Perspective...

The ExpertDabbler, shared an article over the weekend. He has consistently shared interesting and thought provoking stuff.. (so that credit goes to PK).

After reading through the article, realized a few things which made me go WTF?

There are people who live among us, who realize what it means to live frugally only when they are in dire straits.

As a household with both adults working (and another adult who comes and helps us out at least 6 months a year with the kids, thereby enabling us to work harder 6 months a year) we currently do a lot of the things that are featured in the article and have been for as long as we can remember.

a. we always use the public library for books, CD's, DVD's etc. True that we have a blockbuster mail order account where we pay under 8 bucks a month to watch newer movies, but by far the biggest movie expense for us is watching Desi movies in the local theater with friends or family. Reliance has pretty much bought all local theaters and they have established a price monopoly for Indian movies screened locally. (If only someone could break that or they realize their ticket prices are high.. or Blockbuster/Netflix/Youtube start online streaming of new releases for lower prices?.. anyways back to topic)

b. we always pack our lunch. Me 98% of the time and San 95% of the time. We eat outside as a family once every week at Bhavikas for <12 bucks for all 5 of us! Sometimes we go outside (maybe once a month) and splurge 40$ at Saravana Bhavan or the likes of it.. but that is usually a once a month affair these days.

c. Used to Bike where possible (or at least tried to) till the accident. Now it is going to be a slow start again. We don't have fancy SUV's. We buy cars that we know will last us at least 10+ years and still have decent fuel efficiency. Not exactly your Prius buyer but then again, we just decide to get as fuel efficient as the wallet would permit.

d. We still use coupons where possible and always do our homework before buying things.. sometimes we wait for years to buy things. Almost all our clothes shopping is done on India trips (granted everyone cannot do that, but we offset the cost of the flight tickets by shopping for a year/two worth of clothes).

e. we always take our kids to the local parks to play. At the most it is paying 6$ in parking for the entire day to visit any of the California state parks for a full day of fun, be it a beach, a hike with waterfalls, or just a plain picnic on a bench with home cooked food under some really tall old trees.

The thing that really hit me was:

1. We are not on the street. We have a huge debt on the house, but we made an investment and barring some natural disaster, the return will be there or least it will be a break even situation, but we don't act in a way that suggests richness.

2. After reading this article I started thinking "Wow, people have to lose their jobs to have our lifestyle ?!" So, what do they live like when they have jobs? How can some folks live a lifestyle that their paychecks do not support, for months, for years ? How is that even possible? How many people should have been doing that for how long for reality to come crashing down the way it has for all of us?

What would our family lose in terms of lifestyle if our jobs go?

We will be the same folks.. in a smaller place!

The library will still be there

The parks routine will not change

Biking will become a happy norm

Thayir(yogurt) or rasam(gravy) saadam (rice) in the lunch box will be replaced with more of the same except, there will be no lunch box..

It will be difficult to adjust to living with shared walls..We have the experience from four years ago. Then we moved to this house and during construction all five of us lived in one room for 5 months. Somehow the apartment experience was like a preview and preparation for the one room experience and we made it through.

The big surprise during both the apartment living and the single room living amid construction efforts was the way the kids reacted to all of this. As a child we(me, brother, sister and parents) lived through asbestos sheet roofed rooms in a house with a window facing the Cemetary for years. The bathroom was outside the house. So adjusting to something less is not a shock for me.

Jr. and the little did not have any issues with living in smaller spaces. In fact Jr. was the happiest when we were in that apartment because she found so many kids in that place to play with in the evening after coming back from school. There is a certain happiness to living in an apartment complex if you can adjust and calibrate your noise levels with the environment and kids being kids will adapt.

Little wonder then that thayir saadam lunchers and Chinese buddies(who bring their own fried rice in their Tiffin boxes) will have to share the fact that there is nothing wrong with using public facilities, spending responsibly, watching your bills and balancing your books and trying to teach your kids a thing or two from your life's experiences...

Who knew growing up in a poor/ lower middle class family for most of your early childhood could come in very handy later in life?


It is all karma, neh?



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Explaining the economy

How does one explain the economy to a four year old?

We grew up in a poor household and as kids our understanding of the economy was simply:

"There are people with a lot more money than us we have to interact with every day. We are not rich. But it is okay. All our relatives and friends love us and we have no dearth of fun"

Over time we kind of learned (we weren't necessarily taught openly) to understand what our parents could provide for us as a default, what was pushing them to their limit, what was an extravagance for the household, etc. and would not bother to ask them for things that they might want to give us but cannot. The few times we did, we did with a lot of regret knowing the pain it would cause them.

The setting for the little one, is a lot different from the setting for me. Even Jr. understands things to an extent because we were going through a tough time when she was four, when the little one was just born and were moving from place to place and living in one room for almost 6 months.

The little one always "needs" things and "wants" things. She always compares with her sister or friends and is very temperamental, but she is also a very smart kid.

Earlier today, I gave her the usual speech about work, money, job, jobless people, expense, buying, spending, responsibility, etc. etc.

She listened to it patiently as though she cared and still wanted to get new shoes because her shoes are too tight, which is typical of four year olds because they change shoe sizes every 6 months! (and she IS going to get a new shoe).

Told her that she should listen to me and get the shoes Daddy picks for her.

She promptly ran away from me, looked at her mom and goes

"don't ask appa to buy me a shoe for 10 dollars okay.. just ask him to buy me a shoe that is one dollar!"

We both burst out laughing.

If only it was that simple!


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Recycling

With an injured foot and no doctor appointment in sight, was working from home this morning.

The kids who do not have school the whole of this week were overjoyed that I was in the house, but saddened by the fact that daddy was locked inside a room and was in phone meetings for the entire morning.

At noon, Jr. and the little one were already fed and ready to go for their naptime.

LO : Daddy please stay at home. Don't go to office. If you are home I will huggie you more!
Me : Thanks da kuttyma, but I have to go to office. Only then I will get money.
Jr.: What if we give you money?
LO : Yeah. We will give you money. Then you can stay at home.
Me : Where do you guys have money?
Jr.: We have been saving the money and coins that mommy and grandma gave us!

They were so sweet. They gave up all the money they had in two ziploc bags, all 2 dollars and 43 cents of it!

Didn't have the heart to tell them "No, I don't want your money" or "it takes a lot more money for me to stay home with you guys".. and while all this was going through my mind Jr. chips in with

"Appa, if we keep giving you the money you give to us, then you don't have to go to work!"

Now, that sentence sent me reeling. According to Madras paati, aka my mom, some astrologer did predict that Jr. will become an accountant when she grows up. Chances are she is going to become one, and she will play an important part in the 2034 recession, which will be the biggest recession in recorded history!

With this concept of giving the same money back and forth multiple times, so many daddy's are already home permanently. So decided to go into a lecture on economics, job, money, time, daddy, kids, love etc. etc. and the kids gave me one glassy eyed look and ran away to grandma saying

"Paati, please come nap with us!"

Daddy escaped!


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Senthilian economics

You have all heard of terms like Keynesian economics and the likes, but what in Goundamani's name is Senthilian economics?

Well, it is a sign of the times!
This video (with subtitles!), explains how the United States got the world in this mess!

Senthil shows one banana and accounts for two. The people who "created" wealth in the United States (the same ones who are getting the millions in bonuses for creating said wealth) used one dollar and accounted for it 30 times!

Chances are they learnt the trick from watching this video..

Some smoke, lot of mirrors, one buck reflected thirty times across multiple mirrors..

The bonuses for the guys who sell one dollar with all those mirrors is the real dollar!

We live in funny times.


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We are like that only !

This phrase is more popular in India.

Do not know if some famous Indian head honcho said this and it became some kind of classic quote, so readers please provide a link to the origin of "We are like that only!", if you have it.

Now, this is used usually in a defensive state, as in "dont tell us how we are doing, dont complain about how we run things, etc. etc." and it ends with "we are like that only!".

It is high time Americans adopted the phrase.

Why?

The US economy is going through its worst time
Taxpayers are going to be taxed more with all bailouts
Money is literally being pumped in to the same channels which got the US in this mess and

While all this goes on two news items today catch my ears:

1. Citibank gives bonuses to employees in the form of cards with $1,000 to $3,000 loaded in them!

2. American express decides to offer 300 bucks to a bunch of American express card holders, if they would close their credit card account and pay their bills.

Here is the funny part according to what I heard on the radio.

Let us say, you have $ 500 left in your amex Card. Now you transfer the balance to another credit card, thereby essentially paying off the Amex card, you get $ 300 from Amex!

You just made 300 bucks courtesy of some bailout money for which guys like me are busting everything they got working 18 hours a day, 6 days a week! It is however sad that you are still in debt by 200 bucks.

If you happened to transfer your balance to Citibank, the guy who gave you that credit card offer will get another bonus for his brilliant ability to get "more business" and they will give him another $3,000 gift card, courtesy of more of taxpayer money. I will probably have to work 18 hours a day all seven days a week!

If the person whose account Amex is trying to close is as fiscally responsible like I expect him to be (I am literally rolling on the floor laughing at my own sarcasm with happy and sad tears), he/she will figure out a way to transfer the balance do some juggling and get a perpetual payout machinery.

Before you know it, a couple of more billion dollars will be syphoned out of the system.

At that point I will be working 27 hours a day nine days a week!

Hi, if you think that cannot happen, think again. There is no bottoming out of this crisis. The next bailout to bailout the previous bailout will be approximately 10 Trillion dollars and it will involve bailing out rotten banks, loan brokers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, wall street firms, insurance agents, credit card companies, etc. etc.


What to do?

We are like that only!


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Local economy

Just before going to Seattle, we had visited 3 of the local malls in the south bay here to shop for gifts and they were all downright gloomy. Not many people, not many bags, half lit malls (to save electricity?).

The malls in Seattle were brimming with people. Happy people, who were shopping after Christmas, with lots of bags in their hands. Decked out malls that screamed "happy"!

The contrast was too obvious.
















It almost appeared as though Seattle had not yet seen the job slump that has hit the bay area.

This mornings news mentioned lots of job losses in the Seattle area and it made me feel sad. They are going to see what we see and it is not a pleasant sight!

Hope that this downturn gets reversed soon.

A lot of friends have forwarded me a funny news item. Apparently the Porn industry wants a 5 billion dollar bailout !!!

Looks like everyone wants a bailout of sorts. Reminds me of how at one point in TamilNadu (when we were in high school) 90% or more of the population was eligible to be called a Scheduled caste/ Scheduled Tribe/ Backward Caste / Most Backward Caste or Other Backward Caste. How could 9/10 people be backward? As a percentile that didn't even make any sense!

Vividly remember, going to Anna University to drop off our DOTE application forms with two numbers on the top of the application. There were piles of applications on the floor and you would shudder when you saw your application getting dropped in the forward caste pile!

Today eveyrone in the US is part of some group or other that has been hit and need some rescue or protection ...Banks, Securities, Insurance folks, Car Makers, Porn makers...

The entire post can be summarized in one word


Kaliyugam!


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My blood boils

When seeing things like this...

Happened to see a one line ad. above my email list on gmail.

It simply said

"Unemployment Grant Kit - Unemployment-Grants.com - $30,000 in Unemployment Grants. Billions Available. Never Repay!"

Free money folks! Free money... so some poor tax paying schmuck like me can make that money free!


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Reviving the economy

Okay, did promise readers no more depressing posts on economy related stuff, especially on Monday mornings.

This post is not to depress. It is more of a "take note of this!" post!

We are currently seeing a viscious cycle where technology companies are having problems because the funding is being released after a lot more scrutiny than before. The time lag for this scrutiny, has a ripple effect on companies trying to develop new technology and or support technology development.

In other words, if you are looking for some high tech gadget to hit your local Fry's electronics store that one ups last years version, chances are, it is going to be slow going.

Now, one can always say "putting food on the table is more important than getting the next Wii". True, no argument there! But the next generation Wii, actually means putting food on the table for lots of folks, and it goes beyond the latest in wifi or the latest in the race for smaller, faster, cheaper!

Innovation feeds innovation in many ways. People who work on one technology pave the way for many others. A friend of mine who works at Fermi lab showed me 12 years ago that a lot of commercially available technology in appliances, software etc. were part of tools developed to fix issues in building the particle colliders, from soldering and welding technology, superconductors, tcl-tk, the WWW, etc.etc. I saw how a project on missile nose cone material translated to state of the art lightweight bicycles!

The situation with housing, took down the economy. Everyone is now cautious with their money, including the banks who are watching their own brethren with ever increasing detail and this goes way beyond the housing sector now.

All that said, it is imperative that tech companies are not starved of their sustenance.

Technology development in the USA has always had an edge over the rest of the world. The gaps are coming down with the advent of China and India coming up fast on manufacturing and computer realted fields over the last few years. In a lot of ways they are coming up because of the support from the American Industry, or joint collaborations which send technology over there. Once the seed is planted, it just grows and grows.

It has always been my belief and experience that American jobs create international jobs. Someone here comes up with some cool technology and by the time it gets made and sold across the globe people from many countries get employed!

The exact number may be in the balance right now, but saving high tech will definitely do its part in reviving this economy!

Hope the new Obama-Biden transition team does something about this, NOW!


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Backyard Hues

Backyard blues turned to backyard hues, thanks to the camera, the sun coming out just after a drizzle and getting me back to thinking

Yep. Tommorrow brings a new beginning and a new day!



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