meek-investor

Brilliant article in the Financial Times today. Dripping with sarcasm and wit. Alas its a bit technical and you'll enjoy it immensely if you have a bit of background in finance, but even otherwise its a good read.  For those not in touch with American politics or high finance - John Corzine is a former head of Goldman Sachs. He was deposed by Henk Paulson.  Corzine then became a Senator from New Jersey and then Governor. He got defeated in the election in 2010, by Chris Christie who is the current Governor of New Jersey. After his defeat in the election, Corzine became Chairman of MF Global which has just declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

If I told you that the most important person in the world now is Deven Sharma, you are most likely to be flabbergasted. Deven who ?? I am absolutely certain that not one reader of this blog has heard of him before. In fact I am sheepishly admitting that I had not heard of him either, one week ago. And yet for the next one week, he may actually be the most important man in the world. Of course, this is hyperbole. But then what is journalism (ha ha) without some excessive exaggeration of reality. You can debate about the "most important man in the world" bit, but the actions of him and his organisation are certain to affect the world very profoundly in the week to come. Deven Sharma is the President of Standard & Poor's one of the world's three premier credit rating agencies - Moody's and Fitch being the two other. In a short while, all the three agencies have to take a call on downgrading of America's Tripe A rating. The drama in America on the debt ceilin...

The mantra of all business (actually most walks of life) is superb & outstanding performance isn’t it ? It shouldn’t ! If this sounds absolutely ridiculous, read on … Everywhere, the great performers are the stars. They are the ones who get big bonuses. They are the ones who get promoted lightning fast. The division that shows triple digit growth is treated akin to God. The bunch that didn’t meet its target is screwed. The lot that exceeded target by 354% is taken on an all expenses cruise to Hawaii. Right ? Maybe not so right. One of my blogging friends took a light hearted dig at me for a mantra that features about once every month in this blog – If its too good to be true, its too good to be true ! I have learnt over the years to watch out for superlatives. Good performance – absolutely the minimum. Better than good performance; holy grail. But superfantasticstupendousunbelievable performance ? Take it with a huge pinch of salt. One of the truisms in the business world is th...