It is all about money, honey.
I always liked to use this line “It requires a complicated mind to think of simple things”. Of course one needs to add that a thing is simple does not mean it is easy to do. Like giving up smoking, or if you are a pace bowler bowling on or around the off stump. Look at the difference between McGrath and Ajit Agarkar.
Similarly getting rich is about a rich mindset. Like realising the power of small numbers. Like making a choice between a narial pani (coconut water) and a coffee at Barista (Cafe Coffee Day for the hoi polloi?). For example if you smoke cigarettes worth Rs. 80 a day, over 30 years you have STOLEN Rs. 4 crores from your retirement plan (of course if you smoke that much you may not need a retirement plan, but think of your wife and kids). Or a Barista coffee @ Rs. 100 a day could be stealing you off a similar amount.
I am not a commie pig as an American would like to call me..but the health (and wealth) damage that we are doing to ourself is immense. The amount of maida, corn, sugar water, chewing gum, salt, other chemicals that we are buying at super inflated prices, the amount of management fees we pay to American banks and American funds, the usurious rates at which we borrow from the same banks…is mind boggling.
Long live America. LOng live subprime. For most American banks the only hope of recovering from the subprime losses is by aggressive selling to Indians. Long live Indians – especially if they are named Vikram Pandit!
Ravinder Makhaik
Commie or not, simple things are hard to arrive at. As the saying goes ‘plain common sense is not very common.
Subramoney, the problem coming up is about style statements, public image and other pseudo stuff as one moves up in the economic metered social ladder.
The spending, banking, living and all that goes with money need not necessarily match; should appeal to common sense.
But the ego, feels insulted and demands respect, position according to the materialistic wealth one has.
As the world flattens, other economies rise and the subprime crisis coupled with rising oil prices erodes American wealth, common sense will finally dawn about simple living.
Simplicity will also make lesser demands of earths resources and help the cause of environment conservation.
subra1221
i tell my investor friends that you know a market has peaked when fund managers buy yachts. I actually found a fund manager buy a yacht – forget the cost of the yacht, it costs about Rs. 5k to keep it running for ONE hour. Is this opulence the end of the bull run?
Ravinder Makhaik
Thats an interesting observation and hard to interpret.
All the noise emanating from TV market channels and others is – stay invested – the bull run in India is going to last a while (Some say 10 Years).
But if a Fund manager does not recall at what price he bought a yacht, makes one circumspect.
Has my (not sure about your) money gone to fund his luxury?
And is the game over for me!
subra1221
Sir there is a major problem. It is very difficult to make a person understand something, especially if his living depended on his not understanding that thing. So a fund manager cannot say “market is fully priced”. He will say there is a good chance that markets will come down, but there is enough alpha in the market for a fund manager to exploit. God save the small investor.