Last week did cheating get legalised or has it always been legal?

Well if you are in any industry you see two faces (actually more, but for this article 2 will suffice). One face is by the regulators and the powerful people in the industry and the other one is by the weaker ones. The powerful people create rules and make products which are designed to be mis-sold. The compensation (say in case of ULIP) has always been so front ended that mis-selling is a product design fault. THE WHOLE INDUSTRY knows it. If you told them then they said “I know it Subra, but ….others are doing it”. Also there is too much of Private Equity/ private investors pressure.

Then the weaker guys who are given products, prices, targets and ‘schemes’. The powerful people then parrot 2 things:

“Mis-selling is wrong, and rebating is wrong.”

Both happen and happen brazenly. Other than the regulator and the finance minister everybody knows it. When a mis-seller in Sikkim is caught he is removed as an agent. The future premium from him Rs. 4000. When a mis-seller from Mumbai is caught there are 2 ways of dealing with him. If he is big, make his wife an agent. If he is small, remove him as an agent and take him as a consultant. Even if he is removed there is no way of returning the premium that he has collected till date.

This article was about goal keeper Manuel Neuer. He cheated. Well in the England vs. Germany match when the English Midfielder scored – the ball was clearly over the line- Frank Lampard would have been able to see it perhaps. The linesman or the referee did not. Football does not use technology. The worst thing is just like the bigwigs of the financial service industry. They boast about numbers got through cheating. Cheating the customers. One senior executive said the customers deserve to be cheated (well a point of view, is it not?).

The worst thing is Neuer said “I fooled the refree…..” I think that says it all. The days of Adam Gilchrist or a Gundappa Vishwanath or a Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi are over.

Cheating is ok, it has been legalised, and worse, you can boast about it. Mera Bharat Mahan.