The allure of finance

Of late, I've been terribly upset at the gross imbalance between the rich and the poor. By poor I mean, those below the poverty line as per the WTO standards. The rich are getting richer and poor, evidently are becoming poorer. This phenomenon is more concentrated in densely populated areas. Be it Chicago, Hong Kong or the entire country of India. Going by what little financial fundamentals I know - densely populated regions should be the epicenter of business diversity, giving every individual a chance to earn his/her bread. When such is the case, I wonder why there is so much poverty in India and the third world. Poverty, that's unimaginable. Forget 3 meals a day, even potable water is a scarcity in some of these regions.

I had always shunned away from finance. Not exactly sure why, may be because studying finance and commerce was not considered 'happening' during early 90s. The era was a technology craze in Bangalore, especially. Computer Science or bust. Commerce - is for those who can't make it into a technical field. Now, when I sit and come across the rich-poor divide, and get terribly upset and how people suffer in poverty - my technology oriented skills don't take me anywhere close to a solution. I'm convinced that the answer lies in learning finance and economics. I'm also convinced that charity and benevolent measures are no solution to poverty. Socialism is definitely not the answer. Can capitalism resolve the poverty crisis ? Can the hunger for profit help alleviate the hunger for food, water and clothing ? I guess so. Why not. After all, all the powerful economies have been capitalist economies and they have been quite successful in eliminating poverty.

My ways of thinking these days are very focused around issues that I was not even cognizant about a few years back. I have absolutely no idea why and I don't have an answer. If someone were to come and ask me 'ok .. you cant to learn finance - why now and why didn't you think about this 2 years back' - I don't have a concrete answer. All I can say is I'm quite convinced that learning finance and economics could be lead me to some answers about poverty elimination.

It's a well known fact that - elimination of poverty is the road to further development and in densely populated regions, the business opportunities that could arise with just the volume of buying power is unimaginable. Everyone knows about this, talks about this and yet poverty sticks out as a sore thumb in this world and helps type cast certain regions as 'slums', 'third world' , 'developing world' etc etc . The opportunity is huge, no doubt. How to tap this opportunity is the big question. Learning finance might open up some doors. We'll see.

Exploitation in India

For a long time, I've been pondering about the social aspects of life in India and trying to find out what probably is the key to most of the miseries in the sub continent. I think it all comes down to exploitation. From the roots of corruption to the mass religious conversions, it's exploitation all the way. What could be the cause of this deep rooted exploitation, needs to be found out. The very basic tenet of an Indian is to exploit I guess. May be it's the population density that has given rise to this character, but in every facet of the social life, exploitation stands tall, of course to the watchful eye. What got me into this mode of thinking was this revealing fact :

"beggars drug kids, put them to sleep and use them as begging baits".

This process of drugging the kids is a well established chain of exploitations. A homeless couple has a kid - whom they can't feed. A beggar exploits this by 'renting' the kid for a certain sum of money every day. The parents won't ask any reasons - they just take the money and hand over the kid. The beggar then goes to a fake doctor who exploits the beggar by taking a portion of that money for putting the kid to sleep by giving an intravenous injection of some sort. The beggar then uses the kid for begging - as the kid sleeps all day.

What startled me was that this process is a well established one. I mean, everyone knows about it and just shows a blind eye ? In a society, where even a kid's life is not valued for and at least taken into consideration - I fail to understand how 'macro policies' that affect other realms of life and society will be valued. Macro policies such as right to education, environment awareness, political stability etc - these have absolutely no value at the grass roots.

For all the 'emerging economy' glory, one has to look deeper into the Indian society and to see that is filled with this cruel exploitation. Truly saddening.