To cut a long story "short"

Much has been made about team India's ignominious exit from the T20 world cup. Afterall, this is the second time that we are returning home after shamelessly losing all our matches in the super 8's stage. So what went wrong for the Men in Blue who are demi-Gods in India ?

Is it the IPL ?

Well, a moron called Rajdeep certainly seems to think so. Inspite of many experts and stalwarts saying otherwise, the cricket-mad public LIKES to believe that India failed because of the sham called the IPL and the extravaganza that went along with it. The most common opinion on the street is that "Team India is distracted. They dont take things seriously"
But a closer look will tell us that many international players who played the IPL did very well for their respective countries. The same Gayles, Husseys and Watsons who played the IPL are kicking their opponents' butts in the T20 WC. Also, as rightly pointed out by experts, T20 internationals are nowhere close to being as grueling as Test or one day matches. So, four over spells on alternate days is actually more $$ for lesser work.

Is it because of flawed selection ?

Some people do have the factitious belief that India failed majorly because of flawed selection policies adopted by Messers Srikanth and Dhoni. One couldn't be farther away from the truth.
Yes, there were selection issues, but then it is indeed ridiculous to say that Uthappa would have won us the T20 WC singlehandedly. Along the same lines, it is also ludicrous to assume that Jadeja's on field disasters were the root cause for India's unceremonious exit.
The same people who castigate Yuvi, Pathan, Raina etc today would have been more livid at Srikanth had he left them out of the squad based on their recent form. What exactly do you expect Srikanth to do ? Yes, he did give Murli Vijay and Dinesh Karthik chances and people criticise him for favoritism and unfair bias. Well, if I remember correctly, Tamilians always gave their unconditional support to the Indian team inspite of talented players like Hemang Badani being consistently ignored. They did not shout from the rooftops at the inclusion of buffons like Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Sairaj Bahatule, Sunil Joshi, Deep Dasgupta, Nilesh Kulkarni etc. Neither did they point fingers at the Bombay lobby or the Bangalore lobby. In any case, players like D Karthik and M Vijay have a much better chance of surviving a Bollinger spell in Perth than Dhoni. So, people who are pissed at the selection better get some perspective.

Where does the answer lie ?

In spite of opposition captains publicly saying on every available TV channel that India's flat pitch
Z(H)eroes would be targeted with short-pitched bowling, the Indian team failed to get the memo.
In fact it was less than a year ago that they had received a pasting at the T20 WC in England because of the exact SAME reason.
Even George Bush cannot be fooled twice, but apparently the Indian team can. Or, they have been lackadaisical enough to give a damn about their gross technical incompetence. This is where the IPL comes in. The time that Pathan and company should have spent taking batting lessons from Sachin and Dravid was spent partying. The result was there for all to see and India's batting zeroes danced better than the late Micheal Jackson when confronted with short-pitched stuff. I guess it is almost irrelevant to mention the fact that our bowling was a disaster waiting to happen.
Afterall, our bowling has always been substandard. Why change now ? If Ashish Nehra is your pace spearhead, I guess it is much better to gracefully forfeit the game without taking the trouble to show up at the ground. Of course, there will be the usual clamour for making better pitches and getting better bowlers, but a few wins against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh on flat tracks will "restore public confidence in our batting juggernaut".

Unless the general public stops taking India's home wins too seriously and overestimating India's prowess, India will continue to remain (paper)tigers at home and also-rans abroad.

Seruppadi for Dummies

A detailed guide to getting footwear thrown at you by the fairer sex.

Pickup line no.1 - "When I was bird watching, just when I was bored watching, you made me fly"

Line no.2 - "You are so fair, I wanna take you to the fair and see how we fare"
followup line : (I dont have $$ for the fare)

Line no .3 - "The reason I threw a paper rocket at you was because I mistook you for the moon"
followup line : (Your dimples like the craters on the moon)

DISCLAIMER : This book is a step-by-step guide on seruppadi. The author is in no way responsible for situations that lead to Dharma-adi by the general public

'Right' Perspective

Well, The elections are over and the results are out :D

The INC or the Italian National Congress has won a convincing victory !!.

The day began with Rajdeep S of XXX TV predicting that the congress would win 550 seats in parliament, before his panelists reminded him that the parliament had only 543 seats and that Bangladesh wasn't a 'swing' state.

As the results started trickling in, the writing was on the wall. The BJP had been vanquished and the commies had been tamed. A truly remarkable aspect of the victory was its magnitude, given Rahul Gandhi's best efforts to deflate the congress. He had  single-handedly through his asinine efforts tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. All it took him was a press conference.

Rahul may have claimed that "empowering villagers would end terrorism in 15 minutes", but if he had ended his press conference 15 minutes later, he would have ended the congress party. 

But however in spite of all the clownery going on, it was the indian electorate who prevailed and proved to everyone that they were not going to be fooled. They were going to vote on issues like

Free land, Free TV sets, Free electricity, Loan waivers, Free cash, Free biriyani and free liquor unlike losers who voted on other trivial issues like terror, economic stability etc.

Maybe they didnt know that India's fiscal deficit was in double figures (one of the highest in the world) and that India's debt had been given junk rating. But who cares about fancy elitist shit like that when u can drink, burn effigies and throw your footwear at any politician irrespective of his political affiliation ?

On Monday the stock market soared 2000 points on the baseless rumor that Manmohan is an economist. Is that true ?

5 years of unending prosperity and bliss awaits.....

- Tejas

Let's play a game....

Here is where I continue from my previous blog post about the current economic downturn.
So which economic theory will last the test of time ? The answer is without doubt CAPITALISM :D

"See, the whole free market is collapsing before your eyes"
"The collapse of the US market and the subsequent meltdowns in Asia and Europe show that Capitalism is failing"

What can you say about the above statements ? Firstly , they are inherently flawed.
The FREE MARKET HAS NOT AND WILL NEVER FAIL.
GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN THE PROCESS MAKES IT FAIL.

Let us see how communism works using Game Theory. For those familiar with Game theory, here is a small intro. Game theory is used to capture how humans respond in various strategic situations. There are many outcomes, but however, in a lot of cases, the best possible outcome is not what really happens.


In this case, we consider A and B.
A is a person and B is the rest of the society.
W => Work
NW => No Work/Dont work

In every square, the top portion represent results obtained by A and the bottom portion represent results obtained by B.

Consider that you are the person 'A'. Whatever u work will be pooled in with the work of the society 'B' and then the results will be equally distributed. A doesnt know how hard the society is working. Similarly , each and every one in the society will not know how the hard the other person is working. If we consider the boxes, we have 4 scenarios.

Scenario 1 : Both A and B (society) work hard and end up with profits.

Scenario 2 : A works well , but the rest of the society's output is not good enough. So, compared to what effort A put in, he will not get the results to compensate that. So, A ends up with a loss.
The society enjoys a small profit at the expense of A's hard work.

Scenario 3 : A doesn't work hard , but the rest of the society manages to put in effort and create some output. So, ultimately A makes a small profit, because he is getting something without doing anything. B takes a loss, because people like A are a burden to society.

Scenario 4: A also doesnt put any effort. The rest of the society also doesn't work. So there is no profit for anyone and no loss for anyone.

What is the ideal case here ? Scenario 1 of course. Both A and B will end up with profits and live in harmony ever after.

But very sadly, game theory proves that that never happens.
Why is that ? That is because of underlying human nature. Here , the 2 participants A and B have no idea of what each other is doing and cannot trust each other.

A will think --> "what if i put in effort and then end up with a loss because other people in society have not worked hard enough ?"

similarly, each person in the society will have the same thought as A. They fear that they will end up with a loss if other people in the society dont work as hard as them.

So, what are the options before A ?

If he works, he will get either Profit, or a loss
If he doesnt work, he will get a small profit, or wind up with no profit-no loss

The same are the options before B.

It is proven that both A and B will go for the option of not working, BECAUSE THAT WILL WORK OUT BETTER FOR THEM ON AN AVERAGE.

So, we will wind up with scenario 4 , where noone does any work.
What will result ? massive stagnation, absence of any development and abject poverty.

Now u know why capitalism works :))

- Tejas

Marx my words !

"Democracy will ultimately collapse into socialism(communism)" - Karl Marx

Before embarking on writing this blog entry, I would like to emphatically proclaim that I am a proud free-marketeer who believes in the tenets of capitalism.
Yes , this blog is going to be about economics (yawwwnnn :) ). Well, I would be deceiving myself if I were to believe that this topic would appeal to most people. But however keeping in mind the current economic downturn, it would be nice to delve into the reasons that got us here.
I consider myself a layman in financial issues (but however, it is also one of my passions). Lemme try to explain what I understood from this financial chaos.

What exactly happened

Let us consider a guy called ABC and a bank called XYZ. ABC has seen that property prices are going up everywhere. So, he decides to buy a house. The house costs Rs. 70 lakhs. Even though ABC is unemployed, the bank XYZ gives him a loan of 70 lakhs. Why ?
Isn't giving a Rs.70 lakh loan to an unemployed person risky ? how will he give the money back ?

The beauty here is that the banks never expected to get their money back :)

what the bank XYZ thought ---> "ok...this guy will not give the money back. So, we can seize the house when he defaults on the loan. By the time the guy defaults, he defaults, the house price would have shot upto Rs.80 Lakh. We can sell the house at that price and make a cool Rs.10 lakh profit "

well, in a few months, the price went upto 80 Lakhs.

What ABC thought--->"ok, the price of the flat has shot up to Rs.80 lakh. I have already got a loan of 70 lkahs from the bank. Now, let me borrow another 10 lakhs. With this new loan of 10 lakhs, let me buy a huge car and go on a vacation. Afterall, if something happens, I will sell the house at 80 lakhs and give the money to the bank. "

The bank XYZ gives this 10 lakh loan, because, after a few months , the house will be worth 90 lakhs rite ????

What actually transpired ----> The housing bubble burst. Housing prices collapsed. The house that ABC bought at 70 lakhs is now worth 30 lakhs, and sinking fast.
ABC has no option but to file for bankruptcy , or default on his payment.
Remember, ABC actually owes the bank 80 lakhs (70+10). So, the bank seizes the house. But finds that it is worth only 30 lakhs.
Bank has a loss of 30-80 = 50 lkhs

Now, banks are facing huge losses. So, they stop giving loans to people like they used to.
But if people dont get the money they want , they are pissed. What do they do ?
They vote out the government.

what the government thinks -----> "Damn ! if we dont get these banks up and running and lending to people again, the people will get pissed and not vote for me. Hmm...there is one way out. Whatever tax money I have got out of the people, I will give it to these banks so that they can lend more money to undeserving people."

So, this is how money gets transferred from law abiding, non risk taking , hard working citizens to jobless people (remember XYZ) who took unbelievable risks

It is interseting to note that the same thing is happening with "BIG FIRMS"
Firms like General motors, Ford etc having huge losses. Why ? They had labour unions which demanded a large pay for a small amount of work. So, their cars became expensive.
So, in such a downturn, people stopped buying these cars and went in for Japanese cars which were cheaper. So, what happened ?
GM and Ford are facing huge losses. They have 3 million workers working for them directly and indirectly. They have no choice but to file for bankruptcy. But if they do, some other company will take them over. If some other company takes over, they will fire 1.5 million and retain the other 1.5 million workers.
So, 1.5 million are unemployed. They are pissed.

What the Government thinks ----> "Oops, if i dont pump more money into GM and Ford (which are practically dead), I will lose 1.5 million votes. So I will take tax-payer money and give it to GM and Ford "

Money which should have been used for development and other purposes goes for propping up a failed business which hardly deserves any sympathy.

But why are communism and socialism collosal failures ? I shall try to explore that next :D

-Tejas

The news that Isn't

What do you do when one of your best frds has no time even to respond to your offlines/chat messages/sms's etc ?
Here is an innovative idea.

NEWS REPORT

Mr.Keshav Kandhadai Mukund hailing from Chennai has broken the world record holder for the maximum number of hrs worked in a day. KM Keshav or 'Sloth Kamnaati' as he is popularly called, clocked 25hrs , 4mins and 30 seconds of work on a single day.
Keshav had managed this unbelievable feat by working on different time zones during the same day (or some crazy shit like that)
Part of this marathon feat was a 1hr telephone call from an abusive caller in the United States. It was later learnt that the caller was one of Mr.Keshav's best friends and that Keshav had mistaken him for a customer. Some of Mr.Keshav's most vocal detractors allege that his achievements are bloated because of the sheer volume of prank calls made by anonymous female admirers. When contacted, a spokesperson for Mr.Keshav categorically rejected the allegations as baseless and untrue. Mr.Keshav himself could not be contacted for a statement on the issue as he was troubleshooting a windows-2009 bug for Bill Gates.

- The abusive caller from the USA

Perception and Reality :D

I wrote this blog at one stretch after listening to a CNN-IBN/NDTV new report.
The un-highlighted part is what we are supposed to presume and the highlighted part potrays reality :D

1) The Prime minister condemns the attack and says that the perpetrators will be punished (just like Dawood ibrahim)

2) No comment from Pratibha Patil (because she has forgotten that she is the president)

3) An all party meeting is convened where the PM takes stock of the situation (all parties stage walk out after 10 minutes and PM is left all alone).

4) Security is 'beefed' in all the metros (with 5 constables who are armed with state-of-the-art lathis)

5) China says that its sympathies are with India (and Its missiles are with Pakistan)

6) The USA calls it a barbaric act (and sends Condi Rice for a fully paid vacation to India for a month)

7) The PM blames pakistan and ISI operatives for the attacks (Pak refutes the allegations , 10 minutes before the PM blamed Pak).

8) The cricket tour to Pak is cancelled (which upsets Afridi who was eager to kick Bhajji's ass yet again)

9) Rajdeep Sardesai comes up with a unique solution (lighting a candle for every attack)

10) The defence minister attends meetings with the army chiefs (and comes to know that Assam and the northeastern states are part of India)

11) India gives a 48 hour deadline to Pak to act. (because, the previous 72 hour deadline expired 36 hours ago)

12) The air force is put on 'Passive defence alert' which is the last stage before an attack. (at the last moment, the tyres will be inflated and petrol will be filled)

13) The army is put on high alert ( some world war II cannons are moved to a village near Pak border)

14) This time, strict 15 days notice is given to Pak (because of festivals/holidays etc in between)


After 15 days, another terror attack takes place (Go back to step 1)