Kandu Kandu Kondangirikkum Investment Bankugale Kandilannu Varuthunnathum Bhavan


Son: Papa, what do you do for a living?
Papa: I am an investment banker
Son: John, the accountant tells me that you are like Simon’s dad?
Papa: Rubbish. How dare he say that? Simon’s dad was a notorious burglar and look at me ….I earn 7 digit salary and I work in the number one investment bank in the world. Screw the guy.
Son: But dad, John says so because he thought both you and Simons dad swindled people and robbed them off their wealth.

The current economic crisis is to a large extent the cause of misuse of MBS (Mortgage Backed Securities), a financial tool introduced by a handful of leading Wall Street investment banks. Ironically most of the financial wizards who came out with this technique have made truckloads of money and have gracefully retired. But the unregulated and uncontrolled use of MBS have messed up the balance sheet of most financial system participants. Year after year, quarter after quarter they showed rising profits and awarded their Harward and Dharward (he he he…..no difference…as even the best messed up things)….educated executives with multi million bonus payments not realizing that they were sitting on a ticking time bomb. Well along with the numerous blasts in Iraq, Afghanistan and India , there was a blast in Wall Street as well in the form of Lehman Brothers. Had the poet-sage Poonthanam been around he would have sung

Kandu Kandu Kondangirikkum Investment Bankugale Kandilannu Varuthunnathum Bhavan

What followed was pain, pain and more pain. The icing on the cake was the burst of couple of fraud schemes in US and India amounting to a miniscule $52 bn dollars ( not much considering the trillion dollar loss related to toxic investments)…A great day for India as we managed a swift entry into the top ten corporate frauds in the last 25 years. I profusely thank Raju and Co for their dogged pursuance of excellence and for making us proud.

Layoffs, pay cuts, quarterly and annual losses, massive one time write-offs, bailouts, defaults, mergers, acquisitions, distress sales – these defined the last 6-8 months.

Its been one hell of a time. Yours truly sitting in India is shit scared about his job thanks to the doings and greed of the f*** who started this shady scheme. Hope I get to tell the future generation that I lived through this World War-3 and that I escaped unscathed (both mentally and financially)

May god almighty help all of us overcome this difficult period without any major problems.I find solace in works of my master Sri Sathya Sai Baba , Mata Amritanandamayi etc and also watching inspiring movies like Pursuit of Happyness, Shawshank Redemption etc . I also turn to mallu classics like Kilukkam, Chithram, Godfather et al to keep myself cheerful. Lalettan, Innocent, Jagathy we love you especially during times of recession

(Impact of Slowdown in Kerala: Heard from a trusted source that the valuation of investment bankers in the Kerala matrimony market has taken a serious hit, closely followed by IT folks. But am delighted to know that the ‘poor cousins of I-bankers’ – a tribe called equity analysts have not been downgraded as much as the former. So all ya mallu equity analysts, make hay while the sun shines)…