Moments in Time

Friday, April 24, 2009

Recession blues!

or No, this is not another post on how "Since the economy is 66% consumer driven, when consumer spending slows, the GDP begins to fall. Consumer spending slows for a multitude of reasons: when the consumer can no longer get reasonable credit rates, when he's fearful of loosing his job, when his debt load is higher than is comfortable, when he already has all the stuff he needs. The economic cycle has periods of expansion and contraction. A recession is a contraction.(Yahoo! Answers)" End of theories, here!

...And finally, it arrives! What all began as the hush-hush talks about how our IIM-ed and ISI-d friends at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, would eke out a living without their 8-figured payslips and merely manage to survive only on cheap Frito (Leh)ys and Corona (Bear)s; and as it escalated to the serious talks of our end to partying on Thursdays(warm-up), Fridays(get-set-go) and Saturdays(the day before) and giving up on the single KF pint(that's the only revenue we bought to SPE/two people) and thinking of various alibis for our lady-loves to spare us on their next Chaitro/Year end/(50+25)% flat sale shopping sprees; and finally, all the brouhaha about the unforeseen, lurking monster from the past(1929) that is slowly going to relieve us from our jobs and meagre salaries for non-performance, that scared the living daylights out of us.

There was no silent way to go for the killing. It made a lot of noise, and spluttered a lot of blood and gore here and there. Although, it did conceal itself, like the Trojan horse, the frightening details in the seemingly lucrative package of an alternative and revised performance based variable compensatory scheme, broken up into individualistic and holistic goal achievement metrics, the message was loud and clear. Loud as the crack of the fidayeen bullet that took Major Unni's life at the Taj, as we all heard from Kolkata, while cursing our times; Clear as the intentions of the next political party that we are about to stake our lives into, this FY elections. Like everything else, that's also how we would have to live with the recession. On your mark, get, set...

Top 10 things that you should remember to get you going:
  1. Limit spending. Spending is contagious, like a yawn or a sneeze, or like tucking into a Zinger even when you had lunch half an hour ago. Often our subconscious(and sometimes our girlfriends!) leads us into glitzy shops in super-malls with expensive things; many of which we have no need for. Believe me, you will survive without that Tommy red undie, or a 5.1 mp camera in your cell.
  2. As good as it sounds, a bottle of Fosters/KF/Carlsberg at any regular bar is around a 100 bucks. Affordable, right? Multiply that with 2(at least) each evening(leaving apart the farewell parties/birthdays/treats and other social events), and 2 evenings(at least) every week, and for every week, for every month. As bad as it sounds, you can do the math.
  3. (I would have said to turn of the AC when you drive to office, but thanks to CESC for your sleepless nights, and to Apollo for 42 degrees in the shade, I wont be that cruel). Car pool is good; chartered bus is better(fixed time, fixed expenses :) )
  4. Power saving lamps, power saving fridges and power saving ACs should be the mantra to shed off that extra electricity bill. I sometime hear of power saving capacitor banks; don't know if they work.
  5. If you are a sucker for downloads/torrents/P2P/iMesh/RS, better skip over to the unlimited version of your broadband, to save yourself from a shocking BB usage bill. Try as you might, you can never limit yourself to the quota, how much you schedule all your d/ls late at night!
  6. Lunch from home is a very good idea. Its not pansy, sissy, or inconvenient to carry a small Thermos-box to work(Dude, it's your Mom or whoever cooks lunch at your place, who's taking all the pains, not you!). Its also healthier than the roadside crap or the Cheeli Chiken/Frayied Rise that you have at your local food street.
  7. Smoking kills your sperms. Unless you want to be celibate or suffer from ED, cut down(I didn't say quit, I know the pains!) on smoking. Alternatively, you can also do the math to get a tentative figure of how much you actually spend on ciggies.
  8. Go for investment in real-estate and other bearish options like LIC, FD, MIS etc. unless you really know what you are doing.
  9. Credit cards.(Should have been way up the list, forgot all about it). The 10% cash-back on dinner and movies is nothing compared to the remaining 90% that is being debited from your account. And, Titanium and Super-Platinum cards are not being given to you alone since you are a loyal customer; every fool walking with an i-card in Sector 5 has one.
  10. Use Blackle.com. 1,204,510.432 Watt hours will be saved.