Sunday, 15 March 2015

Online junkies…

We are digital junkies…forever touching our magical devices. Our digital addiction is reaching unprecedented levels. Many of us are spending most of our waking hours on our smart phones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles, high resolution TVs, e-readers, Bluetooth speakers, headphones…forever checking emails, Facebook, tweets, Google, messenger, whatsapp, flipboard, and countless other apps, websites… is it the dawn of the age of singularity?.. even a few hours without wifi..is a deprivation of the vital oxygen which is so essential for our living…adults..children…all have been stricken by the new plague of the net…kids one year old are getting so used to touch devices…they are at home with these intuitive devices…steve jobs is the person who has launched the human race into the cyberspace..

about 100 years ago…we started the electricity addiction…now everything comes to a grinding halt without electricity…similarly the internet grid of which wifi is the last mile link has become so very important …internet is truly the next electricity..like blood with our bodies…water in the world…rivers and seas..yes truly we are children of the internet age…there is no turning back…lest we become pillars of salt like lot’s wife  as they were leaving Sodom….in any case we are going to reduced to robots like pillars of salt…

Slowly, gradually, inexorably we are being sucked into the innards of our digital futures…the obsequious chips are controlling all our movements…even when we are jogging..our iPods are monitoring our calories burnt, speed, distance, heart beat.. now wristbands monitoring all our waking and sleeping hours tracking our health to the minutest details.. every heartbeat..every breath…every morsel…every drop…every turd…next the wonder bands will be transmitting our health stats to our health records in the cloud..to our doctors… maybe robo doctors…like the robo financial advisers of Charles schwab.. In the coming age of singularity so vividly portrayed by kurzweil…micro chips will be embedded into our bodies…our brains will be duplicated..downloaded…into hard drives…cloned..


Millions of surveillance cameras are tracking every move we make…there is a watcher in the skies…big brother is here and now…we are not alone anymore…imperceptibly we are being sucked into the cyber future…morphing slowly into our robot incarnations…mutations..there is no reprieve…we are committed into a surreal cyber soulmind less future…forever detached from last vestiges of all that we knew as humanity…floating digital debris in the infinite cosmos…
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Friday, 6 March 2015

Medical longevity vs morphine endings....

There have been amazing advances in medical science during past few hundred years. These improved medicines, surgical techniques, specialty hospital, food and nutrients, health awareness, better living conditions, control of communicable diseases, etc have lead to substantial increases in human life expectancy especially over the past 75 years or so.

As for me, I am living on borrowed time with everyday a bonus. Am 63 today. I have to take 11 pills daily. Feel like medicated goo. Probably without this medication, I would not be here today at my laptop keyboard. During my 20s, I felt living till 50 was all that I wanted. One of the reasons was that both my Father and Grandfather passed away @ 56. Being an existentialist, felt 50 was long enough an existence more so since I had been expanding my consciousness into the cosmos and stretching time to infinity with a little help of mind-blowing herbs and natural crystals.

But with the arrival of my lovely daughter, life became busy all in giving the best one could with our incomes in terms of food, education, clothing and exposure to life. So by the time I had reached 50, she was 20 and in college. Hence the topmost thought was to live till she settled herself in life. The moment she completed her masters and started working, I gave up my job in 2005 which was I not enjoying since 2002. Now that she has a family with an adorable kid, I feel maybe now one can safely depart.

Thanks again to the wonders of modern medical science; my lifespan has extended beyond that of my Father. Being an existentialist and immensely philosophical, however, one has been ready for the exit which is the ultimate fate of mortal sentient beings for past few decades. The average lifespan in the early 1950s was about 40 or so in India. This has now improved to 66. In some advanced counties longevity has reached well above 80. Hence the moral and existential dilemma of when is the right time to leave. One should not overstay like some party goers who hang on after others have left.

Medical science has increased longevity, but at what cost. Long lives are only for the rich who can afford the right food and medicines. Society is bearing the cost of the medical research and facilities ultimately. The pharmaceutical companies are not working increasing lifespan out of any pure altruistic motive. Their major interest is profit, returns on investment and valuations. There is a complex nexus between hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical industry, regulators, insurance companies and governments. At the cost of ruining all natural balances, the medical fraternity wants us to live forever. Soon they are going to conquer cancer and through DNA engineering humans may be able to live forever! Indeed a most frightening prospect as they will be trampling on each other for want of space!

The basic issues which are arising out of longer life spans are logistical in nature:

Firstly, pressure on the limited resources which mother earth can provide like food, energy fuel, commodities and environment. It is said that now with a population of over 7 bn, the planet is clearly overcrowded and that we need two earths to supply the increasing demands and needs of human kind. In our endeavour to provide food to the teeming billions, science has introduced GMO food which has now been proved to have serious long term health hazards including cancer.

Secondly, we have polluted the planet to stage where it has resulted in extreme climate and irreversible changes in nature. The environment has been impacted most adversely due to higher carbon emissions, energy intensive life global warming, more severe winters, hotter summers, shortage of potable water, drastic reduction in fauna and flora, decline in forest areas, melting of polar ice, rise in sea levels, and increase in incidence of floods, hurricanes and precipitation. The balance of nature has been destroyed by humankind trampling upon forests and killing animals.

Thirdly, hyper competition has reared its medusa-like hydra head. As a direct corollary of too many people and unbridled capitalism, the number of companies producing similar products, fighting for limited consumer mind space is increasing way beyond desired limits resulting in cut throat and unethical competition, wafer thin profit margins or losses, stock market manipulations, credit rater’s over-ratings for accessing debt, discounts, and sales round the year and over capacity.

Fourth, unemployment is increasing in most economies. With longer lifespan, humans need to work for more years because they do not have funds for retirement and old age and they also have the physical ability. Old and young are competing for same jobs. The old are not able to cope with the change over to a digital workspace. Their very jobs are being cannibalized by their children who are not only cheaper to hire, they are more IT savvy and have better qualifications with open minds. Unless the older people continuously reinvent themselves, their survival in the job market is at risk.

Fifth, prolonged life is often possible due to the nexus between the insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical industry, and high fiscal deficit based old age care which nations can ill afford being deep in debt.

Sixth, pensions all over have become veritable time bombs, since most of the payouts are based upon pre-defined benefits. Most corporations and nations are not funded adequately to meet the pension requirements in the next few decades. Bankruptcies are looming ahead for both the private and public sectors.

Finally, the most practical problem is going to be looking after aged. There would be quantum jump in the need for old age homes, assisted living centres, hospices. As greater proportion of the population becomes physically dependent it will be a nightmare caring for their daily needs like nurses, doctors, especially for those who have alzheimer's, parkinsons with fast fading memories leading vegetable lives, requiring more than $ 20k pa for looking after, Maybe in advanced societies, they will develop robots to look after the aged! the dichotomy between the rich and the poor and similarly affluent societies and poverty stricken ones will become stark. the average ages in the rich parts will be much higher and vice versa. Gradually as we enter the age of Singularity, the robots and computers might decide kill the aged since they will be a drag on the resources!

In view of all the problems arising out of over population and aging societies, there are several solutions for ushering in a balanced steady state which would match the resources offered by mother earth. Solutions might appear bit radical, but are holistic factoring in all the conflicting constraints and work out an answer matching the requirements.

Population control measures may be practiced on a global scale. There are countries which have relatively large natural resources with low populations, while nations which are relatively low in per caput resources generally have large populations. Here there is scope for transfer of people to shrinking population ageing societies like Japan and Europe.  The aspect which is to be maintained across is the ratio of working age population to dependent population, young and old. Here the advanced economies have twin fold needs, one of augmenting highly skilled and qualified people and also labour in some advanced economies like US and Germany. In fact aging economies like Japan have resorted to robots.

Then there is the issue of reducing overall population to a sustainable steady state size from the present 7+ bn to about 5 bn. This indeed is an onerous task. Some of the solutions are:

  1. Strict population control to maximum one child per family across all nations, maybe also zero kids in some,
  2. Economic incentives for adoptions and having no kids,
  3. Emigrations to balance out population and per capita natural resource inequalities,   
  4. Cap on life for terminally ill,
  5. Legalizing euthanasia,
  6. Planned euthanasia and assisted end of life including morphine endings (or LSD end of life like Aldous Huxley),
  7. Celebrating death just like birth,      
  8. Encouraging living wills stating no hospitalization for prolonging life with support systems, assisted living in hospitals,
  9. Resorts for celebrating endings with loved ones
   
Some of the above may sound crazy. We need to be united across all countries living in a world with no boundaries or religion. If we want the present human civilization to last out longer, then along with all the other steps for reducing carbon emissions, simpler low energy intensive lives, reducing debt and expenditure (through equally radical measures as listed out above), maybe we can push the inevitable climate collapse and extinction a wee bit further. Some might quip: whether trying do all the above is really worth it?

It would be apt to adopt John Lennon’s “Imagine” as the anthem of our world.

Imagine


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
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Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Ecocalypse – possible post debt world scenarios

for the past 25 years, since Japan entered its long tunnel of stagflation with low interest rates, several other advanced nations as well as other economies both mid developed and emerging markets gradually followed its footsteps. Japan as the second most developed economy (even till recently) has been able to successfully survive over two decades of most searing and pioneering experience in tight rope walking on the knife edge with two disaster scenarios: between shrinking precipitously or absorbing stimulus at low rates of interest  which can fuel inflation.  

The twin specters of deflation and mounting debt are haunting Japan, Europe and a swathe of other countries in other continents. US though not in deflation is being plagued by near zero interest rates and unsustainable debt. Overall the debt plague has made killing inroads into practically all economies including China, India among major ones. Only a handful could be outside its baleful influence.

Argentina which had defaulted on its international debt in 2002, got a respite when IMF, few PE companies, etc picked up the debt. Next when the country could not service the debt, restructuring of debt was done. Then bitter court cases were fought out on whether the old loans could be repaid by new loans. Here also the judge ruled that only certain debt could be retired first, now the situation has become complex with couple of PE firms wanting to exit in London which appears to be outside the jurisdiction of the Judge’s ruling.

Now in view of the world wide phenomenon of debt, it would be really worthwhile knowing how much debt can economies absorb at near zero rates of interest.  Next question would be how much lower the rates of interest can go? Is it new era of micro interest rates? Recently even Germany issued 5 year debt at –ve rate of interest.   

Next, it would be interesting if we could forecast what could happen after a prolonged period of the above. Some of the options could be:

  1. Period of sub zero rates of interest which would lead to shrinking economies, currency crises, devaluations, imploding loans, bank runs, flight of deposits and capital, fall in asset prices…
  2. When then terms of repayment of the loans appear too onerous, there would be move for ever greening the loans. Repayment period of loans can be extended; there could moratoriums on the repayment of loans if the creditors agree. Thereafter writing off the loans. The implications of this will depend upon whether the loans are external or internal? There will always a heavy price to pay. The creditors will set tough conditions. If there is a write off, how will it accounted for.  Who bears burden of final writing off or ultimate capitalizing the loss. What will the implications be on the various interrelated economic parameters like deflation, stock markets, currency decline, fall in interest rates, flight of capital, sale off government/ public sector companies, reduce costs and austerity measures.
  3. The range of variables cover in such a crises external and domestic debt, trade, GDP, inflation, exchange rates, interest rates, banking crises and commodity prices.
  4. In the future there could be paradigm shifts in solutions for overcoming debt. Some of the out of the box solutions could be:
    1. Rich nations buying poor debt laden nations;
    2. War to take over the debt ridden country;
    3. Mortgage and sale of large tracts of land, islands, monuments, historical sites, provinces, mineral mines, crude wells, factories to countries, rich individuals, private equity forms, corporates, financial sector, etc both domestic and international.
    4. Introduce a barter system strategically so the further debt can be avoided. A mechanism need to be worked around.
    5. Debt ridden countries may be forced to down size or right size and then may be adopt a steady state for their economies in order to escape the debt trap, though this may not be most palatable to the citizens. The recent protests in Greece and Spain show that this is not easy to implement.
    6. Compartmentalization of past debt in different buckets with differential treatment for each. Maybe securitisation..a la Wall Street style...mother of all debt....
    7. Pushing part of the debt to future generations to repay. This could one of the options of f above.
    8. Usher in Ecocalypse – the death of money.
  5. Sometimes these solutions cannot be taken in isolation. The people at the grassroots after years of profligate living would be extremely adverse to adopt austere lives. People all over the world would react similarly.
  6. Hence the debt problem is indeed a time bomb ticking away into the future, forever being postponed. Strategic innovative accounting principles need to be evolved to reduce the pain now and in as fair a way push it to the future.  As Keynes said in the long run we are all dead.


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Saturday, 14 February 2015

Root Cause of Rogue Culture in Banks

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the US Fed in order to rein in high risk taking aggressive banks, which had to be bailed with tax payers money for their rogue deals which landed them in high losses, has advised banks that they need to get deep into the culture and behavior patterns of their employees in order to ensure there is no recurrence of high VAR outages. Actually this issue is not one which is restricted to banks and can be resolved by simply weeding out a few so called aberrant employees. Neither can it be rectified by trying to ingrain ethical behavior among employees of financial services sector nor trying to doing employing surveys for tracking rating ratio of happy employees to grumpy employees over time! Wells Fargo, arguably the best bank in US also does culture surveys among its employees.  

The issue of culture cannot be studied in isolation in banks only. The issue is a far more deep seated societal malaise. The high risk taking and aggressive streak runs much deeper through the veins and aortas of society in general. Hence the analysis is required to be done over the entire canvas of society.

Today the violence which is pervading society has the same root causes, whether it is the action of a few rogue traders in banks, or a disturbed adult on a shooting spree at malls, or terrorists holding to ransom dozens of innocent people, or even a naïve three year old shooting his parents with their gun. Though these action points may seem random, but there is a high correlation between them and a common pattern which can be traced to the development of a hyper competitive, acquisitive, materialistic, conditioned society. The greed and avarice neurosis is running through all walks of life. It stems from the so called rush for “higher, faster, bigger, richer, better” right from school to families, corporations, and nations.

Recently three of the top four banks in US reported weak earnings for Q4 of 2014. Overall the banks in the developed economies are still to recover fully form the disastrous meltdown of 2008. In fact, US and European banks paid $65 bn in penalties and fines to regulators in 2014, 40% higher than the previous year. Credit rater S&P had to pay almost $100 mn in penalties to regulators and $1.5 bn to the justice departments for inflated ratings.

It is so ludicrous to see regulators wanting banks to do culture, behavioral and psychological tests of their employees after several financial meltdowns mostly due the crony nexus between banks, credit raters, stock markets, money markets, regulators and corporates. Agreed there is a boom and bust cycle in the financial markets, but conducting micro level research on employees is strange to say the least. Most of the weapons of mass destruction of the financial system were designed by rocket scientists who sat in their ivory tower rooms in the same floor as their CEOs corner rooms. The complex math algorithmic models of the derivatives and mortgage backed securities were not understood by the CEOs of the banks or even by the credit raters and regulators. The blind faith of most of us in complex modeling even without understanding them is frightening. If these models were made with reasonable assumptions and stress tested for all possible scenarios then we would not have been in the soup we are in today. The VAR models had never built in the worst case scenario combinations properly nor even envisaged the bunching of events.   

Another frightening nexus has been created within the health care industry where there is deep connivance between pharmaceutical industry, doctors, hospitals, health insurance and the regulatory authorities. Profit is the key to all the developments in this network. Hence we humans are mere guinea pigs in their search for higher profits.  

Aggression, cheating, corruption and violence in society are a deep seated phenomenon since times immemorial. But with the proliferation of guns, science, technology, wealth, cars and mass production, social dimensions of meum and teum, endless gratification, instant karma, etc have taken up ugly contours. Often the so called advanced societies in the developed world are found to have deep neurosis, psychological disorders, and mental sickness. The number of  psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in the these societies is the highest per head. The very norms of sane societies have changed. There are deep, dark and crazy desires which can only be fulfilled by transgressing upon the happiness of others. There is no inner peace. Hence since the 60s and age of flower power there has been an yearning for yoga and Buddhism and other oriental practices  

The vicarious lifestyles prevalent in highly developed societies have resulted in mindless high energy lifestyles, technological progress, hyper competition, mass consumerism and mall cultures, infinite varieties of food, clothing, electronics, etc to provide pleasure to the jaded, blunted and desensitized senses and taste buds. All this has lead to the plundering of all natural resources, carbon emissions, and irreversible climate changes. All these anthropogenic acts have emanated from plastic culture we have embraced and spread all over the globe thanks to media and internet. Now virtually half of the world owns smart phones and have become digitized zombies. A surreal sick society is the hotbed which has bred the financial monsters of Wall Street.  


Indeed, there is an urgent need for a newgrammaroflife.blogspot.in, which provides solutions for the deep rooted malaise at the individual, society & economy levels which would eventually lead to a societal and climate collapse.
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Monday, 9 February 2015

till debt does us apart...

Greece is reaching a stage where it is on the verge of reneging on its loan commitments to the EU. strangely enough because its people in a democratic election have voted against the anti-austerity measures imposed on it in the wake of its bankruptcy by its creditors the EU mainly led by Germany. greece is actually the tip of debt iceberg which engulfing the world both economies and also individuals. debt is actually ravaging the world tearing it asunder with its baleful influence. debt is more of a means to an end. the end is living the good life with all the toys of modern life and technology. the debilitating malaise has insidiously affected the very entrails of individuals, families, nations, societies and the entire globe.

this cancer of debt has pervaded all the pores and glands of our body politic. there is simply no cure no chemotherapy no radiation for cleansing us of this intoxicating pleasure cancer. all the so called addictive trappings of modern life like fast cars, energy intensive big gadget filled houses, multi internet devices, jet travel, infinite foods alcohol drugs, multidimensional entertainment, et al have a price tag and have fueled the crises - financial, environmental, psychological and physical both the individual level and society.

now what has happened as a result of this heady over leveraged existence entire nations and individuals are mired in deep debt from which they are not able to extricate themselves as they do not have the moral strength. discipline  or willpower to practise some degree of austerity, lowering of standards of living, going back to basics, simple living or cost reduction. everyone engulfed in a massive debt trap bubble which is ever expanding like the universe dangerously hovering over the dark holes of space on the verge of been sucked into the interstellar interstices leading to TMAs a la 2001 a space odyssey.

this burgeoning debt has become endemic. nations, people and companies are living perpetually in the future. most businesses are including successful startups are living off the future with perpetual funding from banks, private equity, VCs. similarly economies are living on life support systems of ICUs, euphemistically termed as stimulus especially the developed ones like Japan, US and Europe. some countries like US have run up massive deficits of $ 18 trillion and still counting. most high debt economies have reach the state where fresh loans are issued to pay back interest of earlier loans and principal amounts are not repaid. time comes when even they start defaulting on interest repayments.

national debts are mainly sourced from deficits run by country's fiscal budgets, printing more money and increasing money supply, issuing internal bonds which are bought by banks which reflect these as part of their investment portfolios and reserve requirements, external borrowings by issuing international bonds to other countries and international financial institutions. defaults in debt repayments could result in weakening domestic banks, negative interest rates, increase in inflation, adverse currency fluctuations, downgrading of credit ratings, fall in imports, possible rise of exports, outflow of currency, weakening of economy, sharp rise in prices of essentials, economic unrest, interest rates declining and fall in GDP growth rate.

in a macro sense, today most of the global economies are living on the future ie perpetual loans which will never be repaid in the future. a gradual descent into global bankruptcy. a new paradigm will emerge where all govts will renege on loans, evergreen loans to 2050 ie shifting the denouement to a distant future when most of the people above 40 may not be there. in real term a much smaller amount will be something which conveniently dealt with then. new financial shenanigans which we need not worry are heads off today. a new time...a new age...new solutions....in the long run we are all dead as Keynes had said.
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Thursday, 29 January 2015

Megatrends....ongoing musings...

12 mar 15
looming water crisis. The World’s Water Supply Could Dip Sharply in 15 Years
by 2030 only 60% of global water demand will be met. http://time.com/3753332/world-water-day-un-warning/

19th mar 15
what goes up must come down. the shale gas story is one such. about 5 years ago, the research reports were agog with hush hush stories of untold energy wealth below the ground. soon the biggest oil companies like chevron, exxon got into the act of hydraulic fracking and extracting energy which could keep afloat oil guzzling societies for decades into the future. along with them, the greedy wall street banks also lent billions and made billions in investment banking fees from oil companies. along with the shale boom, these fracking small towns overnight became bustling business centres. the real estate sharks also piled on and chalked out ambitious projects. huge constructions are halfway through. none had foreseen the oil glut and plummeting prices. then nemesis struck. glut of oil and sharp decline in prices. no signs of recovery in the horizon. the oil companies, banks, real estate companies are are caught on the wrong foot. banks desperately want to sell loans at discounts, but no takers. only the future can tell us the next chapter of this story full of greed and avarice of biblical proportions.

17th mar 15
The pension time bomb is ticking perilously. In some advanced countries today only about 75% of the future liabilities are in place with various govt, state and municipal bodies. This number was much higher at 85% during the 2008 financial meltdown. Some of the most hurt sections are the police, fire brigade, etc. it has reached such a stage the new entrants are being offered only defined contribution as against the earlier defined defined benefit.

In some cities the police have started quitting for better jobs. Now getting new people to fill their vacancies is becoming tougher. hence in due course there will be a shortage of police and firemen. If these two essential services get hit, there will be a deleterious effect on law, order and safety. With nation debt in shambles this precarious state of affairs can only deteriorate. Another tinder box to contend with.

13th mar 15
financial markets in unprecedented turmoil. unbelievable turn of events unfolding. stoic like we all are witnessing events stranger than fiction. we have become so future shock proofed that we are accepting it as the new norm. some of the stunning ripley's believe it or not:

  • negative rates of interest offered on european bonds
  • negative real rates of of interest in huge parts of the developed world
  • longer terms maturity of bonds ranging from 50 to 100 years
  • derivatives trading volumes $ 700 trillion in US, ten times global gdp
  • top ten investment banks have a private dark pool of trading beyond the purview of regulators
  • high frequency trading, spoofing to mislead stock markets 
  • computerised algorithmic trading on wall street 
  • most govts including municipals mired in ever increasing deficits, debt by continuously issuing bonds
  • biggest wall street banks barely passing the stress tests of the fed
  • banks resorting to higher proportions of loans to sub-prime retail borrowers in US
  • insurance companies having to pay out larger amounts for climate disasters
  • healthcare costs becoming prohibitively expensive
  • corporates resorting to higher dent equity ratios
  • increasing individual, corporate, national bankruptcies 
  • commodity prices declining, sharpest being oil
10th mar 15
the iran / israel issue in US has reached ludicrous heights. strange how without obama's nod the israeli pm addressed the us congress and the gop leaders have directly written to iran. the stand off between the president and gop has crossed all norms of statecraft. democracy is redefining itself. shades of the tv serial 24. humankind is really reaching new highs of confrontation. this used to happen at most levels like families, companies, etc. its present in all countries. but when the world's most powerful person the us president's authority is undermined, we have indeed reached another dimension in our descent to global anarchy. reminds me of the british rock band sex pistols' song anarchy in the uk from their album never mind the bollocks. in a way rock has been a presager of the times. its only rock and roll, and i like it.....



9th mar 15
during past one month there have been four oil train derailments in US / Canada. with increased fracking and reliance on shale gas, etc for becoming self reliant in energy, there has been quantum jump in fracking shale gas. that fracking itself is a high risk mining activity is another story. but crude by rail shipments have rocketed from 21k barrels a day in 2009 to a mind boggling 1 mn barrels a day by end of 2014! this frenetic scurrying of crude to keep feeding the monstrous energy needs of the world's richest country is indeed frightening. we all have become slaves to our comfort loving lifestyles. the number of violent train accidents in US have increased from 15 to 38 in 3 years ending 2014. its indeed a catch 22 situation...our love for high energy gadget based comfort vs the risks, environmental degradation and high unsustainable costs, debts and deficits.


7th mar 15
boko haram of nigeria has joined hands with Isis. terror seems to sprouting everywhere. human kind is bent on destroying itself. like ying and yang, the duality of humans is both good and evil. very few are able to transcend duality. this deadly duel between the opposing forces will always be there. since time immemorial the cain and abel story has been replaying over and over again. now with weapons of mass destruction, dirty bombs, bio threats...the risks of terror attacks are much higher. The polarisation of forces is getting clearer. The alliances are getting muddier and murkier. Yesterday's enemy today's friend. Good tracts of Islamic countries have aligned themselves against Isis. The battle lines are crystallising. The enemy seems to be everywhere. Within us. Without us. Nostradamus saw it all.

6th mar 15
the food conundrum for the teeming millions on the over crowded planet gets stranger ...sader ...diabolical... seems like a conspiracy against human kind in the name of scientific progress...and the agricultural, horticultural, poultry and livestock revolution...but the sickening truth is emerging that all that we eat and drink is slow poisoning....insidiously corroding our entails..norman borlaug was the genius who emancipated humanity from hunger...but the the bio scientists who work for the large agriculture research corporations have invented frankensteins..

first was the shocking revelation the milk we have and feed our children is not safe since the cattle have been treated with powerful hormones, steroids and antibiotics..the same applies to the cereals, vegetables, eggs, chicken, mutton, beef  we eat unknowingly... so freakish and monstrous...and since the mid-1990s.... the number of people suffering from chronic and lifestyle diseases, such as blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, diabetes and cancer has nearly doubled., infant mortality has increased and life span is declining in many countries which have blindly adopted the sinister and improperly tested laboratory inventions of GMO food. the masses have no option but to eat these genetically engineered and modified food.. only the rich can afford organic food...

5th mar 15
Negative interest rates is the new anti-return on bonds. once considered an impossibility, theoretically meaningless, is the new reality which is spreading like wildfire across europe. ever since the greek drama began a host of central banks in europe have crossed into the hitherto forbidden territory of negative interest rates. the ECB was the first really to slip into the negative realm when it started buying bonds like Japan and US. most of the developed world is in the throes of living on stimulus. its indeed frightening that so called rich countries are actually in comatose states in the ICU. most of them have perilously low rates of gdp growth or even contracting.

quite a few of the large emerging markets are also in dire straits, especially russia, argentina and brazil. china has lowered its gdp projections to 7%, its lowest in 25 years or so. possibly india is the only contrarian with rising gdp growth rates. to cap it, taking advantage of the situation in europe, quite a few ingenuous american corporations including berkshire hathaway have started issuing euro bonds to arbitrage from the ultra low rates of interest there. seems the world is imploding...anti-matter...anti-Christ....




27th feb 15
in US the federal communications commission (FCC) for the first time decided to exercise some authority over the internet. so far the internet, perhaps the greatest invention last century and epocal as telephone, TV, or cars, was enjoying freedom of most new inventions which are not regulated till they reach some critical mass. the internet has grown at frenetic speed and spawned a digital universe for humans to live in, a bevy of devices and millions of applications. now there will be regulations for broadband providers which have mushroomed worldwide. there will be clarity on the regulations in the months to come and also how they will be implemented by other countries outside US. the telecom sector and cable companies are not happy with this. new net neutrality rules have been approved.

the net and broadband have invaded our lives pervading each pore like no invention in the past.
there was a parallel development since the 80s in computers and internet. only in the nineties these two entered our household. since the beginning of this millenium both of these made giant strides in geometrical progression which has now become exponential. now both have melded with the internet of things. today there is hardly anything in our lives which not linked to the web and computers. with the cloud we can be seamlessly interconnected through any device. robots are on the rise and intelligent homes. now driverless cars and drones. the surreal future of a dehumanised race where humans will morph into robots is staring at us in the face. the future is now.

25th feb 15
rise of the robots. no of industrial robots worldwide have increased from about 50k in 1990 to about 225k now, crossing 300k by 2018. in addition to industrial robots, hundreds of other automation techniques and devices have been invading our lives over the past 50 years or so like washing machines, dish washers, defrosting refrigerators, robotic vacuum cleaners, surveillance cameras, automated doors / gates, water pumps, ATMs, ad infinitum.  the rate at which technology is displacing human is accelerating. so far the trend has been that humans have been able to find newer types of work created by advances in technology giving credence to the theory that most of the technology has not been labour displacing in an overall sense since newer jobs were created. this fact may not be holding true across all types of economies developed and developing.

recent monstrous technological advances are likely result in one third of jobs being lost to automation in the next decade and half in next 20 years ie 2035. this has been one of the reasons that in advanced economies during past couple of decades or so wages of workers have stagnated due over supply of labour force. unemployment has also crept up insidiously. also quality of new employment creation has not been same as before becoming more lower grade. this has led to further polarisation of societies. now gradually computers with advanced algorithms are taking over taking human decision making like in financial planning, stock trading, MIS...the march of the robots is more frightening with driverless cars, drones....we are staring into the abyss of singularity..will they one start eliminating humans like 2001 a space odyssey...and also make us their slaves....

21st feb 15

I had written a post on Marriage is a Fading Institution some time back. Now the trends have been further vindicated by more research. Today more children live with single parents especially in US and Europe. More women are reaching 30s and 40s without getting married. This phenomena is not limited only to the liberal west but also spreading in Japan, Far East and Arab States like Lebanon, etc. even in China gradually these values are creeping in with the elderly being abandoned. Even in India men and women are marrying at later ages in their thirties. In fact in Japan robots have become companions for the singles. Then with sexual revolutions like gay living, marriage is certainly going to be an anachronism by end of this century.

19th feb 15

Gradually violence is increasing especially if we look at it over decades say since the fifties. Of course the two world wars were high violence points in time. I wonder if anyone has created a violence chart over time. Sure there must be with the kind of research and analytics we have today will proliferation of data, information and great computers and software to process and churn out yet for info overload.

Coming back to violence, right now it's unbelievable and kind of spinning out of control. Wars / violence in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Palestine, Europe, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan.... The list goes on. Almost Malthusian, Kaliyug and Nostrodamus...all rolled into one. Man is the most selfish and violent creature from the time of Adam. He is hell bent on destroying civilisation. Self destruct. He has also destroyed nature. Nature too is now reacting with extreme weather the frequency and amplitude of which increasing. This ever widening standard deviation will lead to perhaps the next ice age or extinction which will still the ever increasing noise of violence of man vs man.

18th feb 15

 Anthropocenogic lights and noise killing nature. Our high energy lifestyles taking a heavy toll of our planet. Scientists is US have mapped the country for noise created by cars, planes and other urban / industrial sources, plus the invasive bright and blinding lights. The map is indeed frightening. Add to this the deforestation which is fast denuding all forests. This phenomena hold good for the entire planet. Now birds and animals have been pushed back from their natural habitats. This irreversible human war on nature is ravaging earth and it resembles a battlefield. What we admire as great cities are nothing but blots on nature pristine landscape. We are indeed the the aggressive species which has conquered planet earth and made prisoners all the earlier inhabitants. I wonder whether in the next 100 years we will see another upheaval where the newest kid on the block ..the robots will take over and control humans just like we subjugated animals and nature. 

17th feb 15

collateral damages for hi energy societies. yesterday there was a derailment of a train carrying crude oil in rural west virginia bursting into flames. now a clear trend can be discerned. almost every month now there some accident involving transport of crude or energy fuels by trains, trucks, barges, ships. a lot them result in oil spills on seas or rivers, etc triggering health hazards for humans, marine life, birds and animals. man is  literally endangering plant earth's flora and fauna and ecology. mankind in its relentless search for energy fuels to enable its hedonistic living based on high energy usage a la neon lights, skyscrapers, hummers, jet travel.....

in the process humankind is trampling upon the delicate ecological balance. the anthropocene era intensifies into a hurtle towards the sixth extinction....

11th Feb 15

The world is a conglomeration of air conditioned economies in ICUs today. As the major mostly developed economies are stumbling from one crisis to another, they are continuously pumping in stimulus with very low to negative interest rates. Now with currency wars having begun with the Swiss leading the way, most of the nations are in a sense making their exports attractive and imports prohibitive. Since only the dollar is rising versus the others, US is at a disadvantage currently.

But with other economic parameters showing varying degrees of swings, like GDP growth rates, effective demand, bad loans, the traditional economic cycles of boom and bust no longer hold. The earlier cycle periods no longer are true. Most of the time the busts are not as protracted as before, generally with soft landings and quicker quasi recoveries. Trillions of dollars of quantitative easing are being doused on various world economies in order to revive flagging and dying economies. Now the economies are totally hooked on this heroin which is being administered systematically to keep the comatose patient alive with a feeble pulse fluctuating erratically.

All economic theories are failing. Now with an array of computerised data pouring in daily economies are able to minutely vary the dosage of various economic, financial and fiscal measures like doctors do in an ICU. Among one of the measures is austerity. But the populace at large are fed up with any attempt to regulate their good life which was being provided by the state by digging deeper in bottomless pits of debt. We are in a catch 22 situation. The addiction of technology and all the toys of retail capitalism have captured us with their vicelike grip. We want everything. Everything is now a need. So be it. Populist leaders will win elections and keep taking all of us deeper into the quagmire of complex debt. The path to hell is paved with gold. In a godless world we are all followers of lucifer.



10th Feb 15

financial world getting murkier and murkier. dark pools of trading where only the top 10 or so investment banks conduct private trading with no regulation. now there is shadow banking which is also creating systemic risks conducting a "complex chain of transactions, in which leverage and maturity transformation occur in stages" while securitising loans. today there is news the the US Justice Dept is pushing felony charges for the first ever maybe against the top ten banks for manipulation prices of foreign currencies. Hence criminal charges are against them to which they must plead guilty. earlier i had written about the penalties amounting to $ 1.5 bn on S&P for over rating bonds in 2008.

as it is earnings and profits of financial services and banks constitute about 40% of total US numbers. if there is a serious crash of the financial system inspite of the too big too fail syndrome, then that will be death blow to global economies since the entire international financial system is integrated and interdependent. European banks and currencies are already in shambles.

as it is global gdp growth is slowing down. deflationary forces are blowing hard over europe and US too since interest rates are abysmally low or even negative. oil price crash has exacerbated the scenario more. Commodity prices are experiencing wild swings. the world is indeed a casino as it is lurching from one crisis to another.

8th Feb 15

Greece is reaching a stage where it is on the verge of reneging on its loan commitments to the EU. strangely enough because its people in a democratic election have voted against the anti-austerity measures imposed on it in the wake of its bankruptcy by its creditors the EU mainly led by Germany. greece is actually the tip of debt iceberg which engulfing the world both economies and also individuals. debt is actually ravaging the world tearing it asunder with its baleful influence. debt is more of a means to an end. the end is living the good life with all the toys of modern life and technology. the debilitating malaise has insidiously affected the very entrails of individuals, families, nations, societies and the entire globe.



7th Feb 15


  • extreme drought in California. in five years some lakes have run dry. there is a possibility that there could be migration of people out of California. Drought is raising its ugly head in several parts of the world. In India water shortage is going to become very serious in the next 15/20 years. bangalore, one of the fastest growing cities, is becoming drying with aquifer levels going down alarming with mushrooming multi storied complexes and indiscriminate borewell diggings. urbanisation is really going to create massive water shortages.



31st Jan 15


  • iceland rising due to melting ice and increase in volcanic eruptions.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/30/climate-change-lifting-iceland-volcanic-eruptions. era of anthropocene meltdown...




29th jan 15


  • US becoming a sharply divided society. polarisation into two classes, top 5% who are really having the purchasing power and are driving economic growth with and average household spending of $85,000 annually and the other 95% of households with about avg HH spending of around $30,000. The wealthy 5% are the ones who are advancing in life and for whom the markets design most of their offering. The other 95% are struggling to make their ends meet. this segments is mainly constituted by the lower class and a slim sliver of a middle class. Most economies with health growth have large middle classes like in the emerging markets including India. Obama is also trying his best to rivive the US middle class.

  • percentage of unmarried people in Japan is increasing. in the age group 30-34, unmarried males rose from 22% to 47% during 1980-2010, while for females it rose from 9% to 34%. punishing work schedules leave no time for couples to enjoy married life and have sex. survey founf 45% of married couples had no sex during previous 30 days. birthrate is falling. unlike the west, Japanese people do not like children out of wedlock. but the trends are ominously similar both in the west and japan no of single people increasing. in the US over 50% of men and women are single. Figures and same in Europe. 
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Friday, 23 January 2015

New Grammar of Living Tweets...daily @pkd603







. The middle path is best. For good health, economies, companies. Xtreme competition, activity not desirable. Om.

. The X files back. Greatest ever serial. The truth is out there. Trust no one. The ETs r here. We r d aliens. Robots.

Noise vs. Nature: How We're Upsetting America's Soundscapes . Noise, lights & dforesting killing earth. V r murderers

Surreal times. Robots. xtreme cli-fi. Hi debt GDP. Violence. Faith wars. Terror. Hyper competition. Lo oil & com prices. Ecos imploding.



3 hours ago

Get Ready for $10 Oil . pricing is relative. asset bubbles incl currencies & debt. Fin & eco crises. AC ecos in ICU.

Winter spreads its reach from NE to South. truly getting monstrous. Boston record snows. Xtreme climate intensifying.




Capitalism now hi over leveraging by corporates banks nations individuals. Surreal future is now. Debt @ -ve int rates. Future imploding.

Dark pools of trading & shadow banking bldg up systemic risks. Next fin meltdown not far. Complex securitization thru chain of transactions.

Era of lo & -ve int rates. Europe 2 like Japan entered -ve int rates. Apple boroing from SZ. MS long term bonds @ abt 2.5%. Imploding ecos.
























Brain-2-brain communication a reality. How we did it . Limitless. Human endeavor crosses all imagination. Singularity.

 Climate change is lifting Iceland – and it could mean more volcanic eruptions . hurtle into anthropocene meltdown...



Gold only hope in global roller coaster casino of currencies, commodities, esp oil, GDPs. Mounting debt. Money decline. Inflation risk.



Ocean heat content climbing so quickly that tracking chart 'broke' via . exponential rise in past 5 years.
the idea of the future being different from the present
is so repugnant to our conventional thought, that we resist. Keynes, 1937

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Swami Sarvapriyanda

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