When stock pundit be held responsible!

Money Monster (2016)

Director: Jody Foster

That it is. There is no shortcut to making that first million. First, one must realise that one's journey to the land of gold and honey may meet impassable obstacles and not reach the intended destination. Or, he may be skewed away from the path and end up in a ditch. Or, he may be swallowed by a beast (or troll under the bridge, if you still believe in fairy tales!)

Wealth is finite. It is a zero-sum game. For one to make a million, somebody else must lose a million. The way advertisers do their thing, prospectors buy the idea that no one is a loser. They entice you into the gravy train, which never runs short of curry!

With the advent of complex algorithms, the unholy union of data scientists and conniving dupe masters never had it better. Speaking in incomprehensible jargon that they do not understand, they create a smokescreen that can cleverly hide their true malfeasances. Their spick appearances and polished social etiquettes belie their demonic intentions beneath their mask.

Even nations are getting involved in this debacle. When fiat money is churned out indiscriminately, even small Governments with altruistic intentions gamble on their children's future when their investments appear robust and are backed by the greenback. 

Have you noticed how financial experts have such short life spans on the airwaves? Like swallows before the summer, they appear in droves when the stock market is doing well. They yak and yak like they have perfected the art of making money out of the market. It is as if they are there for everyone's picking. Overnight, they will be uncontactable when things go south; swallow fly south. This must be why their actions are termed 'flight by night' activity. And the market will swallow everything in one big lump. 

What happens to all those sycophants who promote and sing praises of the moneymaking product as if it is the best thing to happen to mankind since sliced bread? Are these mere messengers? We do not kill the messengers. Or can they be held accountable for what comes out of their mouths? 

These are the questions that go through the mind of the compère and controller of a popular money programme named 'Money Monster' when a disgruntled investor holds the host at gunpoint and straps a bomb vest over him. The investor had lost his inheritance in stocks after taking the programme's advice, hence the frustration. 

As expected, life on the silver screen is more black or white. By the film's end, the cause of the stock prices' fall is pinpointed to fraud by its owner, and instant justice befalls the wrongdoer.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Blurred line between fact and fiction!

Inventing Anna (Miniseries, 2021)

Netflix

Believe it or not, this miniseries is based on actual events. Between 2013 and 2017, a young German heiress of Russian descent by the name of Anna Delvey was seen in the social circles of New York. She was moving around the company of who's who in the art scene and the rich and famous. Everybody was excited about her ambitious plan to create an ultra-exclusive club where the exceptionally wealthy clientele could partake. Soon every banker, lawyer, designer and leeches was dying to be in her company. The only perennial problem is that his apparently flamboyant young lady has problems mobilising her money from Germany. Her strict father is insistent that Anna earns her every single penny herself. 

People soon realise that Anna was spending way too much than she actually managed to show. Not wanting to be embarrassed, her many famous socialites and supporters of Anna's plan to build a foundation instead stay anonymous and would not like to be associated with her. This was discovered by a problematic journalist who decided to investigate Anna. She has to finish her investigations in record time as she is due to deliver her baby anytime now.

The story of Anna Delvey @ Anna Sorokin peels open the problems with modern living. Money begets money, and affluence pulls influence. Creating a persona is so important these days, and the ultimate tool to create a fake narrative is social media. It paints an illusion of prosperity and contentment when it is just a smokescreen for the ugly backdrop that lurks in the background. It is the gratifying playground of narcissists. The story is so hyperreal that it alters reality which is not so rosy.

Outstanding achievements are achieved from dreaming, but building sandcastles in the air does not hold water. One lie to cover another only gets one entangled in a web of deceit that will only reveal itself on its own finally.

Are parents really responsible for the mess that their offspring create? Can they be blamed if their children create mayhem in society? Do children come from parents or merely go through their parents? At a time when parenting is outsourced so much to nannies, schools and cyberspace, who knows who creates their personality and values? Nobody listens to their parents anymore. The children have a legitimate excuse for all their follies and failures - overbearing parenting!

It should be pretty apparent that it is a priority to save big conglomerates whenever there is an economic downturn. The justification for this is that the collapse of a large corporation has a spill down effect on the small people and the country's economy at large. The push is there to ensure their continuity at the expense of the rest of the country. The same things happen in the legal system. The average man-in-the-street will never be able to afford to appoint the shrewd legal eagles to seek justice arising from the inhumane and unscrupulous criminal antics of business concerns. The current turns of events in many high-profile cases are indeed proof that there is an invisible hand from above (definitely NOT the Hand of God!) that is controlling the narrative. By no means, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one can confidently assume that there are two sets of rules of law (not justice); one for the corporations and another for the little men (and women).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Money is never enough!

Money Explained (5 episodes, Documentary, 2021)

Netflix

Looks like the old adage 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' still holds true. The system is there so that the well-heeled is always at the top of the food chain at the expense of the poor. Whichever way one looks, the little man will always stay poor, and the rich man will always the last laugh. 

Money, wealth, luxurious lifestyle and aesthetically pleasing environment are dangled in front of those who can ill afford to own or even anywhere around it. Everyone wants to be rich as that is our measure of success.

The first carrot that is dangled upon us is the get rich quick scheme. Even as early as the time of the expeditions to South America, the designs have been going around. Gregor MacGregor, a professional trickster, managed to sell land and bonds of a supposedly heaven-on-earth kind of a paradise territory in Central America after their discoveries. The trouble is that such a place was non-existent. Gullible people wanting to be rich bought the story and bought stocks and got burnt. Such frauds never stopped and continue as we speak. Suckers are born every day. There are Ponzi schemes, Multi-level Marketing, info-commercial, pyramid schemes, and the list goes on.

Another way to entice people to spend and spend is via credit cards. Credit companies give the illusion, via their creative advertisements, that by possessing their cards, life will be so pleasant, leisurely and stress-free. They conveniently forget to tell that, unless the client is a serial transactor who does not bring forward any balance forward to the following month, the customer would be subjected to compound interest. This interest is high, and in the olden days, it would be termed usury.

It is said that the American government encouraged its citizens to attend college and delve into science and technology as the Soviets were making leaps and bounds in the space race in the late 50s. Private enterprises also joined the education race. College fees started escalating. School loans were becoming the best way to pay back after graduation. But then, the whole arrangement came to a tumble when the 90s crash came about. They had no jobs, and the students had to defer their repayments. Not only they had to pay compound interest to their outstanding balance, but they also had to pay interest to the interest. If it used to be that those who entered the labour force without attending college would be higher wages in the early stage of their lives, it is not so anymore. The low skill workers actually earn less now. 

Nobody becomes rich by gambling. Period. Despite knowing this, the enticement to give a go at gambling is becoming more difficult than ever to shake off. With flashes of advertisements flashing right in front of our faces ever so often and the ease of installing gambling devices apps, the one-arm bandit is literally at our fingertips. The system is rigged in such a way that the house never loses, no matter what the experts say.

In the modern world, every individual works for the nation and in return, the country will provide for its people, including those in the twilight of their lives. The retirement fund is set for that and never meddled with even at the worse of crisis. Slowly we realise that the money set aside for the sunset era is gradually becoming insufficient. The elders, it seems, have to continue working even at their post-retirement age. The cost of living has increased exponentially, and people are just living longer. The cost of keeping a person healthy is just too expensive. The returns that they hoping for from their retirement saving just did not materialise. 

This short presentation of five 20-minutes episodes shows in simple terms some of the problems with managing money.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

History repeats itself, again!

The Battle of Kurukshetra: Bhima killing the King of Kalinga, 

from  1605 illustrated manuscript of the Razmnama, the Persian

translation of the Mahabharata, 

Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata.

Being a historian must be quite scary; seeing everyday events unfolding in front of his very eyes just as it happened many times before in history. From time immemorial, the issues are the same. Even the language used is eerily the same. The end point is the same; usurping of power, wealth and dominance being the intent. Modus operandi remains the same; coming as friends or liberators with goodies beyond compare. Little do the recipients realise that it is just a bait to fish bigger catches. Your enemy is my enemy, they say. They speak of new incomprehensible lingos, the marginalised, the minority, the downtrodden, the outcasts and they embrace you despite the wart and all. 

The setting may be different. The tool may vary. It would happen at a different time. But the manner would be the same. They would make you see a matter as a problem when it never was, to you or anyone in your vicinity. You will resist. They would use their resources make you feel stupid, obsolete and aloof. They would show proof to demonstrate their assertions. You relent. Poof! They have the solution, and you have a big hole in your pocket.

In times like these, the excellent observation of Freidrich Nietzsche comes to mind. In fact, it was observed in the Vedanta teachings many many centuries ago. That our life goes up and down in oscillation like a sinusoidal wave, with peaks and troughs. Sadness and happiness are temporary events. Do not be too contended when things go your way and, at the same times, do not despair when you are in the doldrums. It would not be long before you start singing and chirping once again.

Like an immortal seeing event of life unfolding in front of him again and again, like in the cycle of rebirth being born yet again, like the life repeating itself, a historian may develop a God-complex. The frustrating part would be that what appears plain to him may not be so to anyone else. Maybe the insanity in the other expects the outcome to be different!

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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