--- On Thu, 12/11/08, kirit patel <kenco00@hotmail.com> wrote:
From: kirit patel <kenco00@hotmail.com>
Subject: FW: The Global Financial Crisis
To: hbhulabhai@gmail.com, kishdesaiuk@yahoo.com, mkpandya2000@yahoo.com
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 11:29 AM
KEN PATEL 
To: kenco00@hotmail. com; amitpatel15@gmail.com; barkat@queensway.com
Subject: Fwd: The Global Financial Crisis
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:11:03 -0500
From: kvp555@aol.com
(Complete with Denis' Gujarati translation)
>
> The Global Financial Crisis....and....The Indian Viewpoint....
>
> I happened to run in to Nanubhai on Dalal Street. He was eating Khaman
> Dhokla in a farsan shop.
>
> 'Kame cho, Nanubhai?' (how are you Nanubhai)
>
> 'Saru che.' (I'm fine)
>
> He was looking glum but gestured me to join him.
> As I bit into the tasty dhokla with tangy chutney on the Friday
> afternoon, which was fast turning into a 'Manic Friday' as per Dalal
> Street lingo, he was staring at the bull near the entrance, which
> overnight had become a Russian bear hugging everybody that passed the
> Street.
>
> Nanubhai is a well-respected Dalal Street dada with an answer to every
> shareholder's query.
>
> 'What went wrong with Lehman Brothers?' I asked.
>
> 'Lots of things. If the founder brothers, Henry, Emanuel and Mayer were
> alive this wouldn't have happened. Lehman Brothers were more than a
> 150-year-old company. But yet, it had no Lehman in the company. Such a
> situation can never happen in India.'
>
> 'Are you trying to tell me an Indian would have handled this differently?'
>
> 'Bilkul. (certainly) If it was an Indian firm, Lehman Brothers would have fought as
> soon as their father died and divided in to three companies. They would
> have diversified into clothing, polystyrene, petrochemicals, vegetables,
> movie making, telecom, drilling oil, mobile phones, retailing, books,
> spectacles, gyms, wellness. In short, anything and everything under the
> sun. They would have made money for themselves and their shareholders.'
>
> 'But when there is massive failure there would be no option but to file
> for bankruptcy?'
>
> 'Fail-wail chance hi nahin! (fail - no chance) Even if they encounter tough times, they
> would have friends like Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh to bail them out.
> They could finish off competition by befriending the finance minister and
> getting duties levied on the imports of competition. They would fund and
> befriend ruling parties. Unfortunately for Lehman Brothers in 2008,
> without a Lehman on the board or some Indian business brothers at the top,
> they couldn't open the survival kit to stay afloat.'
>
> As we were sipping double kadak chai, I asked: 'Did anybody anticipate
> this global meltdown?'
>
> 'Anticipate? Mazak chodo! (leave it out) I will tell you something. America has some
> 45 Nobel laureates in economics from 1970. From 2000 alone there are 15
> Nobel laureates in econometrics sitting on company boards, treasury
> benches and in places like Harvard, Stanford etc. Kisiko kuch patha nahin
> tha! (Nobody understood 'nuffin' mate) How come none of these had any inkling to the disaster awaiting the
> banking circles all over the world? Even the finance ministers of G-7
> talked of strong 'fundamentals' of world economy around this time last
> year! Two months back the only topic they were discussing was the rise in
> oil prices.'
>
> 'What will happen if it goes all on like this?'
>
> 'Some American economist will study this, write a new a theory and get
> Nobel Prize next year, dekhna.(watch) Seriously, they forgot things like
> control, double check, systems-in-place etc. and brought in vague words
> like Subprimes to give loans left, right and centre.'
>
> 'What will happen to the Indian market?'
>
> 'It's already having the Lehman Brothers' effect. Our finance minister
> seems to like the figure 60,000. While presenting the budget earlier in
> the year he pledged Rs 60,000 crore to write off loans given to farmers.
> Now he is pumping Rs 60,000 crore to help out the banks! I don't know
> what he will do next. He is again from Harvard!'
>
> 'What is the lesson to be learnt from the Lehman Brothers' episode?' I
> asked as we were leaving.
>
> Nanubhai took a spoonful of saunf and said: 'You know, we have an old
> elementary rule for keeping hisab-kithab (account books) . Divide a page into 'Left' and
> 'Right' with a line in the middle to denote Debit and Credit. In case of
> LB, as somebody said, nothing was right in the 'Left' and nothing was left
> in the 'Right', concluded Nanubhai.
>
I hope you enjoyed that. Regards, The Menace
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