How alpha, beta, gamma can solve my retirement problem

Expense Account, Mint

It was a particularly dense afternoon. Not only was the August humidity making the lecture theatre of the Delhi School of Economics seem like it was hanging in limbo, but the long strings of equations with tiny symbols alpha, beta, gamma and the sponge-like creature epsilon, made the lemonade stall just 50 steps away seem like a very aspirational place to be. Twenty years ago, air conditioners were for the super rich and not postgraduate Delhi University students. As I squinted dully at the board far away and frowned to open the shutting eyelids, I swore never to come back to something so far removed from reality. Here were guys who assumed a perfect world with fully rational players and then made equations that sought to solve macro problems. But the real world outside was chaotic and all the long equations (with the aspirational QED at the end) were not teaching me anything that was closely related to the real world as I saw it.

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A pressure valve called Hazare

Expense Account, Mint

he least that Anna Hazare would have accomplished would be to get the average citizen up and shouting. Shouting without a trigger—negative or positive. The attack on Mumbai lit candles. The World Cup win triggered a mass beer party. But to get the Punjabi Bagh auntie in a georgette salwar kameez to leave her saas bahu serial for the day and get in the car with Papaji, Lucky and Pinky, to go across the city to light a candle just because an old man said he would starve himself to death is surely a symptom of change

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When 100% is less and 5% good

Expense Account, Mint

There is a hilarious mail exchange a friend forwarded me between him and his portfolio management scheme (PMS) “relationship manager”. Friend invests money five years ago and forgets about it. 2011 tax time approaches and he pulls out the PMS to see how it did. Where did my Rs 8 lakh reach after five years of cooking? Rs 9 lakh? Shock and disbelief. It grew 0.87% a year! Does a quick check and finds that the Sensex grew 10% a year over that period. Asks PMS “relationship manager” what happened. PMS manager (I swear I am not making this up) says: look carefully, we actually gave a return of 4.62% per year. You get the figure of 0.87% because the difference is our charges. For managing your money, you see. I’ve advised friend to ride the bus called a mutual fund (buy out of the Mint50 list) and forget about these get-rich-quick PMS schemes. At least he got his money back. His other story… OK, OK, another time.

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