Recession: Lessons we must learn

The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America
By William Kleinknecht
The world that Thomas L Friedman flattened four years ago is in the process of being round with governments all over the world adopting protective measures to help their respective economies. Conferences in business centres and cover stories in glossy magazines teach us the virtue of being economical and the drawbacks of expansionism.
Yes, like all misfortunes, the economic recession is a good teacher in many respects.
Debates and discussions on the slump generate ideas that are bifurcated to a great extent. On the one hand, there are those who staunchly oppose the liberalisation of economy, while on the other, the apologists of the paradigm who point their fingers at the mismanagement of a widely implemented policy.
American crime correspondent William Kleinknecht 'The Man Who Sold the World, Ronald Reagan and The Betrayal of Main street America' falls into the first category. The book takes the reader to 1980's when Ronal Reagan, America's 40th president, introduced policies that kicked off the deregulation of financial institutions. He freed banks from the state control and provided much leeway for private players the crucial financial affairs of the state. Reduction of government regulation in the economy terminated monetary discipline which resulted in large-scale exploitation and corruption (Satyam fraud is the latest Indian version of this situation). Followers of Reagonomics (Its Indian format is famously called Manmohonomics) all over the world took the policy to its extreme in 90's. The meltdown is one of its inevitable consequences.
The book raises some important questions regarding who is affected most by these policies at the backdrop of the meltdown: People who have no power to make their voice heard. It's in America's Main Street that its ordinary citizens live. Liberalisation gave policymakers and CEOs on Wall Street power and money and residents of Main Street were consequently left in the lurch. The argument is are important in the context of the World Bank's 'World Development Report 2009', which argues, as if no lesson was learnt, foe orienting wealth in urban areas.
How many Slumdogs in India can become millionaires in this economic paradigm?
It’s time our policy makers answered this question
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Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
By John C Bogle
We tend to disapprove critiques on liberalisation as unrealistic 'Leftist propagandas. But Recession has seen the vanguards of liberalisation take a dig at the very system of which they have been a part. Their criticism is packed with information about the capitalist system in detail, although the manner they view it is rather apologetic.
Enough True Measures of Money, Business, and Life, authored by John Bogle, former CEO of Vanguard Group ( US-based Mutual fund enterprise), is one of such works.
The title of the book comes from an address that Bogle gave to the business students of the Georgetown University. Bogle talks about a chat between Joseph Heller, famous author of Catch 22, and his contemporary Kurt Vonnegut, famous for his novel, Breakfast of Champions at a party. Vonnegut said that their guest made money in a day that Heller's popular novel gave him in its whole market history. Heller retorted to this statement, "Yes, but I have something he will never have-Enough."
Bogle has sufficient arguments in the book against the controllers of the financial market. He focuses on the greed on the Wall Street and on how CEOs and financial managers created an economic system, which is neither transparent nor simple. "The system is marked by too much speculation not enough investment, too much complexity not enough simplicity. The bankers and financial institutions siphoned off the money entrusted to them by the investors," he writes.
If the 'vanguards' of market economy don't learn from the crisis the wisdom of Joseph Heller, the meltdown will definitely become a bad teacher.
Reviewed by Shameer KS

A banker in the fairy land

A Review of 'I was a Swiss Banker'

Directed by: Thomas Imbach

Writing credits: Jürg Hassler, Thomas Imbach, Eva Kammerer

Cast: Beat Marti, Laura Drasbæk, Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis & Sandra Medina

Can dreams be deliberate and intentional? Or, to make the statement clearer, can we be creative with our dreams? A sci-fi article published in the Outlook magazine (about) five years ago made a comment that the day when one can customise one's dreams, as if they were desktops of a PC, with a few gadgets is not distant. But I didn't hear it ever happen. Still, overpowering even this great mental faculty remains a tantalising possibility. As reality is almost felt as a nightmare, it's time we kept our dreams as safe cushions to protect our fantasies.

'I was a Swiss Banker' is a cinematic venture to this end. Its storyline goes like this: Roger is a banker in the sense that he banks on the money of others for a living. He transports black money across the border to reinvest them, thus becoming a successful smuggler on whom bigwigs with nefarious interest depend. He is too optimistic to believe he will be caught in the net. But when his car was blocked by customs officers to frisk him, optimism coupled with flamboyance saves him. He drives the car past the check post with an air of nonchalance. When he gets cornered by the officials in a maddening pursuit, he takes a headlong plunge to the Lake Constance, which takes him to an entirely different universe inhabited by mermaids and witches.

Heli, a rapacious witch who knows how to fly a chopper, haunts Roger in his brave new world. He puts him through a test either to ultimately release him or, if he fails, to possess him. He should meet three ladies and choose one of them as his wife. Under Heli's surveillance, he meets Laura, a professional shepherdess with all feminine qualities to cheer him up; Sahar, a Turkish girl from his home town who is also adept at wiving a man like Roger ; and Helena who is sent by her father to be a mermaid to retrieve the money from Roger. Heli felicitously watches the entire scene with the confidence that Roger will fail the test. She has worn a wedding dress in anticipation. But Helena, a link connecting him to his past as 'Swiss banker', make him drift in the water uncaught.

What is the film with all its cinematogarhpic excellence all about? As all postmodern work of art should truly do, the film leaves much space for our inference. So let me have mine.

A world withstood by machinations has implanted in our mind the desire to be surreal. A friend of mine, whenever he fell out with his wife, used to come quickly to my room to pick up whatever fairy tales there were to cheer him up. When his wife filed a divorce suit against him, he went to a bookshop and purchased the entire Harry Potter volumes. Think of him as part of a more intricate political system which we nickname liberal or neo-liberal. Escape to fantasy world could be a solution.

'Swiss bank' is an ideal metaphor. Thomas Imbach conveys the meaning that one we are tightly protected by highly protected buildings like a bank, which pretends to ensure our safety.

Also the 'was' in 'I was a Swiss banker' is a metaphor. It means only customised dreams can be the best alternative.

(Pictures: Left: Movie poster, Centre: Roger followed by Heli, Right: Thomas Imbach)

By Shameer KS