Euphemism, Positive spin, etc.

Euphemism, positive spin, etc - I don’t know what others think about them but to me the mean only one thing. They serve the exact opposite purpose of what they are intended in the first place. In some cases ‘euphemism’ serves as euphemism of hypocrisy, which always will be despicable.

Last year I saw one movie (In Good Company), and this issue was also highlighted in that. In that moving the term of sacking employees was “letting go”. I don’t understand how the term “fired” or “letting go” means any different for whom it is used? Worse to me, the term “letting go” will add insult to injury. (God forbid it though)

‘Positive spin’ is no less offending. For example – if your internet service provider (ISP) doubles the charge and also increased by the speed even by 10%, will address the letter to you as “Congratulations, your internet speed has been increased”. Only later in the letter will be mentioned that price has been increased as well! It does not matter that your previous speed of 1Mbps was more than sufficient for you and you don’t need any faster than it.

One of the worst kinds of ‘euphemism’ I got from my Bank. I think it was last year. I received a letter from them saying that “they will lower the interest rate from 0.40% percent to 0.15% from next quarter”. The letter mentioned that if you don’t agree to this then please fill the attached feedback form and mail in the “postage pre-paid envelop”. I thought it was good for them to ask for feedback. Also I was happy that the letter was in English for me. I proceeded to the feedback form and then I saw the later half of the page. It said that when we receive this feedback form we will close your account!
Was that a feedback form? That was simply notice of discontinuation of account. Who will term it as feedback form? I guess, I will have to hand the award for the best positive spin to my dear bank. I should have sent a letter to them saying “Thanks, I never knew you were paying any interest to me”.

This is not limited to official communications and diplomacy. You will find this euphemism and positive spin even in personal relationships. It is more hurting in this domain. I don’t know why people do it? Do they think the intended recipient will not get the real meaning? I bet, everyone gets and it is result is severe than if stated in simple and straight terms. Everyone in this world appreciates honesty, however blunt it might be. Euphemism, positive spin, etc might save an awkward moment or two for the time being, but it will have more serious consequences than otherwise. In fact in impersonal matters, the usage of euphemism or positive spin can lead to personal animosity. In personal matters it might one more derogatory adjective to the persona of the user.

So cut back on euphemism. I love blunt honesty anyday.

Lordi celebratory gig (Helsinki)

It was one of the largest gatherings I have seen in Helsinki in the past two years. The occasion was the celebratory gig of the Lordi – the monster costumed, heavy metal rock band of Finland. The crowd had gathered in the market square for the free rock concert to savour the victory of Lordi in the Eurovision 2006. Finland has won the contest for the first time in 51 year history of Eurovision which was held this year in Athens, Greece. It is a competition where bands from European countries perform and people vote. The rock band Lordi, which aims for fusion of horror movies and rock music, scored the highest point ever.

By coincidence last evening I was in Helsinki, though not for concert but for another party. I was not far from market square where television commentators estimated a crowd of 80,000 people. The atmosphere was electrifying. Roaring and raving crowd, many of them in monster mask and waving Finnish flag were swaying with the music. It wasn’t perfect summer evening but lot better than rainy Hameenlinna.

The event started with President Tarja Halonen coming on to the stage to felicitate the band. After this everything gave way to the blast, the loud music and the monsters singing song after song. The pyrotechnics started from the stage and became a fantabulous sight in itself. For a moment I thought of coming out of apartment and joining the crowd but later I decided to see the entire spectacle than being in one corner. The footage from the choppers hovering in the sky captured each and every moment of the thrill.



The climax reached when the band started the song “Hard Rock Hallelujah” the anthem song for the Eurovision which won the award. Imagine a sight where the guitar of the band is spewing fire and lead singer roaring with a chain saw in his hand! That was really monstrous and horrorifingly electric.They also sang their another master piece “Would you love the monster man ?” If they were looking for an answer then the crowd said it all. They were at the stage till 9.30 pm after which other bands took over.

Finland is one rock crazy country having intenationally reputed bands like HIM, Rasmus and the now Eurovision winner 'Lordi'. Earlier this week there was huge outrage against a local tabloid when it published the picture of Lordi without his monster mask. The band has asked the media to publish only their monster pictures and address them always by their band names.

The winner of the Eurovision has to host the next edition, so next year the event will be held in Finland.

(Original copyright of image applied)

Enron Verdict

You all might be knowing it by now. At 11am Houston time, the jury verdict in Enron trial came as a huge win for the prosecutors. It was kind of surprising that Jury came out with verdict in just five days.

Kenneth Lay was found guilty in all the six counts of conspiracy and fraud. He was also found guilty on the four separate counts of fraud and false statements to the bank. This trial as held separately and jury was not involved in it though the Judge was same. The Judge had decided to give verdict in this case only after the verdict of main trial.

Jeffrey Skilling, the Harvard MBA, ex McKinsey associate and former CEO of Enron was found guilty of 19 counts of conspiracy, fraud and false statements. However he was found 'not guilty' on nine counts of insider trading.

It is almost certain that both of them will appeal against this verdict. Right now their prospects seem to be possible incarceration for rest of their life.

Skilling appeared before the press with his attorney shortly after the verdict. He was visibly concerned but maintained his calm and composure. Joining his attorney he thanked everyone, in particular his family and children. He termed this as disappointment, maintained his innocence and said "some things work, some doesn't".

Update - I have to take it off my chest. I know the former employees of Enron are vindicated. They lost all their savings and their pension fund overnight. So are those millions of investors who had Enron shares with them.

But I still feel sad for Skilling. I don't know much about Lay, apart from the fact that he was a great philantropist and a major contributor to George Bush presidential campaign. But Skilling was the one who transformed the whole energy market and how business was been done. His brilliance was impressive and astounding. His ideas were most innovative and evoked respect for him. It will be real sad to see him languishing in a penitentiary. I feel as if I am writing an obituary of brilliance personfied. But no one is above the law of land. May his fate do him justice

Just a day

Though it is too obvious to mention but I will. When it comes to weather of Finland, ‘weird’ is not the word to be used. The mere speaking of “weather” has many adjectives included in it, like weird, fabulous, and lousy and so on. No wonder a typical conversation in England starts with weather and in Finland starts with temperature.

So it is raining since yesterday. It was sort of heavy rainfall yesterday and today it was polite drizzle. No Sun blazing around and clouds ruled the skies for better part of the day. What a shame for summer. The sun did come out from the covers, but it was not until 2100 hours when it got the chance. Poor thing, it had to retreat in few minutes.

This weather had got me nearly miss work today. Normally I get up without any alarm at anytime between 5 am and 7 am. During summer it depends how long I can keep my eyes shut in the brightness. Today when I got up and saw the time, it was 9.38 am! I could not believe my eyes and checked the cell phone and it indeed was 9.38 am. I wasn’t sure at what time I could reach office? I was still asleep when the hot water from shower was running over me. This frantic effort to reach office meant no tea/coffee. I thought of atleast fixing a bowl of cereals for my breakfast, thinking it would be take couple minutes to consume that. Well when I picked up the carton of milk it sounded too light, yeah no milk! I reached office without tea and breakfast at 10.20 am.

With the excellent start, the day was bound to get better. When I reached office, unusually, there was one pressing matter to be taken care of. So it was only an hour later that I got time to run to office pantry for the cup of coffee. The coffee never tasted so good.

This also makes me think that why we can’t buy milk and bread for the whole week at one go? The expiry dates particularly of milk should mandatory be for at least a week. Tomorrow we have holiday in Finland so I had to go to grocery shop to buy the milk in the evening. I came to cashier with one liter pack of milk and no cash in wallet. Though I never pay cash in grocery stores & elsewhere; I thought it odd to pay 74 cents by card. I saw this as excellent opportunities to get rid of those heavy coins and I paid with 3 coins of 20 cents and 2 coins of 10 cents and my wallet felt light. The girl seemed to get my intention and gave back one coin of 5 cents. The reason most of the times I got no bills in my wallets is the dreadful visit to ATMs, which I avoid as much I can.

When I called my mother in evening, I thought of telling her that I have holiday tomorrow. I started “Mother, tomorrow my school, err, college, err office is closed”. Damn! How can I do that? She started laughing. I don’t know what was going on my mind.

So that was one weird day or shall I only say a ‘day’.

The Thrill !

Nothing could be more thrilling than this day! I felt like watching the movie “Black Hawk Down” again. The story was unfolding right on my computer monitor. Yeah, I am taking about the Indian stock market on this 22nd day of May, 2006.

Despite last Friday positive close of New York stock exchange, anyone who had been following the Indian newspapers would have had this expected. The newspapers were highlighting the ambiguity of CBDT tax circular posted on their site. This CBDT circular was partly responsible for the fall of market on Thursday. That time the confusion was for FIIs, which was cleared by the Finance minister himself in evening. But no clarification came for domestic investor. Many would have not formed an opinion about that circular, but the newspaper did it on Sunday. Domestic investors become jittery.

The result, both NSE and BSE sensex fell by more than 10%, hitting the lower limit of the circuit filter, and for the second day in history trading was suspended for 1 hour. But one thing is sure, you got to hand it down to the systems of Indian stock market. They behaved flawlessly, the trading stopped at the moment it should and all settlements were niftily done. Compare it with the software of Japanese stock market, which has failed more than once in recent times.

While all this was unfolding, I was talking with my friend, who is now in London. I was helping him make his first stock purchase. The order was perfectly executed at the lowest price we had anticipated and that’s when it happened. The sensex line started to appear straight, as if the heart of Indian financial market has stopped beating. No news were coming in, just a straight line of the graph. I asked my friend to switch on his TV and tune to Indian news channel, but they were still to report. I was more than sure that trading has been suspended and 2 minutes later it was confirmed. The trading was indeed stopped. In few more minutes, the news came splashing in the business channels of Finland as well.

As I write this, the trading has started again. BSE sensex has smartly recovered half of its fall and is currently down by 540 points. Finance Minister and SEBI chairman have quickly taken cognizance of the fall and they have issued the statement. Well this is too obvious to mention that the long term investors need not panic. Just as they don’t get rich by sensex hitting highest levels, they won’t lose by sensex hitting lowest levels. This is a natural phenomenon, what goes up will come down and what comes down will go up again. The long term investors can wait for the crest to re-appear. Now it is not the time to look at the worth of your portfolio every hour or every day. Since this week also has the last Thursday of the month, the closing cycle for the derivatives the stock index, the sensex could further go down in few days.

Let’s see how it goes.

It's going down!

For Indian stock market May, 2006 seems to be repeat of May, 2005. The market is plummeting in significant percentage points. As I write this, the BSE sensex after tanking by over 600 points is currently down by 518 points. This is no surprise as everyone expected the market to go down today. This is a part of global meltdown in stock indices.

Yesterday the New York Stock exchange’s Dow Jones index fell by 218 points, the largest fall in 3 years. The bloodbath is unstoppable in Japanese, Hong Kong and London stock exchange. So what is causing the global downfall of stock prices?

The weakening of the stock markets had started on May10th, when US Federal Bank increased the interest rate. When ever the interest rate increases, it mops up the money from the market. Consequently the selling pressure increases and stocks drop. In fact the Federal Bank didn’t stop at this and dropped hints of further rate hike. In all probability, this is going to happen as the inflationary pressure is getting stronger with every passing day. Gold prices are at historic high and so are global crude prices. With the increase in inflation every bank will increase the interest rate. This increases the cost of capital, and effectively lessens the rate of return from market, making it look less attractive.

In India the stock market boom was mainly brought by FIIs. They raised money at cheaper rate in US and invested in India. With the increase of interest rate the cost of raising money in US increased. Retail investors had already significantly stopped exposure in market when the sensex had breached 8000-9000 level. Infact this phase augurs well for Indian stock market. It was long over-due for correction was considered over-valued by some analyst. Also there is one silver lining. With the flight of dollar, the Indian Rupees is set to fall which will boost the topline of the IT industry. Last year the only two months when FIIs were net sellers was May and October, 2005. The market is expected to stabilize and remain range bound within 11000-12000 level in the short term. Investors should not worry and 'Speculators' always have risk appetite. The only point of caution should be for those looking to apply for IPOs having huge premium. In falling stock market large ‘premiums’ are not justified.

In the next few weeks, the inflation figures will determine the direction of stock markets.

Two years of blogging

Two years ago, this was the day when I got myself a blog. Unfortunately that day is also known as ‘Black Monday’ in the history of Indian stock market. Statistics aside, this is time for the customary post. So here it is.

Lot of things has changed in these two years but this blog has chugged along with me. The initial reason for me to have this blog was for spewing out whatever was rambling inside me. This does not mean mine posts are out come of a cogitating mental state, but in some way, every post of mine is indicative of ‘me’ at that point.

I have come to know of several fascinating people due to this blog. In that respect I should say this blog is worth all the time I spend on it. I can’t say how long I would be going with this blog. But when that time comes, I will, like every other thing in my life, accept it unconditionally. Till that day this blog shall be my online avatar.

I never mentioned it but this is not hard to guess. For the purpose of record, the title of my blog comes from the poem “The Journey” by David Whyte, a poet and also a corporate consultant. This poem runs line by line in the bottom taskbar of the blog webpage.

Black Gold - a curse

People in most of the countries, around the world, would be heaving a sigh when they would see the meter at the fuel stations. The only exception would be those living in oil rich countries, getting a gallon of petrol for less than a dollar. That’s the magic of the ‘black gold’. But is it a boon to have vast reserves of oil, or, it is bane for the country? Our history is replete with wars, conflicts and many geo-political manipulations, all for this oil. It most of the time does not affect only the oil rich countries but others as well. Just take a look at few of the conflicts I can think of.

The deadliest battle ever in human history, the battle of Stalingrad, between Hitler’s army and Red army of Soviet was also related to oil. Among other reasons for attacking Stalingrad, one was to reach the 'Caucasus' region to seize Russia’s oil supply. Hitler considered the oil fields to be of strategic importance in realizing his dream of ruling over the whole world.

The operation Ajax was executed by CIA in 1953 in collusion with Britain, which toppled the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. The Shah of Iran was reinstated in power and he continued his dictatorial rule for next two decades. The operation was executed because Prime Minister Mossadegh had nationlaised the British Petroleum (then known as Anglo-Iranian Oil company). This is was the earliest conflict of US with Iran and this also resulted in the infamous 444 days hostage crisis in the US embassy in Tehran. The legacy of that conflict is continued till today.

Iraq invaded Kuwait and it utlimately led to Gulf WarI. One of the reason given by Iraq to invade Kuwait was that Kuwait was doing slant drilling and pumping out Iraqi oil.

The conflict of Venezuela with US is again cause of oil.

The unrest in Nigeria is also due to Oil.

The latest in all this which again might boil to a conflict comes from Bolivia. The President of Bolivia Evo Morales nationalised the country’s gas reserves and sent troops to 53 private energy installations. The hardest to hit by this is the Brazilian oil company ‘PetroBras’. Things are calm and peaceful but no one knows what ramification this is going to have.

There are many more such examples and it makes me wonder what good is oil doing to this world. The black gold is fast turning to be a curse.

Hiking in Hameenlinna Park

The weather was so good this weekend that I could not contain myself in home. I ventured for hiking in the 'The National Urban Park of Hämeenlinna'. Here are few pictures from there. You can click on individual pictures to enlarge.


Map of the park showing the trails.


The trail.


Trees of the park


The Railway track goes between the park. The plate girder bridge.


The railway track.


The rails used are manufactured by ThyssenKrupp AG of Germany


View of the lake from the bridge.


A freights train coming from North.


Steel sheet coil coming from Rahe in North Finland (reason why I am here in Finland).


A passenger train coming from South (Helsinki).


Wooden trail. Wood is available in abundant in Finland.


Sun coming out from cloud cover. The small cloud patch gave a welcome respite from what was begining to feel like a hot day.

Is agriculture good for India ?

Summer is here in Finland for good two weeks and hopefully many more to go. With the onset of summer all the snow has melted. We can now see black asphalt or cobbled stone road, the grassy surface and also the soil in the vast stretches of what look like agricultural farms. In these two years, I have found something strange with many of these agricultural farms, particularly those lying along Hameenlinna - Helsinki highway. I have never seen any crops ever on them. In winter it is understandable but why not in summer? The answer is there in the figures of Finnish economy. I don’t have the exact data but the trend is no different from most of the developed economies. The proportion of agriculture is very less in GDP. This also means that a small portion of Finnish population is actually engaged in agricultural activities. Hence much of land remains unutilized. Finnish agricultural is also heavily subsidized and the efforts are made by government to reduce the output of some of the crops (sugar beet).

This becomes quite interesting and relevant if I extrapolate it to India. As much as we hear about India becoming economic superpower we also hear about the burgeoning ‘urban-rural’ or ‘have-have not’ divide. India still has a sizeable population living below poverty line. So why hasn’t the economic prosperity trickled down to lower strata of Indian society? The answer is here. 56.7% of Indian work force and 70% of population is dependant on agriculture which as 21% share in GDP. The annual growth rate in agriculture is 1.3% as compared to 10.6% of services sector. This is exactly the reason why the impressive GDP growth has failed to lift the economic status of much of Indian population. So, what can be done?

There are two ways to deal with this. Increase the growth rate of agriculture to match with that of services and manufacturing or decrease the Indian work force (hence population) dependant on agriculture. It is too easy for anyone to guess that latter option is easier to achieve and more feasible. So like other developed counties, India should move its population towards services sector which has more stable and guaranteed income. Of course the question about food reliability will arise. But in today’s world economy, if a country has money from the services export then buying food grain won’t be a problem. The large demand population will further help by increasing the bargaining power. The Indian food demand has also the potential to change the economy of other countries as well. Imagine India sourcing rice from Bangladesh. Along with this, also lies the fact that India can’t totally eliminated agriculture. But lesser workforce will make agricultural activity lean and efficient leading to increased productivity.

Summer & Winter

Sami has an excellent post on change in Finland with the change of seasons. Read it here