Looks like I too have joined the bandwagon of writers who have taken advantage of the financial crisis to hog some internet space. But then the crisis is real and so are the fears and the critiques. Also this is not a conscious effort to pen down something, rather something that stuck me genuinely. This is more about the lucky few who still have some savings to worry about, rather than the unlucky many who saw theirs vanish at the speed of the crisis which seems to travel around the globe in few seconds. So what should these ‘few’ do with their hard earned money?
Well, I would be considered extremely insane even if I remotely thought of stocks as an option. They seem to be the most capricious entity man ever invented. These days the sensex seems to be responding to every other thing happening in any remote corner of the world (Globalization!!). And for many, the stock market has been the perpetual reminder of the existence of Murphy’s Law. If you thought of outsourcing the risks involved in stock trading to the Masters of the Universe (read as Fund Managers), the financial crisis has showed they have been living altogether in another universe. They have been taking pride in inventing esoteric financial instruments and testing them with lesser mortals’ (atleast that’s what they have been thinking about us till now) money. But the recent crisis has seriously dented their narcissism. So if we move from Wall Street (or Dalal Street) to the Main Street (read as Commercial banks), the situation looks to be no better. Traditionally these banks were considered to be more immune to such turmoils than the investment banks. But to a large extent this immunity has also been breached as is evident now.
Now if we thought of getting back to time tested investment avenues like real estate, gold etc even these are not always sticky up and are prone to the vagaries of the market dynamics. Atlast after considering (or rather unconsidering) all these options, the best choice seems to be to hoard our hard earned money with ourselves. But in that case a larger crisis looms in the form of ‘wife’, who can convert the money into her wishes at hitherto unknown speeds. So why don’t we ourselves spend off all the money we earned, rather than someone doing it at our cost? Or if someone has a better idea of how to invest money, you could do a world of good by sharing it with us.
