Profit & Loss

Can you be ethical and yet be successful in business? It sure seems not. Especially in times like these. Its a financial bloodbath out there. Profits are private... Losses public !! The common man seems to be paying for a few mens' foolishness.

One of Indias largest (and iconic?) business houses bought two loss making British brands last year for a little above £2 billion. Today they have their begging bowls out and asking for a bailout of approximately the same value!! Who then really owns these two white elephants? The iconic (?) business house? Or the public? And if its the public then shouldn't they have been consulted first on whether they even want to buy this dud of an company? If this acquisition had succeeded (and thats a BIG BIG IF) who would have benefitted? The public? I guess not. Unfortunately.

So why are governments all over the world falling over each other to bailout companies? Do they honestly feel that giving them free money will actually help revive the companies and hence the economy? Or is it another version of "private profit public loss"? Why is the ex-CEO of RBS, Fred the Shredder, still taking nearly a million pounds a year as pension? AS PENSION? Or closer home, why is the sale of luxury cars is only going up? Exponentially! Yet we read in the papers everyday about thousands of people losing their jobs? Wouldn't one Rolls Royce be able to pay the average Indian annual salary bill of 400 to 500 people?

Agreed, if some has worked smart and earned a fortune then its his/her prerogative on how to spend their money. But they are not alone in this world. You can't layoff 1000s of workers and then the next day drive to work in a spanking new Rolls Royce. Or fly in your private jet to go beg for a bailout. Or sit in the 20th floor balcony of your $2Billion mansion in Mumbai and look out to see mal-nutritioned kids playing in each others poop. Its just not right.

Its just not right. And things like these always manifest themselves in another form. And one of those forms we are seeing today is the now infamous Shri Ram Sene and the moral police brigade all over the country. But thats for another day and another post.