End of Capitalism?

General Motors declared bankruptcy on June 1st, 2009. Yet another giant got sucked into the recession wave that the United States is in at the moment. GM will shed its Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab brands and cut loose more than 2,000 of its 6,000 U.S. dealerships by next year. That could result in more than 100,000 additional job losses if those dealerships are forced to close.  The employees, the retired and the stakeholders are obviously the ones who are worst hit in this crisis. GM will be yet another company that will receive a bail out from the government. Many white collar jobs are lost. More and more executives forced to work in restaurants they used to dine in, gas stations they used to visit to support their families. I know an architect who works  as concierge in an apartment complex. Many heart rending stories we hear on a day to day basis!

What does this mean to the US economy? Is this the end of capitalism where the government owns more than 60% of the company? It is interesting to see how capitalism fell prey to itself. Most companies today which are on the brink of collapse are taking the help of government to rise again. The ills of capitalism are slowly coming into picture. There are several other factors apart from just capitalism that are responsible for the financial mess US is in right now. War can be one of the many reasons why US is struggling. The other day in our university people were rallying against war in Iraq and Afghanistan not just because of the death of civilians and US soldiers in the war but also the amount of resources and cash being pumped into these wars which could have been used to generate jobs and improve the economy. Now US has also decided to help Pakistan to fight Taliban.This means giving monetary help to Pakistan.

India on the contrary can boast of a very stable economy. Except for periods of inflation where the consumers and suppliers are hit, India has never witnessed recession. There is no denying that the recession in US has hit the Indian IT companies. But the impact is negligible compared to the US markets. That may be because India is not solely relying on US for boosting its economy. India still depends on agriculture, manufacturing while making giant leaps in other industries. Global sourcing is not the major contributor of Indian economy. India, since the beginning, has embraced the positives of capitalism and socialism and discarded the evils of both.

Only time will decide the fate of many of the companies (Citi group, Chrysler, AIG, GM to name a few) that are seeking the help of government to pick the pieces and move on. This in turn will decide the fate of the bleeding US economy while the rest of the world must wait and watch if they will catch a cold while America sneezes.

 

Obama Obsession

Here I am sitting in Café Linx (Parktowne’s solution to get away from all the noise generated in the apartments) writing my second post for this blog. I come here to do my assignment and guess who caught my attention. None other than the President of the United States, Mr. Barack Obama! I am surprised Microsoft Word didn’t get his spelling updated in the word dictionary. I can’t say the whole world is obsessed with him as I would be generalizing. When I was in India, the Indian news channels wouldn’t stop campaigning for him! When I came here, I realized the obsession is probably a thousand times more. Obama managed to create a wave here and probably in most parts of the world. No wonder my roommates who chose to stay away from novels all their lives(fact or fiction) decided to buy a book on Obama’s life. It’s a totally different story that they eventually didn’t read a single page. They bought it as “The Obama” aura was all over.

Here are some of the Obama merchandise for you guys if you are interested. I haven’t done an extensive online research but there are these road-side shops, independence hall (Philadelphia), all malls where you can get his merchandise. Obama T-shirt, “YES WE CAN” t-shirts, Obama’s inaugural CDs, Obama caps, Obama’s pictures with his family and kids, Obama’s face printed on US flag, Obama’s magnet, Obama’s historic campaign CDs and what not. The newspaper on the day the election results were announced, giving millions of Americans the good news that Obama would lead the country, is selling for $15 in Independence Hall. Poor Michele Obama has to put with unnecessary media attention of people talking about her clothes and speculations about her having a third child as the couple hopes to have a son. I may have missed a lot of things but this will probably give you a good enough idea of crazy the country is about a politician.

The inaugural was crazier. I know of a few friends who drove to Washington D.C to watch the inaugural. I read in news about a woman who sold her ovaries for a pair of tickets to Obama’s inaugural. Temple University staff was all eyes on the inaugural speech. They were like “awwwwww” when Michele Obama walked along with her two daughters to hear daddy’s inaugural speech. They found it sweet when excited Obama stuttered during the oath. Some of them brought black and white television sets from home to watch the inaugural while some chose to sit in the lobby and watch the inaugural on LCD. A department played it on a large screen on the library. Clearly there was Obama all over.

India is a place where movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Rajnikanth, SRK etc are apotheosized and where politicians are almost always looked at with distrust, disrespect and disgust. Is this the east-west divide in the way people perceive people or the powerful Obama campaign (we have a case study on how he reached out to millions using technology as the medium of his campaign) that got the whole world stand up and take a look or is it the timing that did the magic for him? Only time will answer all these questions!

While I am tempted to leave the answers to the future, here are I am trying to reason out what really made Obama the person he is. America was a country that was looked at with awe for many years until senior Bush did some damage and later on junior Bush made the catastrophic and expensive mistakes. The economy went into doldrums. People were and still are losing jobs. Thousands of families shattered after the 9/11 and Iraq and Afghanistan war. Clearly the US was looking for a messiah of peace. And here he is doing all he can (or at least trying) to change the image of The United States.

While time will tell if he is as charismatic a leader as his speeches, America will continue to be obsessed and the rest of the world will watch the drama unfold closely. Oh by the way, I used the word Obama 21 times in this one page document of mine. How obsessed can I get!

 

India Everywhere!

It’s been a month since I arrived in the US and not a single blog post from me! This time it’s different. I have someone who will be authoring this blog along with me. It’s a relief for people who want to hear something different from what I write.

I have been dying to write but there is a vast emptiness in me accompanied by busy schedule of sleeping, cooking, and looking for job, going around new places, class preparation and the list goes on and on.

A lot has happened around the world in the last one and a half months ever since I left India. Obama swore in as the new president of the United States of America and Michelle Obama is believed to be pregnant now. Obama is really on a roll I must say. The inaugural was such madness. Everybody in the university was hooked on the Television sets. There were some faculty members who brought black and white television sets and plugged in cable connection to watch the inaugural. A few friends of mine actually went to Washington D.C to see the swearing in. The other major thing that happened in the last one and a half month that I was around here is the US Airways flight diving into the Hudson. Being scared to death is one thing and getting off the flight safely into freezing cold waters is another thing. Hats off to all those who came out of the close shave safely.

Big Indian news is that of the sinking of Satyam and its CEO Ramalinga Raju. The Indian entrepreneur who was looked at with awe now has to bite the dust keeping the stakeholders, employees and the company goodwill at risk.

Something that I actually wanted to share is about a course that I am taking “Management Information Systems”. Don’t worry I am not going bore you about the subject. It’s a video that my professor played. It’s the video of Thomas Friedman on his book “The World is Flat”. The title and the origin of the book is attributed to Nandan Nilakeni, the Co-Chairman of Infosys. I kind of felt proud when Friedman talks of Nilakeni, Bangalore etc. India really has made a place for itself in the global market. I feel happy being part of a country that is so widely talked about for all good reasons. Here is the video of the great Friedman talk!

What is all the more interesting is that the Professor who said the Friedman theory is exaggerated or “the world is not flat” is an Indian from Harvard Business School, Pankaj Ghemawat.

I met an American woman who is doing her under graduation in Anthropology. In my brief conversation with her, she took out an Indian book (I am not very sure of the title) that she is reading currently. She opened a page and pointed out a village name and asked me if I knew of the village. Not surprisingly I didn’t have a clue. Then she takes out a map and points out to West Bengal. I was really amazed at the woman’s enthusiasm to learn about India. She wants to visit India and I gave her (hopefully) the right contacts to study in India.

In my international orientation, a Japanese lady asked me if I was from Chennai or Bangalore or Hyderabad when I told her I am from southern India. She goes on to say that Bangalore has pleasant weather and Chennai has sultry weather. She said she has never visited the country but heard from so many people. I was amazed at her knowledge of India and I kind of felt shallow because I don’t really know much about Japan except that its capital city is Tokyo and Japanese survive on sea food.

I went shopping to Macys and a volunteer who was a Vietnam War veteran said to me “Phir Milenge”. A Nigerian class mate of mine said Namaste when I said I am an Indian. A Columbian friend of mine loves Indian food and ate Indian curries when she was in London.

The bottom line is India is everywhere and every time I come across someone who talks of India, I am reminded of how proud I am being an Indian!