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July 29, 2008

My Kids and Me ! Bonding with a Twist !

I’ve got three Masters….my wife and my two kids, an eighteen year old son and a soon to be thirteen daughter

My Sensitive Eighteen Year old Son yet has to collect his College ID in the Second month of the New Yearhis day begins after Noon….. and the Only time he cuddles up is when he wants the Car or his Pocket Money….. His excuse for Sleeping like Kumbhkarna… “Dad, as you soulfully say, “Hold on to your Dreams !” I need to continue sleeping to do this”

It took Aamir Khan’s new movie, “Jaane tu…ne janne na” to reveal to me how this India’s Golden young Generation “Chill”…….Freedom without Responsibility, I say…..How to get your grown up son to get responsible ?….I tell him he’ll get the car sometimes and his pocket money only if he produces the College ID Card !…… It’s two weeks since he’s asked for Money… as for the Car, he takes his chances !…. He’s just started his articles towards CA Studies.. and I must confess he passed his CPT and got into a top CA Firm without my help…so there’s yet some hope for him…he’s into guitaring too past few years encouraged by “Vayu’s” lead guitarist… over six foot tall and with some strength… kneads my spine brilliantly to destress me… nothing is free… he gets the car that day ! I should be forewarned ! that there’s a lot of kneading going on these days!  

Ah ! And my soon to be thirteen daughter ? she’s so hyper active… she feels that on a Sunday by 9 am if we have not done something the day is wasted ! ….. she’s wholesale into Karate (Should get her Black Belt this December), Football (School Team GoalKeeper), Gymnastics (Two Hours of Rigid Practise daily )…. but the reason I write about her on my blog is that I’ve been sitting with her for five to six hours every night till nearly 2 am  past two nights to chase out last minute demons she suddenly showed when attacking her Science and Social Studies Books… her first term exams are on… She’s a Honours student… yet it’s been a revelation…she overestimated her ability to cope with last day studying… and her determined attitude did not allow her to study by exception… in that she did not want to leave out anything…..so here I was !… Re-learning Density, Mass and Volume and how to measure Irregular Solids and that it was Sher Shah Suri who literally “coined” the term “Rupee” and that Akbar had over 300 wives but discouraged “Polygamy”! and that Amazon Jungle has One third of the World’s trees and is responsible for half of the Oxygen in the Air… if they die .. we die !…… This Bonding cannot be had for the Love of Money !… so profusely thankful is she that I’ve received more hugs in the past two nights than in the past two months… Oh! and when I scolded her for leaving studying for Exams to the last miniute she cheekily tells me “Look at it this way Dad !I won’t bother you for the next six months now!”   read more

RBI Announces Rate Hikes to Curb Inflation… It’s neither in Control of Inflation nor itself as Policy leaks ahead of Announcement ! !

Dr Y Venugopal Reddy, Governor, RBI, today presented the First Quarter Review of Annual Statement on Monetary Policy for the Year 2008-09

http://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=18886

RBI has raised the repo rate by 0.5% to 9% and the Cash Reserve Ratio by 0.25% to 9% to curb Inlation

This was inevitable with Inflation trying to cross 12%…. Expect some more rate hikes in August too!

But what struck me a little amusing is this…….

The Reality  is that Inflation is because of the runaway spiral in Commodity Prices, notable that of Crude Oil… Oil raced away from US $ 70 in Feb 2008 to double past US $ 140 a few weeks ago

The Reality  is also that RBI has simply no control on Inflation as it has no control on Oil prices!….. It can merely tinker with rates to match Inflation… This is has done at the cost of Growth rates

The Reality is also that Mr Reddy had to apologise to the Media for  wrongly blaming it for leaking out the Policy earlier than he had announced It !…. Their inquiry showed that the culprit was the Web Manager who released the soft copy half an hour earlier than Noon when he made the Announcement

The Reality is that neither is RBI in control of Inflation nor is it in Control of Secured Release of Important Information… the leak gives an unfair advantage to the reader and with the Sensex closing 558 points lower today there indeed was some opportunity there to be exploited

As always, the common man will get the short drift…. not only has he got to combat High Inflation… but also that he finds himself in an unreal situation which may last a year atleast where the real rate of Interest on his Deposits is negative…. in that he gets 7.5% -9.6% (Upward hike likely) on his Deposits and just 3.5% on his Savings Account while Inflation is expected to remain in double digits till next year… If he has to Borrow, the bank may not extend credit as it has been reigned in by RBI who has set even tighter limits for banks advances… even if the bank did lend the Interest rate would be leaning towards 18%….. The Prime Lending rate is 13.25% and a “BBB” rated Corporate would have to bear a 16% to 17% Interest rate…. and the Common Man’s rating is lower than “BBB”

The Common Man seems to have no option really…the only rational choice in his mind would be to protect the Principle with a Fixed Deposit in a Good Bank even if the real rate is negative… Cash is non productive ….. and as for Equity, it has slashed and chopped off so much wealth this year that even wild horses would not drag the Common Man back to Equity read more

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