2009: A Year Of Great Hopes And Expectations

It’s January,2009 and the New Year has arrived. Most people on this planet would have never experienced an year like 2008. Whether it was the employee, the businessman, the student or even the housewife the last half of 2008 had an impact on everyone. But let’s not discuss the bad things of 2008, most people were happy to see the end of it.

2009, the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century(considering 2000 as the first year) has on it’s shoulders a huge burden of setting things right and establishing a new world order. 2009 is a very important year for the entire world and the focus shall be on restoring the Economy and establishing world peace. Barrack Obama steps into the Oval Office a few weeks from today and the whole world has their eyes on him. The theme of 2009 is therefore a more peaceful and more united world with a balanced economy.

Here’s Wishing all the readers of DelhiPlanet a Very Peaceful And Prosperous

Reasons To Smile During Recession Time

They say that “excess of anything is harmful” and that “whatever goes up must come down“. So, if you apply these wise sayings to the economic boom that the world witnessed for the past few years it would seem that the current economic recession is just a correction and would prove to be good for the economy in the long run. As per this article on TIME, the recession has taught many a U.S. company one important fact: the boom had larded corporate muscle with fat. Now, in working off the fat, businessmen are finding some of the benefits of adversity. These go far beyond merely trimming payrolls and such obvious economies as light, telephone and office-supply bills.

As per the Economist, “central banks must stop recessions from turning into deep depressions. But it may be wrong to prevent them altogether”. Wrong to prevent a recession? Why? Because recessions are a natural and necessary part of the business cycle. So you might as well consider yourself to be lucky to be alive in this era which has witnessed both the ends of a business cycle, super-boom and super-bust. While it’s very easy to be happy during boom times, let’s see how one can feel the same during recession times as well:

On The Business Front

1. Undervalued stocks and bonds: It’s a bad to time for the market and it’s possible stocks in general will go down more this year. So don’t panic but smile because times like these are perfect opportunities for long-term investors to pick some good values company by company.
2. Lower interest rates: It seems likely that if the Reserve Banks of many countries lower the federal funds target interest rate, opportunities are available for those with good credit ratings to borrow cash as needed.
3. Falling house prices: Well, at the moment, there are more people trying to sell homes then there are buyers. This inequity between supply and demand means that in order to sell houses, prices must fall.
4. A more down to earth US of A: America has been living way beyond its means for years: A recession will cut back revenues at all levels of government and cutbacks will encourage balanced budgeting.
5. A wake up call to short-time investors: A recession will wake up short-term investors playing the market. In bull markets traders ride the rising tide, gaining false confidence that they’re financial geniuses. Downturns bruise egos but encourage rational long-term strategies.
6. Correction in CEO Salaries: It is believed that CEO compensation today is about five hundred times the salaries of workers, compared with about 40 times a generation ago. The recession would help to correct this wide disparity.

On The Personal Front

1. Global warming will slow down or even stop: Since people would have less money than before they would drive and fly less thus bringing down the level of global warming.
2. World population will drop: Raising a child involves a lot of expenditure so couples would think harder before deciding to have a child. Thus may lead to temporary decline in World population.
3. People will finally lose weight and pay attention to their health: Since consumerism would decrease and people would pay more attention to their savings, they would eat healthier foods and take to various forms of exercise that don’t cost much, thus becoming healthier.
4. Roads will be less congested: With high unemployment and no money for vacations, roads will be clearer, with fewer traffic jams.
5. More educated population: During recession time, people tend to go to school. Maybe just community college, distance learning, or freebie classes, but people will learn all sorts of new stuff.
6. More time to invest in yourself: When the economy is down and the growth opportunities are less people invest a lot of time in themselves. As Six Apart CEO Chris Alden says “When you don’t know where else to invest, you invest in yourself.” . During recession time people blog more and try to learn stuff that they’ve been yearning to learn for a long time.

Sources: 8 Benefits to a Recession or Down Market, 17 reasons America needs a recession, Top 10 Benefits of Global Recession

Cheap Beer In Times Of Recession

These are tough times in the world’s financial markets and just like the employees of Lehman, Merill Lynch and AIG have found out things can change drastically in a very short time. In such times it’s interesting to see the reaction and response of people all over the world especially those who work in unrelated industries.

The Fifty/50 Restaurant in Chicago for instance is hoping to give the employees of these companies a break. Apparently the bar is offering a half-off bar and restaurant tab for anyone who can prove they work or worked for AIG or Lehman Brothers. “Everybody is freaking out. We wanted to do something to make their day a little better,” said Scott Weiner, co-owner of The Fifty/50 restaurant. Lehman’s parent company filed for bankruptcy this week and AIG was bailed out by the U.S. government. In addition to job losses, the former’s stock traded for pennies while the latter was below $5 a share.

The offer is good Sunday through Thursday until October at the restaurant west of downtown Chicago. Weiner said 20 or 30 people, many of whom he had gotten to know while managing another restaurant frequented by employees of the financial companies, had already accepted the half-price discount (Source).

Well, it surely helps to unwind with a couple of beers while job hunting and such things can really help to overcome the depressed mood of an unstable economy.

Venezuela And The Beauty Economy : A Look Into The Thriving Beauty Industry Of Venezuela

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a Latin American Spanish speaking country slightly greater than twice the size of California. It is bordered by Brazil, Columbia and Guyana and has a population of about 26.5 million with the fairer sex forming more than 50% of that number. It is a country whose history has been characterized by political turmoil, dictatorial rule, military coups and frequent economic ups and downs. It is a country which remains highly dependent on oil revenues, which account for roughly 90% of export earnings, more than 50% of the federal budget revenues, and around 30% of GDP. It also has the least expensive petrol in the world, due to high government subsidies.

Despite all it’s problems and troubles this country has made it’s mark in the world and is known as the land having the most beautiful women in the world. It has the distinction of winning five Miss World pageant titles (the most by any country and tied with India which also has five) as well as five Miss Universe pageant titles. It is one of the few countries of the world which has a thriving beauty economy which has now become Venezuela’s second biggest industry after oil.

So how big is the Beauty Industry in Venezuela after all, let’s consider some facts.

• It is estimated that Venezuelans spend one fifth of their disposable income on beauty products, a startling statistic for a country in which 40 percent of its population lives below the poverty line.
• A study conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide a couple of years ago revealed that 65 percent of Venezuelan women think about their looks “all the time,” in contrast to the 27 percent of American women in the same category.
• Studies show that Venezuela is the largest consumer of cosmetics and personal care products per capita in the world, taking a 9.3% share of the world cosmetic market according to the Review of In-Cosmetics Industry Trends Presentations, 2004.

So while the Venezuelans like most Latin Americans are gifted with better than average looks, it is actually a combination of their natural looks, cosmetics, plastic surgery and of course their hard work which makes them look so good. And when it comes to creating a league of women who go on to win the International beauty pageants so frequently it is thanks to the determination and ambition of Osmel Sousa, the president of the Miss Venezuela Organization.

Sousa transforms pretty girls into knockout contest winners. After selecting twenty girls from over two thousand participants in a nation-wide scouting competition, he enrolls them in his academy for six months of intense training for the Miss Venezuela contest. Over the past three decades he has developed an eye that he claims can quickly pick a winner from a crowd. The girls will work with a team of professionals that will help them improve on all areas of their presentation. From the way they walk to the way they talk, after six months in Sousa’s academy, they ideally will emerge as confident, eloquent, elegant women with perfect bodies and promising futures.

Sousa’s academy boasts of the countries leading plastic surgeons who help the contestants with operations such as breast augmentation, thigh lipo-sculpting, and waist reduction. The team of cosmetic dentists and dermatologists combine their efforts in perfecting the face and smile of every contestant. Then there is also a team of talented people who hone the skills of the beauties so as to improve their singing, dancing and cat-walking skills. As you would have probably guessed by now, the institute doesn’t have any dietitians or nutritionists as the girls are often kept on unhealthy and unbalanced diets so as to achieve that perfect shape and look suited for the camera.

Infact there is so much preparation involved in grooming the MIss Venezuela contestants that by the time the winner emerges she is almost ready to take on the contestants from the rest of the world. The Miss Venezuela contest is a matter of national pride. When a Miss makes it to the final round of the international circuit, the entire country celebrates. Just as Brazilians are fanatical about the World Cup and Americans about the Super Bowl, for Venezuelans, this is the most important event of the year. The video below shows exactly what the beauty industry in Venezuela is all about and what goes on to find the perfect Miss Venezuela.

Note: This article has used several sources for reference some of which are The Brooklyn Rail and Press releases from the Government of Trinidad And Tobago.

Arresting Corruption and Increasing the GDP, The GandhiGiri Way

Applying Gandhigiri to Modern Day Management, Gandhigiri Economics, Munnabhai’s musings on Management, highly interesting terms aren’t they. Well they are actually worthy of being taught at any one of the premier B-Schools in the country. They seem to be the need of the hour everywhere and any lectures on these topics would certainly get a bumper opening (just like Tal Ben Shahar did at Harvard, read here).

Such was the effect of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Lage Raho Munnabhai, that people actually drew inspiration from it and started implementing it in their lives. Some notable incidents that took place were,

• Last week, dozens of people including academics, doctors and lawyers in the northern city of Lucknow marched to the office of the district administrator to give him roses after he reportedly criticized the “Gandhigiri” of some student protesters.
• In the southern city of Hyderabad, Shweta Polanki was reported to have dumped her boyfriend when he made hissing noises to catch the waiter’s attention at a restaurant — a sign of disrespect for a worker according to “Gandhigiri.”
• “Gandhigiri” also touched Babloo Srivastava, an alleged real-life mafia don, who decided to distribute dozens of roses and talk about love and peace at a Lucknow court where he was brought from jail for a hearing in one of the many cases that link him to murder, kidnapping and extortion.

Now how does all of the above relate to India’s GDP. It seems that Gandhigiri could be the cure to India’s corruption. According to a World Bank report , India ranks 47th on the list of 213 on the corruption index. If India needs to sustain it’s GDP, it should control corruption otherwise we are most likely to trip and fall headlong. Now that is a startling statistic. Startling because India’s GDP (See graphic, Courtesy: rediff.com) growth Year on Year has been 8.9% (as of Q1 06-07).

Manufacturing has streamrolled the GDP growth in this quarter, but what about Electricity, Construction and Agriculture, where there is a negative growth or actually no growth. These are the industries where corruption is still rampant. How many times have you found a road which was newly built, being reduced to tatters when the first rains strike (Reason: Sub-Standard quality of materials at standard prices) or realized the increased transmission and distribution costs in your electricity bill (Reason: Electricity theft which is becoming more prevalent).

These seem to be just a few instances but the point is that, if “Gandhigiri” is brought into practice in our daily lives, then some exponents of corruption can be negated automatically. The net result will be a more positive growth in the traditional industries and ethical consumerism. An 8.9% rise in the GDP is excellent to say the least, but maybe things would be even better if Gandhigiri is enforced in our daily life in a big way.

Delhi Planet Weekend Trivia

Here it is and this goes out to all you technokrats and teknokrats out there. Connect the three pictures below,there is something that is common between them.

While you excercise those relaxed neurons and prepare them for the week ahead here’s some information regarding the Delhi Planet Weekend Specials. Starting from today, every weekend you would get to read about something different that you didn’t know of or something that isn’t common knowledge. This would range from the latest technological trends to biographies about people and organizations who have significantly contributed to society,and if there is something big happening over the weekend then you can expect DP to publish an exclusive review .So Stay Tuned cause just like the earth the planet is getting hotter as well.

Now coming back to the question, chances are that if you have figured out the names of the countries then google or wiki would have helped you figure out the answer ,if not then here it is. The first country is the Federated States of Micronesia followed by Armenia and finally Tuvalu.So what, you may say.Well if you find out what the domain name extensions of these countries are you would get the catch ,cause they are .fm, .am and .tv. All these are exceptionally small countries and make significant amounts of money just because their domain names can be used and booked by anyone.So much so that about 50% of micronesia’s economy is dependent on the use of the .fm domain name,which is used by fm stations around the world.

Speaking of fm,the past few months have seen a sudden explosion in the number of fm channels in delhi.While a few years back there were only 2-3 major players,it’s now doubled to 7 primetime fm channels. These consist of Star Tv’s 91.1 Fm,92.7 Fm by the ADAG, the India Today Group’s 93.5 fm, 94.3 Fm by BBC, Hit 95 fm(and it’s still a puzzle as to who owns this channel), 98.3 fm by the Times group and the latest entrant being Fever 104 powered by Virgin Music and the Hindustan Times which is emerging as one of the best channels to listen too. And guess what they even teach you “how to turn on a virgin”,check here.

Well I hope that charged those sleepy neurons in your head,cause it’s back to work tomorrow. Happy Monday.