Are you cutting enough FLAB? NO?

Day before, a CEO+MD was bludgeoned to death by a group of “retrenched” employees.

Yesterday, Mrinal Pande, on her Mint column, “THE OTHER SIDE”, made some wonderful observations, about women in general & trends in particular.

There were a few very enlightening articles, yesterday, by Ricahrd Beales, Paul Krugman (NYT),
TOI / TNN, V A Nageswaran & Pramath R Sinha.

Wondering where is the link? Hang on…

Richard has asked a few pointed questions, which ideally should be asked by the US Congress,
Who will watch out for Taxpayer’s interest?
Would the same taxpayers soon find themselves (unwillingly) bailing out some of their richest fellow citizens like highly qualified but equally harmful bank execs?
How will the new asset managers be chosen (competitively?)and paid?
Should we start a new rating BBB- for Bankers’ Benefit Bill minus Accountability?

Krugman has similar views on (Brown and) Paulson’s latest custard recipe.
He’s also worried that the fed might end up giving fallen financial execs & stakeholders “a giant windfall at the taxpayers’ expense"!
He may be bang on when he’s apprehensive about Paulson "making it up, as he goes along, just like the rest of us".
He has, quite understandably, cautioned us that "this railroading may make all of us very sorry in the not-too-distant future".

On page 23 on 23rd’s Mint, VAN has dug up two tiny but very significant changes "incorporated by the SEC in 2004, helping Merrill, Lehman, Goldman, Stearns & Morgan".
These five raked in Ark-full of money before 3 of them sinking under the load, recently.
The rest (2) have changed course, full-steam, to find North (pole)!

Finally, TOI reports that at least 1200 listed companies forged their corporate accounts (ICS Study) to “Exceed Expectations of the Stock Market, avoid taxes, attract foreign investments & mobilize funds”. PwC confirms that the frauds are on a steady rise!

I especially like the closing statement on this article –
"Accounting fraud is the most dangerous because it goes against the basic concept of investor confidence in financial statements”.

Do you see it now?
There are millions of Beemers & Audis driving in through high gates of professionally managed corporations!
The much qualified passengers at the back, perennially on their latest Berries have just managed to “cut flab” from their business ops, by drastically reducing cost-heads on manpower. And they are thrilled at the idea of how the improved bottom-lines would shore their “commission” lined HNI accounts.

Unfortunately, right next to the golden-gates, gathered are the freshly cut “flabs”, who never ever managed to eat enough, to add fat.
These “flab fellows” also burnt much of their minuscule energy inputs, possibly commuting for hours in stinky public vehicles or their rickety bicycles.

Ms. Pande wonders in her column, if we can ever stop from being competitive and move to much more real fitness,
beyond measuring tapes & weighing scales? How relevant!
I find this applicable even to this financial mess we have been forced into.

Fat burns fast…..