I was checking BBC business website and the words "Why recovery can be bad for you - and recession good" under the title 'Recovery hurts' caught my attention. Intrigued, checked it to learn what the author says. After reading the article I was wondering, what would be the response of a person who lost his job in recession. This post resulted as a consequence of that thought.
In a recession, demand drops, causing drop in supply and with it taking down the price level. As a result inflation comes down and approaches '0'. A lower inflation means higher real income. You will have more disposable income. Also the government will cut taxes and private sector will offer discounts and other offers. All in all your cost of living will come down. So yes 'Recession' is good.
In Recovery, government will cut populist measures, increase taxes, tighten money supply, demand picks up, prices start to climb and the overall inflation will rise its head again. Your disposable income will shrink. Cost of living will go up in a recovery. Cost of living in growth will be higher than cost of living in recession. So why recover? Why should we fight hard to recover? That's a funny thought.
If recession continues, businesses will close down, jobs will be lost and there will be no income leave alone shrinking real income. Recession is good for those who earn; not for those who don't earn. Recovery may be bad for those who earn; not for those who don't earn. Recovery creates jobs, fills more pockets, spikes up demand, cause higher prices and higher cost of living.
Economic growth brings more people on par with you. Recession causes more people on par with you to vanish. With less on par with you, your life improves and with more on par with you, your life becomes difficult. But all this is true only if you remain where you were. If you catch up with growth opportunities in growth periods and hang on to your place in recession, your life will always be bliss, economically.
I am sure you are not wondering where the government servant comes in here. :)
"Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully, for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."
I sent a part of this passage as sms to some of my friends- one of them replied with no mean guilt, "I think this is meant for us- we need to be careful". But Samuel Johnson is not asking us to diet. He is boasting that he took greater care to eat more, not less, for Boswell writes,-
"When at table... his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible."
How times change- we are all gluttons now, and when we hear mind what you eat, we think we are asked eat less, not more: our enjoyment of eating is now tinged with the guilt of abusing our health: food itself has become a forbidden fruit.
Elsewhere in this chapter, which is all about the pleasure of eating as described in literature, Sutherland quotes a curious passage from a short story by Guy de Maupassant: two strangers, one of them a young man, travel together- he helps a lactating young woman rid herself of the pain of lactation- the passage goes,
"Il se mit a genoux devant elle; et elle se pencha vers lui, portant vers sa bouche, dans un geste de nourrice, le bout fonce de sons sein. Dans le mouvement qu'elle fit en le prenant de ses deux main pour le tendre vers cet homme, une goutte de lait apparut au sommet. Il la but vivement, saisissant comme un fruit cette lourde mamelle entres ces levres. Et il se mit a teter d'un facon goulue et reguliere."
Not having the confidence that I could learn French to decipher the meaning of this passage, which Sutherland promises is voluptuous and icky, I turned to Google Translate:
"He began his knees before her and she leaned toward him, carrying to his mouth in a gesture of nurse, after dark in sound. In the movement she made by taking his two hands for towards this man, a drop of milk appeared at the top. He drank it eagerly, seizing a heavy fruit this udder between these lips. And he began to suck a greedy and lawful manner".
A poem I liked, and tried to bring over to English - Eppothum Pen.
An enmity has survived for two generations between siblings. The Men, when they come against one other, throw a glare, and turn away. The Women pass by, their heads bowed down. And the Children, when there is no one to note, Share among themselves looks that none recognise.
Enmity... whether with purpose or not, has in its branching hands, flowers, the sweetest of the fruits that there be, and for the father's rocking chair, a shade it extends across the partition wall: the trees and plants of his home.
It is that time of the year when you love to take your bike out and roam around the city. It is pleasantly cool and breezy in Coimbatore. Droplets of water from the sky makes the experience even more enjoyable. You would just want to drive, drive and drive. That's how pleasing south west monsoon is for Coimbatoreans. When the monsoon arrived this year it brought the temperature down to comfortable levels. Evenings were cool and Day's were slightly warm (early 30's in Celsius). We even experienced few days of monsoon rain, early in the month. But none of the days were as good as it used to be, but today. May be the trees cut and ever increasing noise of gushing engines is constantly pushing up Coimbatore temperature and monsoon itself is a victim of global warming.
Today was one such day, I was craving for weeks now. I did not feel the need to switch on the ceiling fan in my office. But I did not realise how good the day is until I went out in the evening. What a fantastic feeling it was? Absolutely pleasant and brilliant. I am not done with it yet and would probably go out in the night to take it in more. I don't know whether it will return tomorrow. There were times when a day like this used to repeat for close to a month. But the times we are living in, exploitation of the environment, careless attitude of people has made days like today a luxury and dare I say, a rarity for us Coimbatoreans.
Not always you avoid what you want to avoid. Last night was one such occassion. I saw 'Raavanan'. I have enjoyed watcing Mani's movies in the past and movies like Iruvar and Mouna Ragam fascinated me. More than the story, the way he brings it on the screen and narrates made the difference. I am a big fan of good narrators. I wouldn't mind listening to 'Crow' and 'Vada' story thousand times if the narration is different and fascinating each time.
I was itching to watch 'Raavanan' ever since I saw the promos, despite my own apprehensions about recreating Ramayanam. But then reviews dampened my enthusiasm. Slowly I lost interest and even added the movie to my 'Not to watch list'. But as fate would have it, or is it my subconscious, I watched the movie. There is no way I could have said 'No' to my wife, after all my pre-release hype about the movie. So we went, saw, I got bored and returned home.
There are so many reviews of Raavanan, very good ones to bad ones, and they all have listed where Mani went wrong, Vikram failed and Vikram scored. I share most of their views. The screenplay is probably the worst to come from Mani's stable. The story starts with the kidnap, stops after Ragini's jump, goes into a slumber before the flashback unfolds late in the second half. It would be harsh to qualify it as a 'drab' but it nearly is one. Notable failings of the movie, besides screenplay are
*Rahman's Music (BGM) *Suhasini's Dialogues *Vikram's poor antics *Unnecessary, irritating and totally avoidable character that of Karthik, the forest guard
I used to be a big fan of Kamal Hasan, the actor. I still, am, I think. A recollection of his best performances always plays with the background music. I can't disassociate it and perceive the performance alone. Be it in Moondram Pirai (drums in the climax), Nayagan, Mahanadhi (Veena), Virumaandi, Guna (Going around the room scene), Apoorva Sagodharargal or any other brilliant scene / performance, the music always leads us into the scene. It sets the mood, draws and let us travel with the scene. Good music evokes and cause our emotions to rise and fall with the scene. Take Hey Ram for example. The Calcutta riots scene may not have made so much of impact but for Ilayaraja's background score.
And here in 'Ravanan', Rahman is a big let down with his BGM. He has always been an average to, at times, good music director when it comes to background score. What's pathetic is, his poor performance can actually be perceived as you watch it. There are scenes where the music is completely separable from the scene. In a scene where Ragini, in captivity, shouts out to her husband, who is somewhere in the forest, I was wondering about the background score and what was he doing. Two big let downs in that scene. One Aishwarya's horrible performance and Rahman's BGM. Another example is the scene when Veera takes Ragini to a cliff to shoot before she jumps into the deep falls. Brilliantly conceived scene once again let down by Rahman and Aiswayrya (especially the dubbing). Is it time for Mani to look beyond Rahman or is he so dependent on his songs to give us a hit?
Suhasini, makes us realise how badly Mani and we miss the great Sujatha. Hope Suhasini minds her work with Jaya TV in future and not influence her husband and cause us hear her poor dialogues. I wasn't bothered to hear the dialogues, whenever they were not clear. For once I don't lament about not being able to hear dialogues, in a Mani Rathnam movie. Good riddance.
Vikram is probably the saving grace of the movie but then his 'pak pak pak' and 'tun-tanakka-tun' antics are poorly conceived and carried out. I wouldn't tolerate such poor antics even if it is to come from a complete psychopath. They were complete irritants. His characterisation is far from convincing. Mani generally leaves a shade of grey in his characters. But this is just too much and is blinding.
Did Karthik go and beg for a role or did Manirathnam felt obliged to give Karthik a return of sorts? Is it necessary to create a 'Anuman' role, when all he does is jumping around and doles out suggestions to Dev (Prithvi Raj)? Any other police character could have done it. May be Mani could have used Karthik as the DSP and not as Anuman.
There are some unnecessary and irritating scenes like the one where Veera cuts the hands of his brother-in-law. May be Mani wants to show the gory side of Veera to Ragini but it was like water on lotus leaves.
I would have preferred to watch 'Raavanan' on my telly with a remote in my hand. Even then I would have spent only some 15 or 20 minutes in front of the telly. That's how much time 'Raavanan' is worth watching. I never expected such a boring movie from Manirathnam, the one who gave me the joys of watching Iruvar, Mouna ragam, Kannathil Muthamittal, Alaipayuthey, Idhayathai Thirudadhe, Agni Nakshathiram, etc.
In the early years of this century, when Euro was adapted by the member states of EU as their currency, I used to wonder, how will this ever be possible. My doubts were based on the fact that all European countries were not equally well developed and managed economies. The western Europe was well developed while the eastern bloc that followed the Soviet Model wasn't shining and even today the differences between ex-communist countries and countries like Germany, France etc, are starker. I recently read an article which talks about the differences within Germany, after so many years of unification. You can only wonder the difference between countries. (the image is sourced from The American)
The difference in economies would also mean difference in the way fiscal policies and programs are developed and rolled out. Naturally this would cause big differences in fiscal deficit between countries. Fiscal deficit generally determines amount of government spending, interest rates and in turn currency rate. So how will the EU manage one currency for economies as different as Germany and say Romania or a Poland was my question. But then for the last 5 years or so, Euro was climbing up the ladder and everything looked normal. May be my economics is not that good is what I felt. I also thought I should learn more on this topic, and international finance.
Few days back, I came across an article in Knowledge @ Wharton, titled 'Whither Euro'. It is a good article on Euro and opposing views on its future. Take thislinkif you want to read that article.
We all know Greece ran into huge debt problems and as a result an economic earthquake on moderate scale shook Europe and other markets. Some are predicting a huge one shaking everyone what with Spain going Greece way. Let's hope that's averted. Now from the above linked story I learnt that ECB (European Central Bank) fixed 3% as the upper limit for fiscal deficit for countries adopting Euro as their currency. And ECB has the right to levy a penalty of 0.5% of GDP as a penalty on countries that exceed the 3% limit. Greece exceed the fiscal deficit level fixed by ECB not by 0.5% that it reported but by nearly 10%. The new government in Greece found out, when they came to power, that the actual deficit is not 3.5% as reported but 12.5%. It made it public and set the crisis ball rolling. It has since increased to 13.6%.
ECB did not levy a penalty because it believed what Greece reported that Fiscal deficit is only 3.5%, marginally higher than prescribed limit. Had the real deficit of 12.5% was known to them they may have levied a 0.5% of Greece GDP ($343 billion). Just think of it. A whopping $17.65 billion as penalty. In Indian Rupees the penalty would have run close to Rs.800 billion (100 Crores is one billion). I understand why Greece fudged. Now that it's all in public, Greece government has tightened the screws and cut back public spending. This has created a furore there.
I don't want to get into the ramifications of all this for Greece and EU, in general. You can make your views after reading the above linked article. But my question is, is it possible to bring together people with differing economic interests and make them all stick to a tight control for the sake of one common good, that too mostly to the well off? In fact, contrary to my original thoughts, it is members of west bloc like Greece, Spain, Italy etc. are causing problems to EU unlike the Eastern Bloc. In fact many of the east bloc is yet to be admitted into Euro zone. I am sure Greece story will delay the chances any of Euro wannabes from the east block.
This world is far from ideal place, and people can and many will think and find ways to serve their interests. This also mean that Euro may never make it to be the sole currency of Europe or for that matter EU. It may at best remain as a currency of well off countries like Germany, France etc. It cannot unify Europe, not until all of them have same pockets.
"We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long it takes,"
"We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy,"
Barack Obama on BP Oil spill issue
Under intense pressure from President Barack Obama, BP Plc agreed on Wednesday to set up a $20 billion fund for damage claims from its huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill & suspended dividend payments to its shareholders
Big brother is furious, rightly so. British Petroleum has agreed for $20 billion oil spill fund and also cuts dividends to its investors, that's according Yahoo news. Big brother, Obama, has forced the corporate in the wrong to pay for its mistake. How righteous and just America is? They won't allow a wrong doer to go scot free? Even if it is Mr.Anderson? Oh, Oh sorry, sorry....
Actually Mr.Anderson did not cause any damage to America. His actions did not lead to loss of American lives. He may not be a darling of Americans but he is an American citizen and he cannot be touched for lives lost in some eastern, under developed country nor for the continued troubles of those who faced the wrath of poisonous gas, escaped from Union Carbide, that engulfed Bhopal on that fateful day in December 1984. Well the country in question may have grown in stature, yet Anderson cannot be made accountable because he is American and no American lives were lost. It was India's fate, that's it.
What we care is what is the loss to Americans? If they come in Aeroplanes, we will carpet bomb them, the civilians, the women, the children and hunt till all our soldiers die. If they hit other people in other countries, we will preach patience, diplomacy etc. If they spill oil, spoil our coast line, hurt our tourism, cause damages to our people we will make them accountable and force them to pay. If they are responsible for some gas leakage, somewhere else in the world causing thousands of life, generations to suffer, well we will look the other way, and provide complete and total security to our men who are responsible. We make sure the concerned person is in no way disturbed.
If your own Neta's don't care for you, why should we care for you. Look around, everywhere & everyone, this is how this world is functioning. God has given two tongues for the powerful. Why to waste one? Go enjoy yourself and if possible get powerful. You can become one amongst us. Let's all doublespeak and rule the world.
I was checking BBC business website and the words "Why recovery can be bad for you - and recession good" under the title 'Recovery hurts' caught my attention. Intrigued, checked it to learn what the author says. After reading the article I was wondering, what would be the response of a person who lost his job in recession. This post resulted as a consequence of that thought.
In Recovery, government will cut populist measures, increase taxes, tighten money supply, demand picks up, prices start to climb and the overall inflation will rise its head again. Your disposable income will shrink. Cost of living will go up in a recovery. Cost of living in growth will be higher than cost of living in recession. So why recover? Why should we fight hard to recover? That's a funny thought. 
