Indian economy: a lot of denials and some crooks

So Ramalinga Raju of Satyam actually siphoned off money from the software services giant, contrary to what he said in his open letter to the company's Board before his arrest. Well, I had all along held that while Raju might have been doing a con job, he was unlucky in getting caught and there are bigger villains in corporate India who are not caught because they are smarter. I still hold to that view.
That apart, I think the economic scene is going to get much worse and the worst is yet to come. I still can't understand how analysts and thier ilk can say Indian business is going to do well in 2009. I suspect this is an attempt to fish in murky waters. A stockbroker recently told me how he had a difficult time fending off people who approached him wanting to invest in stocks, even with borrowed money. And mind you, these were just ordinary lower middle class people with average incomes of 10-12k per month. With their being no dearth of people willing to be taken for a ride, I am not surprised at the pundits prophesying that India will rock in 2009 while the world economy will crumble!
And here is a NYT article about how investors may be losing patience with Google and Microsoft. Yes, the same New Economy giants who many other companies are hoping to model themselves after. And here we are talking about a rosy picture for the economy.! View through rose-tinted glasses, I would say.

Can Obama manage those expectations, and those forces of change?

Finally Barack Obama is president of the United States. A judging by the crowds that attended his inaugural, it seems at least some Americans think the new president has some sort of magic wand to pull the country out of the many problems it is mired in currently, and most of which are being blamed on George W Bush.
It evokes in me memories of the first time Manmohan Singh became India's Finance Minister. The Congress had promised to roll back prices in the run-up to those elections but once he took over Mr Singh famously said: "I do not have a magic wand (to roll back the prices!)".
Well, at least Mr Obama did not say he had a magic bullet for all of America's problems but a lot of Americans and people in other countries seem to think so. The biggest challenge for Obama would be managing those expectations.
And Obama could be classified as a success or failure depending purely on how he manages those expectations, not on how he really performs on the ground.
Will the world change with Obama? I doubt so. The changes we are undergoing right now are so momentous and old solutions simply cannot work. Indeed, we may not realize it but these changes are so sweeping, they are not amenable to any solutions. My feel is they will run their course and trample over any force that is trying to channelize them, till they change the world order and society in hitherto unseen ways.
Will Obama be a victim of those forces, or will he be able to keep his head up?

Democracy, my foot! Kick out the jokers

The national political scene is hotting up but, sadly, there seems to be no player in the horizon who can enthuse the masses in the next General Election. There if the BJP-NDA, Congress-UPA, and an assortment of parties that can or cannot coalesce into a Third Front.
But the situation of the ground is that no one is really interested in whether it is the Congress or the BJP or the BSP who will rule India. Because for the common man, all of them are the same.
All of India's political parties bat for the rich and powerful. The policies that are announced for the common man are done so as an afterthought. This kind of government that we eulogize as the magic of democratic rule is actually is a government of exploiters who can put the deeds of the Raj to shame.
Why do we, the taxpayers, tolerate these fools and criminals and exploiters? Beats me.
Is there no way out? Is there no freedom from these jokers?