I was reading the Economic Times this morning…all I could see was the word – loss. Company X posts net loss of Z billion dollars, company M running at a loss of J percent and is filing for bankruptcy, …and so on and so forth. It seems a bunch of bankers definitely paid a lot of money for an education they definitely made absolutely no use of. I understand if one makes a few mistakes here and there, but how dumb could you be that despite you “Harvard” education…you did not see the fall coming. Did that tiny little brain of yours not tell you to stop investing at some point in time? And which idiot gives property to people with no job or probability of getting a job?
I remember a dialogue from Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon tells a certain fellow, “See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don't do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library". And I want to say the same thing to every banker who’s successfully screwed the world over.
It was only over the weekend that when I saw a documentary on the BBC that I realized how everything is crashing because a few nincompoops did not know to read the signs and do the math from their standard documents in ‘How to be a Banker’. Here is a classic example, with markets crashing world over, people have tightened their belts. So small scale handicrafts industry are suffering. During Diwali, many people purchase fancy diyas made out of mud and clay. With no one willing to buy, the shops selling those are not willing to buy any from the craftsmen, which results in the craftsmen selling less at a time when they are expected to make money. With no money, his children will be pulled out of school resulting.
Incompetent over educated Wall Street banker = poor distraught potter’s children.
With people not buying cars, the car manufacturers run at a loss. Hence production is kept on hold. Which means less steel is being bought. Lowered steel purchase results in lowered output and hence lowered need for steel workers. Lowered need results in a high number of lay offs. Steel workers being laid off, results in massive unemployment which is bad for any country. No job means no salary for the steel worker, which results in him buying less of basic commodities like grains and fruit. Lowered purchasing of grains and stuff results in grocery stores not willing to buy from the farmer, until existing stocks are used. This results in the farmer not being able to sell his produce. This escalates into him not having the money to buy new tools for farming. This again results in lowered need for production of farming equipment which results in people in the manufacturing sector being laid off. This vicious cycle goes on and on and on.
Incompetent over educated Wall Street banker = chaos.
The point of all this is simple. Know your job, know it well and do it well. Even if you are the most insignificant person in the company, you are still part of the company and are there for a reason. And if you have the honour of joining a prestigious institute, and get the chance to pay a lot of money for rubbish you may never use in your life, please use your brains. There is a reason you get paid so much money after completing these courses. To make world changing decisions. For one minute do not believe that you can relax. If you mess up, people will suffer, people will die, the world will end. You could be the cause of Armageddon.
PS: One might wonder why this sudden outburst. They cut my budget at the office by half. I am stark raving mad right now and don’t like it one bit.
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