Here is LIC trying to sell a ulip plan for creating wealth. Then Mr. Pranab Mukherjee calls up and says “buy ntpc @ 214” so Lic says..ok sir. Wealth for whom? Govt of India? UNit holder? And what is IRDA doing this. Let us say if such a deal was done by Tata, Birla, Reliance, […]
The Government of USA provided bank guarantees and actual bail out cash to the financial services system when they were teetering on the verge of collapse. Now happily for every one the warrants are in the money. This means if the government sells the warrants it can make some decent money – nowhere near enough […]
Frankly this is not a ‘how to sell life insurance or mutual fund’ tutorial but just a note on how desperate the industry is to sell! ALL the life insurance companies – Aviva, Hdfc Standard Life, Icici Prudential, Tata AIG, Birla Sunlife, Max New York Life, Reliance, Kotak, – have called me at least 10 […]
Banks lending in rural India is a great thing to have happened. Most people who borrow are genuine -but there are some politically supported borrowers too. The main reason why a person in India (or in any part of the world too!) repays the loan is ‘because it is the right thing to do’. This […]
Authentic customer statement. Of course I would not have been surprised or shocked if my driver or maid servant had made this statement. It was made by a bureaucrat – obviously by now you know in which ministry! Do not wish to talk about this person, but it is really amazing how the people who […]
Once when Brezhnev was taking his mother around his castle, showing off his cars and swimming pool, his mother asked him “Son, what if the Reds came back?” Or so goes a story. If you think there have been excesses in the American economy, please re-think. Top executives at Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG (which […]
One question on the top of everybody’s mind is of course “When will the markets recover?”. That is not just a difficult question to answer, but at best is a wild guess. However, the fun of prediction is to occasionally get it right! The market is a cruel barometer of corporate performance. In the preceding […]