Being Gay

After reading the following post, you might conclude that I could have avoided this controversial title. Yet, if you acknowledge the fact that making people visit your blog requires some advertisement, you wouldn’t complain. : - )

This post is about the growing ‘pink slips’ being given to employees of private organization due to the economic recession which is evidenced worldwide. If we were to analyze where the “global meltdown” started, we might point our fingers to the bankruptcy of some of the premier financial institutions, much more fundamental reason would be the sub-prime crisis. These financial institutions failed miserably because they had invested huge sums of money and bought the sub-prime mortgage loans. More concrete than that would be the stupidity of the banks in lending huge sums of money to people who had no means to return them, in the hope of increasing their profits with their money which was lying idle. If we have to sum up all of this and say it in one word, we have to choose “Greed” to describe it rightly.

One of the immediate consequences of an economic slowdown is layoffs. The person who is shown the door may not be responsible for the plight of the company, in most cases like the recent crisis he may not even know the cause completely, yet he is asked to go! What could be the rationale behind the indiscriminate firing adopted by the companies whenever even the slightest of economic troubles crop up? We can accept layoffs as a last minute resort under unavoidable circumstances, but one cannot understand why they are being used as the first method to deal with financial instabilities.

The reason is not hard to find out. These companies don’t think they are dealing with human beings, for them you’re a “human resource”. You’re one of the most dispensable of the resources available to a company, unlike the physical resources like buildings, land etc. The “human resources” in a private company don’t form workers’ union and it becomes so easy to get them out without fearing a backlash. Also, when good times come and if it is required to acquire some of these “resources” to make more money, they are easily available in the market. This is the understanding that the companies have of a warm blooded human being like you and me.

Once hired, maximum ‘throughput’ has to be obtained from the “resource”. This can be done only when the “resource” is engaged for 12-14 hours a day (sometimes even longer). But how does this affect the human being? Bangalore may be the software capital of India, but did you know it is also the divorce capital and the suicide capital of India? The city has got this distinction only after it witnessed the software boom. The work conditions in a private company are not different from the ones that existed in the days of Industrial revolution in Britain. Plainly put, it is extortion. The glittery office cubicles, swimming pools, gym, that these companies show to prove their commitment to the workforce are in reality a clever idea designed in some management book to motivate the “human resources” in order to obtain maximum throughput. It is like playing music to a milch cow to make it yield more milk.

Most software companies in India resorted to “preemptive” firing because they wanted to meet their financial targets for the year set by their board. It is a fact that most of the companies that resorted to layoffs posted profits. What does it indicate? It shows desperation on the part of the companies to keep the investors (share holders) happy. Unless the investors are happy, the share prices will not remain high in the stock exchanges. Thus the companies are ready to keep the unseen and ever-changing investor happy (since the shares change hands frequently) , by resorting to cost cutting by removing the “human resources” who have worked for long hours every day, without complaining and at the cost of their own personal lives. However, the companies know that they have to conceal this opportunism and turn GAY. They fire their resources citing “under performance”, this reason cannot be contested in any court and is highly subjective, which makes it easy for the companies to get rid of an employee. If it is true that suddenly so many “resources” have turned under performers then shouldn’t the HR department be sacked en masse for recruiting them? Was it hatching eggs when the said underperformers were hired, made permanent after the initial period, being given an increment in their salaries, given promotions, given merit certificates appreciating their good work?

This forces us to analyse some philosophical issues. Why do we need development and to whom should it be directed? Is it for giving means to people so that they will be empowered, or is it simply for acquiring more wealth for the sake of wealth? What is the point in making money by pushing people into poverty? It is like winning wars by killing lakhs of men and pushing thousands of families into sorrow. What is the point in denying hundreds of human beings their happiness, and design an electronic gadget that promises its holders exactly the same?

Though many of us feel strongly about these issues, we hold back and don’t express them because of the fear of being prosecuted. We must know the rights guaranteed to us by our constitution. I know that I enjoy the ‘Right to freedom of speech and expression’ guaranteed under Article 19-1(a) of my constitution. If someone asks me to shut up, I know I can directly approach the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, under Article 32, for the infringment of my Fundamental Right. Most of us may be professional graduates, yet when it comes to knowing our rights and fighting the bully, we are no different from the people who were subjugated to slavery. “Our lives begin to end the day, when we remain silent about things that matter” – Martin Luther king.

The day we know our rights, we will turn human beings from human resources.

World 2050

I have presented a critique of the world order in the year 2050A.D. This might hurt you more than just a bit if you stand for capitalism, nuclear non-proliferation, market controlled economy and other evil things on earth.

An article from a leading daily in the year 2050 A.D…

Sub-Prime Marriage Crisis rocks the world….(11.06.2050)
Sub-Prime Marriage is a highly complex financial instrument which had entered the stock markets recently. The sub-prime marriage loans were widely given to Americans who wanted to get married without having enough cash on hands to ring their wedding bells. The couples agreed to pay a fixed interest to the bank as long as they stayed in the marriage without getting divorced. However the problem started when the banks lent these loans to unscrupulous couples who had no intention of staying together for long. The banks started making heavy losses when most of the marriages ended in divorce prematurely. This forced the clever banks to shift their losses to the people and markets by making complex instruments called Credit derivative obligations (CDO) out of the pre nuptial agreements.

These ‘sub-prime’ loans were unfortunately given ‘AAA’ (the best rating possible) by the credit rating agencies like the Poor &Very Poor, MoodyRaters and others without reading their recklessly written pre-nuptial agreements. Thus many investors believing them to be promising investments invested their hard earned cash. When the marriage-linked financial instrument started failing, the markets went bearish and the economy went into recession. The Central bank chief Mr. Bumbake urged Americans to stay in their marriage for long to help their country bail out of recession.

The chief of Banks’ association who did not admit that sub-prime Marriage stocks were an example of the failure of Capitalism retorted angrily that it was in fact a different form of socialism in which the ‘profits are privatized while the losses are socialised’.

US prez replies to subprime- Marriage Crisis ( 12.06.2050)
... Uncle Sam blamed the developing nations - especially India and China for the present recession in the world. He pointed out how the people of these two nations were eating a lot which resulted in spiraling of world prices. He also pointed out that the world must learn to live like his countrymen who use minimum resources for their living. When a reporter interrupted the president and informed him that it was his honorable country men who used papers right from sneezing to shitting which caused enormous pressure on the tress of the world, the president cut the reporter short by saying “Those trees are got from Africa where dragons fly and humans don’t live anyway”. He was greeted by a wide round of applause.

The President continued his speech by saying that the hike in world prices of oil is due to the uranium enrichment programme carried out in the ‘secret establishments’ of the oil-and-gas-rich-yet-impoverished state of Mamalia in the sub-saharan Africa. He said Mamalia was posing a grave threat to humanity and it must immediately discontinue its uranium enrichment program. It is pertinent to note that the UN has released its AYCR (As if You Care to Read) document promptly to condemn USA’s intention. The President however asked his army to be ready to save the motherland from the enemy.

Mamalia’s Response (13.06.2050)
The oil-and-gas-rich-yet-impoverished state of Mamalia had replied that its top bureaucrats had heard of the name ‘Uranium’ only once before the US President had accused Mamalia of enriching it -in a spielberg movie. The Mamalian president who had recently won an election without even participating in it angrily shot back at USA by saying ‘USA will bite dust if they war with us’. He admitted that if Mamalia had enough money to buy uranium its citizens would give themselves a good shave everyday.

The Mamalian president replied irritatingly to a question on how he won the election without competing in it by saying “Mamalia has its own form of democracy in which the opponents to the ruling party lose everytime.”