US- China Currency War

As if the world economy is already not fragile enough, politicians in the US and China seem intent on fighting an old fashioned currency war. Personally, I feel the US is more wrong than China here..... and if not stopped soon, the two countries may send the world back to an age of barter system....

This battle concerns China's desicion to 'peg' it's currency, the yuan, to a fixed rate. The Yuan is deeply undervalued, fueling china's exports and harming the US. If the Chinese would only let the yuan float, it would only soar in value and china's export advantage would fall.

I read an article where President Obama has picked up this theme, calling recently for Beijing to adopt a more market oriented exchange rate. The US congress has also made a demand that unless China let's the Yuan rise in Value, the US should impose tariffs on Chinese goods... Just what the world needs: A Trade war.

By maintaining a fixed Yuan- Dollar rate, the Chinese believe that they have actually served the world economy well... It has lead to an explosion of trade,they say, cheaper goods to the US, thereby raising the US living standards, and prosperity to tens of millions of Chinese.

For years, the US establishment has been pressing China to revalue the yuan in the name of reducing the US trade deficit. But isn't much of the trade deficit due to intra-company trade, with US companies outsourcing production to China and India to stay globally competitive. At least, that's how i am made to understand this....

China is right to resist the US call to revalue, because a large revaluation could damage China's growth. China should learn from the experience of Japan, which had bowed to similar US pressure and had revauled the Yen. This was probably one of the reasons for the domestic deflation in Japan.

This is not to say that China's current arrangement is ideal. By not adopting a market oriented exchange rate, it has blunted the yuan's development as a tradable currency. This is probably why China sits on 2.5 trillion in dollar reserves.China's build up in dollar reserves is contributing to the world's anger at China. This represents a huge misallocation of Global resources.

If a solution to this is not found soon, war on Terror may find a back seat in world affairs, and countries may soon start focussing on pegging there currency, just like China does......

When success fails you….

16^th of January 2009. My CA ( Chartered Accountancy) Final result was expected at 11 AM. I prayed hard, silently though. I remember that day quite distincly...the same thoughts kept recurring…If I keep telling myself that I will pass, then I will surely not. However, if I tell myself I'll Fail, then the chances of passing are more. Such ridiculously demented thoughts took most of my waking up hours on that bright sunny morning.

I checked every 30 minutes to see if the results reflected on the website. Nothing happened for many hours that morning. Finally, at 11 AM, the web page reloaded. The results were out. As I entered my roll number, my mother next to me on one side, and my brother on the other, all the hard work put in by me, for over a year flashed before my eyes. Was I going to pass?? Was I Not??

And then came the Shocker!!….’Group 1’-----FAIL, ‘Group 2’------FAIL. I was numb. My mother, not really knowing how to read the results on the website, kept asking me, if i had passed. I had not. I had actually cleared every single subject, but had not passed the aggregate.

This was it! I had dreaded this day, for the last two months--between the day I had completed the exam and the day of the result. The worst had happened! The worst had happened…..

Calls, one after the other started flooding in. I picked up a few, ignored the rest.I distinctly remember my father calling me, and he obviously had heard the NEWS by then. He said, “Don’t worry Mayur. It’s a small setback. “ I was almost in tears, and was completely overwhelmed!

Why I ask???and I have been asking this every single day since then…. Why was God so unfair to me?? When I had slogged my living soul off for this…why couldn’t I reap the benefits of it??

Insanity ( I title it that…cause it was nothing short of insanity) started exactly a year and a half before I wrote my exams… enrolled myself at a tuition centre a year in advance, to give myself sufficient reading time at home closer to the exams. The classes were nothing short of Herculean… 7 AM to 5 PM every weekend… and 6 AM to 9 AM on weekdays… for one whole year….I hated every minute of it.... but, I kept telling myself not to quit, to suffer now...so that i could live the rest of my life as a CA...

I remember taking it up as a challenge not to miss a single class… not because someone instigated me to it…. But because I was so determined to crack this exam… and I felt I should do ‘whatever it takes’…. Unfortunately, I did miss a single class cause of high fever… now looking back…this one class that I missed, probably, made all the difference…:(

My study Schedule was painful to say the least… starting with 4- 5 hours a day…it went up-to an insane 10-11 hours a day. Under no means am I trying to say that I was the only one who did this…I know of friends who have done as much…if not more…..

I have always grown up believing that ‘ the more you sweat, the more luckier you get’. I worked hard…I sacrificed a lot… I remember those days when my friends would meet up for coffees and movies and to do so much more...( I rather avoid blogging that…:)) And I had to skip all of it.- Skip all of it cause, I kept telling myself that the more I sweat…the more luckier I'll get…. DAMN that book of quotes…..

It was easy to stray… It was easy to give up… It was easy to tell myself that I don’t have to do this…but I didn’t…I just went ahead to study anyways… to push myself when in despair… believing that, that is all I had to do to succeed,…

How wrong I was…How stupid I was…to believe that Hard work is all it takes.,.. How lame was I to believe that if u worked hard…. Rest will fall into place….How pudden-head I was to underestimate ‘ success’…

Many a times I’ve wondered what went wrong…could it be that I worked hard, but not hard enough…or could it be that Luck just didn’t favour me… difficult to answer I thought…I have asked myself this question everyday since then...i have had no answers. I knew for a fact that i worked really hard for it... probably harder then some of my friends at that time did...

I distinctly remember a couple of times when I threw my hands up in the air, and felt that i should just give up all of it, cause it was not worth the sacrifice... But something kept me going...something told me that I had to do it...

Failure was really really hard for me to accept...I remember that it took me almost three months to get over the depression that surrounded me...My friends made all the difference i guess...It was the most painful period ever...sitting in my room and crying out loud is not a nice thing to go through...believe me when i say this....

A couple of books also helped me through this hard time...'Greatness guide' written by Robin Sharma was one of them...This book helped me understand the importance of being passionate about what you do, and how much difference that makes to the result you are trying to achieve.

Another book that helped me through all of this was a book written by Arindam Choudary- Discover the Real Diamond in you. Again, this book spoke about the importance of passion and pursuing those goals that you are passionate about. A brilliant book- Must read.

These and many more books that I took up to reading probably helped me understand that one of the reasons why this exam probably didn’t work out for me was cause I lacked the passion to pursue this course. Yes, I must have worked my ass off, but somewhere I realized that I just did this out of compulsion (compelled myself), rather than the willingness to become a CA.

“The more passionate you are…the luckier you get”.....

Hopefully, I'll never forget this for the remaining years of my life......

Mayur Patil

BIG BULLY- SENA

Ok, I am not a Marathi...Ok, I was born and brought up in Bangalore.. Ok, I don't feel patriotic about the Marathi culture....BUT I AM AN INDIAN....and dare stop me from working ( even driving taxis) in Mumbai....

What's happened to us?? Why are we behaving like hooligans... Senseless opportunism is how I would label it. How can we be tolerating all this. Yes, I am proud of the fact that we have a honest and an intelligent Prime Minister, but isn't it a little shocking that he has not made one statement regarding the issue in Mumbai.

I am not bothered about the Tendulkar's or the Khan's or the Ambani's being a target of the Sena's Bullying entourage. They have enough security to protect themselves. What is disturbing is innocent youngsters being targeted while they attempt a Railways exam, or Taxi Drivers being attacked and their cars destroyed, while they can barely afford to lose their daily earnings. All this why?? Because some old fool is dictating terms along with his Son and Nephew.

I have been wanting to tell the entire family this, and I say this with full conviction: IF YOU WANT TO MAKE SOME CHANGES...WIN A FREAKIN ELECTION FOR GOD SAKE. They have been absolute failures for over a decade now, and yet, they believe they are speaking for the Marathi Manooos...haha..even a kid will find them childish...

Let us all Unite....Let us all teach the SENA's a lesson....A lesson that if they don't believe in the Indian Spirit...They are most welcome...TO GET OUT OF INDIA....

I am an INDIAN...No one DARE tell me where to stay, live and toil. NO ONE!!