Placement, Paisa and recession

As many of batchmates at XLRI never get tired to mentioning of this being the worst year to pass from a B school, there isn’t a dearth of intellectuals who point to the all the benefits such as great learning due to entering the corporate arena in a year of economic recession. And I say “What crap !. Naukri lag nahi rahi, aur is chu*** ko learning ki padi hai.

Btw, as I try to grapple with the overdoze of information to understand what separates a slowdown from a recession or a depression a thousand random musings rush. Is it the dip in productivity or the loss of monetary value of goods and services i.e. ‘dis-inflationary’ pressures or market cap. of the listed companies, is it the GDP growth rate or the absolute GDP, is it loss of employment or the rise in the unemployment rate ( mind it…they are different ;-), is the sustainability of the poor economic performance or it is a static point function, is the future forecast to be considered or just the past and current economic data to figure out the nuances between recession and depression. Well, two years of digging management journals has made me resourceful enough to debate both ways for all the points mentioned above, I really feel the barometer to judge the economic condition is to a greater extent, the Market Sentiment ( not only the financial market). Though some may argue that the market sentiment is not a causal factor but a resultant one may kindly apply their logic on the any other parameter ( a typical chicken –egg problem). Though most of the economic indicators of India are much better than they were for that matter better than most periods in modern India’s history, which just goes on to indicate that the current fad of economic dizziness is just a slowdown, but the market sentiment seems to indicate this as a recession. Rather in current times, it would do more good than bad not to read the pink dailies

Btw, I have got placed fortunately (fortunately for me obviously, not for my employer). And though my employer is intelligent enuf to offer me about 20 % less than what it offered for the same profile last year, I still hope to draw a decent paycheque good enough for me to feed myself 3 times a day and create pollution 30 times a day. nahi to yeh economic recession mein apun ko depression ho jaata…

I am personally least interested in leaving India, but then the eco. slowdown makes you do strange things and strange things I did. However, better sense and better luck prevailed, thanks to umpteen wishes of my friends. And as my friend – cum- dushman – cum – bike lender – cum philosophical guru SS exclaims the typical bollywoodia cliché ‘there is a price to everything’ and asks me my kimmat of leaving India, I take a dip through all the micro economic concepts which I was suppose to learn, but thankfully due to the great attention I had paid during the micro eco. course, I fail to arrive at a defendable figure of marginal utility or whatsoever it be. So my philosopher friend turns into a prophet as we ride on highway towards and predicts my career progression over the next 20 years. Unfortunately he fails to foresee the bike going out of petrol ( or shall it not be ‘petrol going out of bike’…this Victorian English na) with no gas station nearby.

Yaa…seems I will require some voluntary free ki advice for arriving at that kimmat. btw, woh dialogue to suna hi hoga ‘ Is duniya mein advice ki supply hamesha demand se jyaada rahi hai’…wah wah …kya maara hai