Who will Rate this

[This one I published some couple of months back in my company’s intranet, thought to upload it here]

We have chronic dissidence.  Not with the world but with ourselves.

The current financial stress world over is again magnified with words like, biggest fall in recorded history, Dow loosing in a single day more than the GDP of India, World in recession, Re-living the ‘30s et al. These are the first things that glares when one open the newspaper in the morning.  This news almost creates nausea as it was a forte of pink papers now migrated to the whites.

On a quite stroll of nearby market in Kolkata I’m surprised to see that the person selling vegetables sitting in street is still selling vegetables, the milkman still comes in the morning. What am I thinking! Am I expecting them to talk in terms of futures & options or will they sell Nasdaq futures tomorrow. Then why is it we market the stress of financial downturn as if it’s Armageddon.

Oh come on! I know it’s quite easy to comprehend that the market players should be part of the market not in speculation. Imagine our poor vegetable seller asking you to deposit money for price of cabbage that s/he will deliver month end and charged a differential rate on it. Will you buy the deal? What is the difference between a person gambling in Las Vegas and the broker doing a reverse swap on inflation-interest of an economy? The answer is the second person is wearing a tie.

We have invented too many products to satisfy our appetite. God must be wondering it’s safe to be in heaven rather than to see what amount of re-packaging is done in this world (that will in effect mean we have to wait some more time to have any other re-incarnation). To regulate it we have created agencies which publish the rating of those products judging by the “fundamentals”. The interesting fact is all the ratings are nothing but a mere advisory and the agencies are not in any ways responsible for their god-sent-gift of ranking product. To complete the circle most of the compliance/regulatory laws require following the rating and having risk-mitigation exposure on that. I wish I could advice on something like this and get away with a fat pay check and zero downside – true Nirvana.

Before we reach the Buddha in ourselves, we will persists to have the chronic dissidence about thinking of everything is counterbalanced force in things we create and marketing sediments & rocks as a potential ingredient of oil. Just that we need patience for 10 million years. May be oil will be AAA+ commodity then.