Worry- The New Regime
The world we live in today is not only fraught with great changes but also great worries. Terrorism, disease and poverty, expectations out of great leaders and even corporate frauds have become an everyday affair. Perhaps, most of all, it is this crippling malaise of worry that has helped us make no progress at all, [...]
Ashwin Mehendale
30.01.2009
Society
The world we live in today is not only fraught with great changes but also great worries. Terrorism, disease and poverty, expectations out of great leaders and even corporate frauds have become an everyday affair. Perhaps, most of all, it is this crippling malaise of worry that has helped us make no progress at all, except for our world’s “marvelous” growth in terms of layoffs, buyouts, corporate restructuring, downsizing, cutbacks, retrenchments, outplacement and pare backs.
These days we need a whole new dictionary just to keep up with the new age euphemisms. Hostile take-overs and ‘cost-containment’ sounds mean enough to give you an ulcer or two. Some say the current state can lead to another great depression and yet another world war. Celebrations should break out, for this is yet another cause of worry!
The post war boom went bust. Competition at one level went bust. Quality became the key. Europe started unifying, the third world countries started elbowing their way in and most of the cushiness has gone out of modern capitalism. No wonder Obama has picked up the most fashionable word of the century – change. So what has emerged is a new regime of worry. People are doing anything to keep their jobs and families intact. Therefore, we might just have to revert back to the money-minting phrase of ‘maintaining a positive attitude’.
Emotional sickness has taken more lives than small pox. Perhaps it will end up costing more lives than the Iraq war in the near future. So,Yoga and meditative Tai Chi have become fashionable. Shrinks are charging double (on account of recession or otherwise) and if you can come up with a book titled, say, ‘How to keep your jobs and sanity’ or ‘100 ways to survive in the belly of a corporate shark’, then you can virtually become the next J.K.Rowling. No wonder, adult versions of fairy tales have come out; Obama’s cliched ‘hope and change’ speech is receiving accolades and the Cinderella story of Slumdog Millionaire is ‘in’; anything to escape the parasite of worry!
But this is not saying that change is bad, for if there were no changes, there would be no butterflies. Look at what happened to IBM a few years back; the once invincible computer giant experienced huge cutbacks and its dominance was challenged by a number of small companies worldwide. Lean and competitive companies are giving way to the dinosaurs of tomorrow — the ones with teeth of creativity and flexibility!
Shohini Sengupta
[ratings]
[image courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/clkkj8]
“Lean and competitive companies are giving way to the dinosaurs of tomorrow — the ones with teeth of creativity and flexibility!” Loved this statement. Very rightly said, but lets not start worrying about how not to worry!
Yeah,with 5o million job cuts worldwide, anything is possible….including a world war!!!!
But what is also possible is people start small creative enterprises of their own.
As I read in one of the pieces about McDonalds, they say- ‘we are not ‘recession proof’ but we are certainly becoming ‘recession resistent’ with our constant innovation and focus on quality products and service.
Nice Article provoking though.
you bet its creativity that’s the need of the hour…no wonder startups are making headlines everywhere… [u can say 'luk whos talking'
]
as regards ur “the year of worry” an interesting insight wud b numerology
it is said that 2009 cud b a gud year for india taking into consideration numerological facts..also similarly..for many things having global impact…y i dunno..
i’m just way too stuck to the radio and thats where i heard it..
Fantastic article.
Along with creativity and innovation my view is that we need to go back a couple of years in terms of financial regulatory framework.
The recession today is not due to fundamental factors like lack of demand or excess supply or economic saturation. This is purely led by a failure of the regulatory system to govern derivatives, financial instruments, global currency/ equity and debt trade and speculators.
Lets look at fundamentals – demand and supply. Demand was growing and still is. There is no shortage of supply of any commodity – edible or non edible.
The problem has arisen with excessive and complex futures trading in the hope that valuations will continue to rise due to an ever growing global economy which gave way to excessive speculation of real estate and commodities…essential commodities. This led to a conversion of liquidity into assets (real estate and commodities) and liquidity requirements were financed through credit against those same assets.
Slowly people realised that prices were too high and that returns were not reflective of asset values….which was catalysed by large companies declaring bankruptcy.”leading to huge amounts of valuations being wiped out overnight.
The sheer drop in valuations across all sectors has erased a huge quantum of liquidity leaving traders and companies with little or no money to finance purchases at current price levels, thus creating a huge inventory pile up in the system.
The fundamental demand level will come back to normal once prices drop to levels of maybe 7-10 yrs earlier….because that is how much liquidity there is right now.