Monday, March 09, 2009

Recession is a self-fulfilling prediction?

What is recession?

This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs.

He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more and more raw materials and buns and used to sell more. He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.

As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?"

The father replied, "No, but tell me about it."

The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse.. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV. He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic... He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs.

Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand. And his sales started coming down rapidly, same is the profit.

The father said to his son, "Son, you were right". "We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of The Story: It's all in your MIND!

And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think we do!

What can we take away from this story ?

1. How many times we confuse intelligence with good judgment?
2. Choose your advisers carefully but use your own judgment
3. A person or an organization will survive forever, if they have the 5 Cs:
* Character * Commitment * Conviction * Courtesy * Courage

The tragedy today is that there are many walking encyclopaedias that are living failures.

The More practical and appropriate views on this economic recession is:
"This is the time to reunite together for any small or a big organization, this is the time to motivate and retain people which are the biggest asset, this is the time to show more commitments to the customers, this is the time show values of our company to the world, and this is the time to stand by our Nation".

Keep spending like normal ...
The more we reduce our spending, the more chances that the recession will hit our country.

This story seems to support the theory that we created recession by our very own actions. So we should leave it to the optimists who suggest that we spend, spend and spend, like there is no tomorrow. Buy now, pay later; eat and drink lavishly, pay later; fly now, pay later; after all, once you owe big debts, the banks will look after you, failing which, the government will?

No, I exaggerated. But even 'keep spending like normal' has its problem... like can we do that when we are retrenched? If more people are retrenched, then eating hotdogs might even be a luxury they cannot afford! So part of his usual output might be unsold even if he did not listen to his son.

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