Does every solution create a problem?

Yes you read it RIGHT. The question asks  – Does every solution create a problem.

Let us go back to the 1970s and 1980s when our gen was in college. We were told “if you were in the USA the day you graduate 4 banks will be chasing you to give you a credit card and a car loan”. We thought “Wow…how great would that be”.

In the 1960s to buy a house you needed to get 7 people along with you, identify some land, take a loan and build a building. INDIVIDUAL home loans was not considered at all. It was always a group.

Take the situation now. When you are in college banks start chasing you. A home loan is so easily available. Getting a vehicle loan is child’s play.

Once the banks finish lending or giving credit cards to people, their greed increases. They need 30% growth. So the second card, the second car loan, the second home loan, the loans to people who do not deserve it. The risk of loan giving increases. More money is pumped into the business.

Suddenly you realise that Rs. 400,000 crores has been pumped into the construction / housing business.

WHAT DOES THIS DO? It raises prices of houses.

What does car loan do? Everybody buys a car, and the public transport suffers.

Not at all sure whether the Western and American way of destroying public transport to grow private transport is A SENSIBLE way to grow!

When you go to a hospital to be treated they ask you: “Are you covered by health insurance?’ – then they inflate the bill. What does this do? It increases costs, and therefore it increases the premium FOR EVERYBODY in the next year. Again the nice solution called medical insurance is brilliantly manipulated to make it very complicated.

Now in the BFSI space, the term plan goes out, the ULIPs come in. Banks want 30% yoy growth. So life insurance which was a nice product is padded up so bad that you have no clue what you are buying.

New professions are born. One of them is called “Financial Planning”. If you see the kind of people in that ‘profession’ YOU WILL BE SHOCKED. They have no clue of markets, law, personal finance, but have some cookie cutter solutions.

The buyer in many cases would have been much better off without the services of a financial planner. Now this profession has to grow at 40% – so soon you will find ‘specialists’. They will tell you how to plan for your life, for your education, for marriage, death, ….etc.

Seriously, we do need a decent financial planner, but when I hear the charges, I keep wondering…..

So ask yourself one question: Is Rs. 35,000 better spent elsewhere?

The professional of course justifies it saying “when there is a willing buyer am I wrong in charging that much?”

I do not need to answer both these questions. YOU need to.