India- An Investor economy or an asset economy?

If you have read enough about recession,loss of jobs, people not having money etc etc and got bored, take a break and visit a jewellery store in your city and Iam sure you will refuse to accept that there is a word called RECESSION. Even Iam surprised yesterday when I saw this famous jewellery store completed filled with people buying various items of gold for themselves,their loved ones. Being a banker and financial consultant, this took me to the thought of mentality of Indian investor.Its true that people invest in safe assets like gold, FD, debt instruments during instruments. So, Do you mean to say that the consumer behaviour explained in the above para confirms to the investor behaviour? No, because we indians never sell gold that we buy. For us gold is an asset to display our status...our prestige and not an instrument we trade in any market. Across the world people invest in gold ETF, gold bonds and trade in gold in commodity markets whereas in India we buy gold in form of jewellery majorly to which we attach lot of emotional and sentimental value. Though we wear most of the jewellery only during parties and functions,probably once or twice an year we love the jewelery that we wear, we love to flaunt the jewellery, an asset. Parents proudly gift jewellery during wedding and status of parents is mostly judged by the amount of jewellery gifted. If it is an investor economy,probably parents would have gifted an instruments which is tradeable or exchangable. This brings me to the point that we are primarily asset owners and not investors. We love to own assets and invest less. Thats why we have more affinity towards land, gold. If you look at the most favorite instruments of indians for investment,majority would vote for FD which is considered a safe instrument,though this instrument gives negative returns most of the time. Very few urbane people invest in market instruments like mutual funds, stocks and the market penetration in any of these products including life insurance, ULIP is single digit for the same reason. And for this precise reason,whenever FIIs withdraw from markets we get heartache.The fact that in language of financial markets,anything that isnt traded doesnt have market value and hence the gold and real estate unless traded or sold cannot be treated as having market value. Looking at FD, that rarely gives positive market adjusted real returns, I believe that we Indians need to learn a lot on investment if we have to grow as an investor economy and not remain as an asset economy. Unless we learn, we wouldnt be able to dominate our own financial markets and offset the impact of FIIs on our lives.

Inorder is the order of the day

When you step out into the city traffic either in Bangalore and Hyderabad in specific, you are hit by traffic mania for the time you are out. How many times have you seen people crossing the road in hurry even when traffic signal turns red???? How many times have u seen vehicles takes the opposite side of the road whenever ur stuck in traffic jam, blocking other side of traffic and making it a mess??? How many times do you find motor cycles and cars tampered making it environmental hazard??? And in how many times of the above will you find an educated violating the rules.
Its understandable when a city bus driver or a cab driver or an autorickshaw breaking the rules,but most of the times may be more than 50% of the times will you find an educated jumping the rules with lot of pride. I was taking a ride with one of my colleague sometime back and found him rushing despite red and I asked him. he said, nuthing sir, This is the way of life and no one bothers.... In most of the cases, you will find a cop helplessly in a corner.
It is bothering to see even educated violating rules and creating inorder on the roads and in other parts of our lives. For ges,we have blamed population and lack of education as menace of our country or rather used the same as an excuse. But here, the educated too behave irresponsibly. No one seems to be caring for the rules. People seem to forget that these rules are set by us for our safety and we dont care. It has become a fashion to jump rules than obey.
I was wondering and thinking what could be the real reason for the inorder of the day. I was wondering if education or lack of education,the real problem of this country. The real reason,after long thought seems to be not education but the way we live and we are brought up. I would rather call it inorder in our lives. It starts from childhood where parents bribe you for your performance in studies. If you come first, we will buy you what we want. It starts in temple where you cant wait in queue and try bribing the security. It starts with bribing in public offices for what they are supposed to do,even if they dont ask for. It is all about impatience. Assume that you are in a public office or in a hospital or any other place where four people are waiting. Just to avoid waiting or to show your superiority, we flash names of people who matter,we try to bribe security and break the lines. Then, about education. Education or opportunities have improved a lot in our country since 90s,where there was only one school,one college in everytime. But public education has bitten the dust. You wont find any concept of public education anymore. We find schools where we have to shell out 50K-1 lac from primary education and it goes on as you grow. It is given even for children that even if they cant clear any public exmination,dad will pay for the seat. Higher you pay,higher is your prestige in the society. The education you buy can earn you a degree,but not culture,values and ethics.
So educated or uneducated,unless the way we live changes I believe that this inorder will continue. As long as impatience in our lives is taken out we will continue to struggle,suffer and keep blaming system and politicians for the plight brought out by us in our own lives.

Are Governments accountable????

We decide our rulers based on the promises they make and credibility they display with their plans for the country,city etc., They may deliver some,may not some promises and come back in next election for the votes. Most of them take up populist developmental works in the last 1-2 years of the tenure, as they believe that public memory is very short and may not remember the work done in first 2 years. Again, they takeup populist developmental works that can bring them into power and not those needed by majority.Again we vote to find ourselves cheated and waiting for the development. I was wondering if we have any recourse and should we have frequent elections which can keep rulers on toes and deliver. Not feasible as it involves huge cost. What else is the recourse??Should rulers have accountability???The money we earn,save or spend most of the times depends on the developmental works taken up by governments. Just for an example,take roads.If a city has better roads we can maintain decent speeds, no bumper to bumper traffic and ultimately saving in money and time as we can get better mileage in whatever vehicle you drive, car bike or public transport. What are governments doing to the citizens by not giving good roads? We spend more and wait for long wasting both money and time. If the governments vouch that they work for the welfare of the people, isnt it correct for them to work towards development that helps the majority people? When they couldnt help us save fuel and money with better roads, do they have a right to punish us by raising fuel prices? This is just an example and the same can be discussed about anything that matters in our lives. My point here is to discuss on accountability of the governments for the BASIC development we can expect and to stress on overall development and not just populist votebank based development. When we buy a TV and if it breaks down in reasonably less time,we sue the company for not able to deliver on the promises they made. Government is educating us by suggesting us to take up with consumer forum and Jaago graahak Jaago. When the rulers who can change fate of people and country dont perform...dont deliver and makes lives miserable,do we have a consumers forum to sue them??? Do we have any tool to counter " THE ONCE IN 5 YEARS" shield the politicians use to fool people????