reassurance that we are "in-the-know" we are ready to pay literally any cost - even if we are unfairly made to pay for channels we will never see.

You can't call something so manipulative, an idiot box. In fact, the wide-eyed idiot is blissfully unaware, catching up with "reality" on TV.

Switch the TV 'off'. Switch your mind 'on'. Only then can we fight off the coup d'etat of independent thought and reasoning. If enough people fight, 2012 will be different. Otherwise, it will be whatever they show you on TV.

Anyway, don't go unarmed...