Personality Test

My Personality

Neuroticism	77
Extraversion	48
Openness to Experience	49
Agreeableness	60
Conscientiousness	66

You do not experience strong, irresistible cravings and consequently do not find yourself tempted to overindulge, however you feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated. You are not prone to spells of energetic high spirits. You are not interested in the arts and do not display aesthetic sensitivity. You are tenderhearted and compassionate, feeling the pain of others vicariously and are easily moved to pity, however you are not adverse to confrontation and will sometimes even intimidate others to get your own way. You strive hard to achieve excellence. Your drive to be recognized as successful keeps you on track toward your lofty goals. You often have a strong sense of direction in life, but may sometimes be too single-minded and obsessed with your work.

poll maker jewelry

Satyam:The Truth "Lies" Beneath...

Satyam first came into news on 16th December with its announcement of purchasing 100% and 50% stakes respectively in his sons’ companies Maytas Properties and Maytas Infrastructure. (Maytas incidentally is Satyam spelled backwards).Ramalinga Raju’s family members own a combined stake of more than 30% in each of these companies. The deal was finalized for $1.6 billion-a figure that raised a number of eyebrows and invited shareholders’ wrath who questioned the rationale of this valuation and the high-handedness of the board members who took such a major decision without consulting or informing investors of the proposed move. The markets reacted sharply and Satyam’s share price took a beating. Many in the industry questioned the role of independent directors in ratifying such a move without due diligence and the issue brought into focus family dominance in corporate affairs.Rattled by the criticism the move was abandoned the very next day. The company’s image took another beating on 23rd December when the World Bank announced an eight –year ban on Satyam for data theft and providing improper benefits to World Bank employees. In the next few days its oldest board member M Srinivasan and independent directors Krishna Palepu and Rammohan Rao,the dean of the Indian School of Business quit on moral grounds. Also Merrill Lynch,which had been tasked with searching for strategic partners for Satyam backed out alleging serious irregularities in Satyam’s account books.Finally on 7th January Ramalinga Raju released a confessional letter to Satyam’s board informing of massive financial fraud and cooking up of company’s account books which had been going on for years for which he assumed sole responsibility claiming that no other board member knew about any of it. The company’s shares came crashing down in the stock markets with the price per share being reduced from Rs.179 to Rs.39 in a single day and shareholders losing massive amounts of money.Raju confessed to having inflated cash and bank balances of the company by Rs.5040 crores,understated Satyam’s liability to other companies by Rs.1230 crores,overstated debtor position i.e. amounts other companies owed to Satyam by Rs.490 crores and inflated interest received on loans issued to other firms by Rs.376 crores.The actual operating profit according to his statement was just 3%-something nobody in the industry seems prepared to digest because even a non-descript IT firm doesn’t operate below a profit margin of 20%. The reason he says all this was done is to prevent a takeover of the company which would have exposed the gap in the real and actual profits. But the gap kept getting bigger and when all attempts to bridge it failed the Maytas deal was conceived as a last-ditch attempt to do so.It was hoped that Maytas’ assets would justify the stated finances of the company and the latter’s payment could be delayed once Satyam’s problem was solved. Thus it was to be a deal in which Satyam was supposed to be paying with non-existent cash.In short it was a matter of money staying in the family.But since the move failed to pass muster, the game was up for the gap had grown too wide to be sustained and couldn’t have been concealed for long.Satyam didn’t have enough cash in its coffers to pay its employees so the fraud would’ve been exposed sooner or latter.

But experts argue that inspite of all his claims Raju couldn’t have done it alone for a fraud of such magnitude requires the connivance of the Chief Financial Officer and his team at the very least.It’s simply not possible to inflate revenues by Rs.588 crores in a single quarter as Satyam did without the CEO,CFOand COO not being in the loop unless they’re blind and dumb.

Another theory doing the rounds is that Satyam did make all the profits it claimed to be making but the promoters quietly invested it in real estate through Maytas companies without anyone’s knowledge.This,it turns out ,is a bigger crime than just inflating profits from a legal viewpoint. With real estate prices crashing in the recent times that investment got wiped off and the promoters were left with nothing in their hands.This theory derives strength from the fact that Rajus own large swathes of land in and around Hyderabad and Maytas needed funds for its own operations.

Raju’s claim in his letter that neither he or his family members have benefited from inflated profits sounds hollow in light of the fact that their holding in the company came down dramatically from 14% to 8% in a period of two months in 2006 when the share price(a direct function of the company’s inflated revenue declarations) was around Rs.700.He had claimed that they hadn’t sold their shares in the last eight years except for a small amount sold for philanthropic purposes.A reduction in holding by 6% translates into a sale of 1.5 crore shares giving a return of Rs.1000 crores- by no means a small amount.

Raju’s credibility is being further eroded by allegations of fraud in the EMRI scheme which is supposed to be a charity providing emergency medical services.95% of the investment has come from state governments and 5% from Rajus and land to the tune of 10-20 acres is being allotted for free in each of the eight states it is operating in-something which is not at all required for such operations.Also the organization is overcharging the government for its services and tenders for contracts by state governments are being issued with terms in favour of EMRI.

Raju also has a past record of defrauding the government by not paying back the loan he took to start the Sri Satyam Spinning Mills in 1983.The loan to the tune of Rs.52 lakh was taken from Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation. His company ran into losses and Raju sold it to another party without repaying either the interest or the principal.The new owners professed no knowledge of pending dues and Raju dissociated himself from the issue saying that he was no longer associated with the company.Since then the APIDC has been able to do very little except issue notices and in effect has had to write off the amount as bad debt.This shows that this is not the first instance of bad corporate governance with Raju.Ironically Satyam has been awarded the Golden Peacock Award for excellent corporate governance thrice,most recently in 2008.

Another party being seen as hand in gloves with Raju is Satyam’s audit firm Price Water House Coopers which certified all its accounts and financial transactions-something not possible if they’re not in cahoots with the guilty except when they either act dumb or show gross negligence. That PwC wasn’t able to spot an irregularity of Rs.5040 crores in CB&B(cash and bank balances) and Merrill Lynch caught it in two weeks points to two possibilities-either their audit team didn’t bother checking it with the banks or the CFO’s office created forged statements on the letterheads of banks to fool them.Both cases amount to serious neglect of responsibilities by PwC which is supposed to certify to the shareholders that the accounts are “true” and “fair”. In any case the firm has lost its reputation and is already facing lawsuits in the US.Only if it is very lucky it may escape with severe fines,lose many of its clients and shrink into insignificance like Anderson which went bust owing to the Enron scandal(Anderson was its audit firm).

As of now,the government has superseded Satyam’s present board and appointed an interim board of three members-Deepak Parekh(chairman of HDFC),Kiran Karnik(former chairman of NASSCOM) and V.Achutan(legal eagle) to assess the company’s position and try to bring it back on track because despite its woes it remains profitable with solid foundations.The main concern is to arrange for operating capital i.e. money to keep the company’s day-to-day operations running and pay employees’ salaries as well as to ensure that the client base is not eroded. As of now,the government has refused to bail out the company on grounds that it would set a bad precedent and encourage potential scamsters to think they can get away with fraud.The new board has appointed KPMG and Deloitte-two of the “Big Four” audit firms on Wall Street to reassess Satyam’s financial position(PwC is or well! rather was one of the group before this fiasco).The fourth one is Ernst&Young-the firm which carried out the valuation of Maytas companies and declared the proposed deal to be worth the contentious figure of $1.6 billion.

Yesterday the government appointed three more members to the board:Tarun Das-chief mentor of CII(Confederation of Indian Industries) which is an industry association,T.N Manoharan-chartered accountant and past President of ICAI(Indian Chartered Accountants Institute) and S.Balkrishna Mainak of LIC which is a major stakeholder in Satyam.

Ramalinga Raju,his brother Rama Raju and CFO Vadlamani are in judicial custody-another controversial move as it is being alleged that the action was taken to prevent SEBI from questioning them(only the police can interrogate them as long as they’re in judicial custody and are in no way competent enough to question them on corporate affairs).

Although the businessman-politician nexus in this case is not being vigorously probed as of now,as the probe moves forward many skeletons are likely to come tumbling out of the closet for Raju is said to have built his empire by seeking and getting favours from Andhra politicians of all hues over the years who in return used him to further their own political ends by projecting him as the face of Andhra pride in front of the world.

For India this fiasco couldn’t have come at a worst time with economy on a path to slowdown and economic stimulus by the government yet to show any effects.The India story could be badly affected if the issue is not dealt with in an exemplary manner and perpetrators left unpunished for it would dent the country’s image in the eyes of clients and investors who might go elsewhere.It’s for this reason that all IT firms are taking pains to emphasize that this is a one-off case and the standards of corporate governance in the industry are quite high. The biggest question mark hangs over the fate of Satyam’s 53000-strong workforce that has been looking to find new jobs but finding few takers in face of hiring freeze as well as directives from NASSCOM to other IT firms not to poach Satyam’s employees.

Corporations: The Necessary Evil

Watched the movie "Battle in Seattle" yesterday and the mind immediately got flooded with a plethora of thoughts.The movie is based on real events depicted through fictional characters and is the story of mass protests at the WTO(World Trade Organization) meeting in Seattle,Washington which ultimately led to collapse of the talks.For a full synopsis(at the risk of encountering spoilers) go to

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0850253/synopsis

However, what I want to talk about is not the movie itself but issues- both core and peripheral- related to it.The protesters are opposed to the WTO because they feel that it's being used by the developed and powerful nations of the world to flood the third world and poor nations with their goods thus destroying any attempts at self-sustenance.All this is done under the garb of sugar-coated slogans of "Globalization" and "Free Trade".The carrot held out is the seemingly easier and cheaper access to goods for the people of all countries.The WTO envisages a single unified global economy but fails to make any provisions for the local farmers and entrepreneurs who would lose their livelihoods in face of stiff competition.Hey wait!How can imported goods come at so cheap a price so as to elbow out these guys?? The answer lies in- subsidies.

European nations and America give billions of dollars in subsidies to their own farmers who are then able to produce at a lower cost and sell cheap. Even so, they make handsome profits.Now, these countries are not agrarian in nature- meaning that only a very miniscule percentage of the population is involved in farming.This makes it easier for the governments to give heavy subsidies per farmer.On the other hand,developing and third world countries have majority of their populations involved in agricultural activities.For these countries whose economies are much smaller than those of the developed countries,it becomes all the more difficult to subsidize farming.This results in lack of usage of modern equipment and techniques in farming which has a direct impact on the quality and quantity of produce.If at all the farmer chooses to use modern machinery, the cost of production also goes up considerably because the farmer now has to pay back the loan taken from the bank to purchase the machinery. This limits his ability to sell below a minimum price.With cheap and better quality goods coming from elsewhere he is unable to withstand the competition. It's true that consumers which form a smaller portion of the population will now have access to cheaper goods but face the risk of becoming overdependent on imports owning to the dying out of local industry. There may arise a situation where owing to poor produce some year the developed country doesn't export its produce.The impact can be imagined. This effect continues up the production chain because the local industry won't be able to produce cheap after procuring the more expensive raw material from local sources whereas industry in developed countries will.The irony is- developed countries in WTO want developing countries like India to stop giving subsidies to their farmers but are not willing to do the same in their own.Clearly, all this is being done at the behest of and in the interest of large corporations which are driven by the profit motive.Infact(atleast as far as the US is concerned) a corporation is mandated by law to maximize profit for its stakeholders and thus can absolve itself of guilt,if any,in the pursuit of its objectives.

Now this is where it all gets damn confusing for me! All right, the corporates world over are driven by selfish motives and are willing to exploit or be involved in the exploit of others in pursuance of their goals.Also,many of us would automatically sympathize with the plight of those suffering as a result.But does that mean we should stop using the products of these companies? Not eat that burger at your favourite multinational joint, not purchase that pair of sports shoes from Nike(in India they are imported from China where its workers are paid a pittance and Nike pockets all the money),not consume products made from imported food-grains(not that ur gonna be able to tell anyway!),not use a laptop or an iPod(the lithium ion batteries use a substance found in abundance mostly in very poor African nations which use child labor to mine it-of course it's the corporations who supervise the mining),not wear diamond jewellery(try finding out something about DeBeers if u can not to mention blood diamonds)? This list can go on for ever,including things you cannot imagine life without-foremost being oil.Probably nothing in the world has caused as much exploitation as oil has. This exploitation has been carried out by both- corporations as well as governments- and continues to this day.Ever since reserves of oil were found in the Middle East at the turn of the century, the world has never been the same.A number of countries have been condemned to eternal hell for their oil,the most recent being Iraq and Afghanistan.Afghanistan itself doesn't have any significant oil but its control is vital for the US to enable it to bring oil through pipeline from oilfields in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan which will have to pass through Afghanistan and Pakistan before entering the ocean.A Taliban controlled Afghanistan wouldn't allow that although US tried its best to negotiate with this barbaric regime.More on oil politics in later posts.

Even if everyone decided to boycott these goods or decide not to be employed by them what will happen to the workers who might go jobless as a result? The collapse of corporations will resonate throughout the economic chain because everything is interlinked(the current recession is proof).The world economy shall collapse and it will be utter chaos everywhere.And what shall we have achieved? Absolutely nothing.So clearly an outright boycott is not an option. Then what IS?I don't know and I don't think there IS an effective one.At most you can try your best to persuade these people to bring about a change of heart and hope for the best but clearly that doesn't smack like a practical solution.Human greed is too strong to let go of opportunities for the sake of others.Most of us want to be rich and powerful and I personally am no exception.

That leaves taking recourse to legal route as the only option.Tough laws may discourage exploitative,immoral,unethical and criminal practices and force corporations to behave.But again laws are made by governments-which may be democratically elected or dictatorial regimes.In case of the latter dictators aren't accountable to anyone and can therefore rule as they see fit.Naturally corporations would be willing to pay arm and leg to the dictators to bend laws their way in such an atmosphere.In case of a democracy,no one ever heard of politicians winning elections without money to run their electoral campaigns.Who pays the chunk of this money and what do they want in return? Be it either India or the US,time and again we have seen laws being heavily tilted in favour of corporations and the judiciary overlooking violation of laws by them.Organizations like the WTO are brainchilds of not governments but corporations who are eager to expand their reach at whatever price.With the weight of the government behind these guys what choice does that leave you with?

So where do I see myself after college?What do I want to achieve?Like many others I want a high-paying,satisfying,glamorous job and a stellar corporate career.Would I be hypocritical enough to join a multinational?Yes,I would.I've worked hard all my life to the best of my ability to realise my goals.I know there are things which I cannot change and are beyond my control.Besides,there is no corporation which doesn't perpetrate exploitation in one form or the other and given all the arguments in this post do I have a choice if I want to fulfill my dreams?(Assuming that I'm not planning on being an entrepreneur!)

Lazzzzing Around!

Vacation is getting very boring now.Wish it's over soon and I get back to college.All I do is to eat,sleep,read,watch TV n movies on lappie.Currently reading Noam Chomsky's "Understanding Power" but not in a mood to finish it now.Saw three movies yesterday-"Bachna Ae Haseeno","The Deal" and "Wall-E".

"Bachna..." is typical Bollywood fare-the candy floss stuff.Minissha Lamba and Deepika look hot,Ranbir's acting is okay.Timepass movie in short.Watch "The Deal" if you like politics else just another movie."Wall-E" is an animation film from the house of PIXAR.Sweet movie if you manage to sit through the first half an hour.Story is kinda new.

Polyester Prince :The Rise Of Dhirubhai Ambani

This is the name of a book by Hamish McDonald I finished reading a couple of days back. It details the life of the man right from his childhood days till about the time he died and exposes him and Reliance to the world in full. It is only after reading this book that I realised the scale and magnitude of the frauds perpetrated by him and his coterie of friends.

On the other hand, one cannot but help marvel at the sheer genius of the man who took on the whole government and bureaucracy headlong and twisted and manipulated them to suit his will and desire. The state-controlled economic set-up of India(which it was till 1991) had been designed by some of the best minds in the world and yet Dhirubhai outwitted and hoodwinked it at each and every step.That he managed to shine the most when license-raj in India was at its worst speaks volumes about his abilities.At the peak of his powers he could make or break Prime Ministers not to mention other Cabinet ministers and Chief Ministers. His battles with Bombay Dyeing chief Nusli Wadia and Indian Express owner and editor Ramnath Goenka have become the stuff of legend.It is in the most intense phase of this battle that 'years of living on adrenalin' as the author puts it, finally took its toll on him and he suffered a paralytic stroke from which he never fully recovered.

In the course of reading this book a lot of characters and events in the movie 'Guru' began falling in place.Apart from the obvious Abhishek Bachchan as Dhirubhai and Aishwarya Rai as his wife Kokilaben, the character of Abhishek's father as schoolmaster is based on Dhirubhai's father who was also a school teacher, Mithun Chakravarty's character is inspired by Ramnath Goenka who initially saw great promise in Dhirubhai but later fell out with him owing to latter's business practices and Madhavan's character as a journalist in Mithun's paper is inspired by S.Gurumurthy who exposed Reliance and Dhirubhai in Indian Express to the full.Aishwarya's brother as Abhishek's business partner in his initial days is also based on a real life character whose share Dhirubhai bought out after they disagreed on certain points. Abhishek's stint in Turkey is symbolic of the years Dhirubhai spent in Aden(in Yemen) when it was a busy business place. The allegation levelled against him regarding smuggling of machines without paying custom duties is very much true;Dhirubhai is said to have smuggled in a whole factory worth $1 billion by dismantling machines and then reassembling them after their arrival taking advantage of loopholes in customs regulations.It was considered as a punch in the face for the bureaucracy at that time.In another instance he paid duty for 8 machines and installed 12 in his plant by showing the latter as spare parts to the authorities(the figures of 8 and 12 appear in the movie too).The annual shareholders meeting used to be a grand affair with Dhirubhai as shown in the movie and there was an instance when the public turned against him in the meeting and he had to flee. The paralytic stroke shown in the movie(after the disastrous shareholders meet) came much later in real life though.The movie leaves out his most scandalous affairs(Harshad Mehta scam and issuing of duplicate shares)and doesn't even make a mention of his tussle with Nusli Wadia.Guess the producers didn't want to take chances with the Ambani clout.On that note, even this book is not available in India for the Ambanis have threatened legal action against anything they preceive as defamatory in the book!No wonder I never across it before in the press or anywhere else.It's only by accident that I chanced upon a downloadable free ebook version on the net while searching for something else.

The book candidly details all of Reliance's misdoings while acknowledging the genius of the man.In the words of Sucheta Dalal, a well-known business reporter:

The Polyester Prince is an accurate portrait of one of the most colourful, controversial and brilliant of Indian businessmen, who converted into an art; the bending and twisting of the stifling license-permit system to his advantage. It traces his humble beginnings at Chorwad in Gujarat to being in the Forbes list of the world's richest men.

As McDonald says in the book, 'Everything about the Ambanis, in fact, was a good magazine story.' If Anil Ambani's stormy courtship of Tina Munim, whom Hamish describes as 'a girl with a past' has all the ingredients of a Bollywood potboiler, then the saga of Dhirubhai's rise to being among the most powerful men in India is significantly more dramatic and awesome. There is the fight-to-the-finish battle with Ramnath Goenka -- the fiery and fearless proprietor of the Indian Express; then the war with industrialist Nusli Wadia of Bombay Dyeing; the much publicised allegations against some Ambani staffers over a plot to murder Wadia; Reliance's travails during the V P Singh government, which almost brought the business house to its knees, and sundry other controversies over licensed capacities, export manipulation and share switching. It also narrates how Reliance created the equity cult which got the general public investing in equity and investors' reciprocal adulation for the man for over a decade.

McDonald uses his skill as a journalist to paint an accurate picture and to bring in the unsavory aspects of Reliance's dealing with business rivals without attracting charges of defamation. The book candidly traces Dhirubhai's uncanny knack of tweaking and capturing political and bureaucratic power -- Ambani's equation with Indira Gandhi and her family and their powerful minions, as well as the suitcases of cash which Indian business houses used to engineer changes in tariffs and duties for specific products. At the same time, McDonald finally portrays Dhirubhai as a visionary with unconventional ways of fulfilling his mega plans.

Read the full article here: http://www.rediff.com/money/2000/jul/26dalal.htm

He manipulated not only the system but his company's account books as well.By putting up front companies and spinning a complex web of financial transactions here and there he made it extremely difficult for anyone to make any sense of it. As the author says-Probably only Dhirubhai, his two sons and a couple of selected near ones were the only people who had the whole equation in their heads.

Everything else apart, the book makes you realise the readiness with which our politicians do the beckoning of businessmen, the impunity with which they demand cash(for instance,Sanjay Gandhi asked Nusli Wadia for donations to Congress to get a license clearance) and abuse their positions in power.Apart from Indira Gandhi,Murli Deora,the present Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Pranab Mukherjee, the External Affairs minister, used their clout in the administration to benefit Reliance and Dhirubhai heavily-both financially and legally. CBI has been shown to be a mere puppet in the hands of politicians and by extension Reliance(the CBI chief's son was the owner of a Reliance factory)- something that stays true to this day.The heads of public sector banks, bureaucrats in the finance ministry,law ministry and officers in the law enforcemnt agencies have been shown as having business interests in Reliance either directly through ownership of shares and debentures(allotted by Reliance for free out of special prerogative quotas in return for their 'services') or indirectly by having franchisee rights of a Reliance company through their family members. A number of bureaucrats accused of favouring Reliance have been shown as taking up jobs with it after retirement.Even the media hasn't been spared.Reliance had a number of journalists in major newspapers and magazines on its payroll to paint a favourable image of the company.It even started a newspaper of its own-the 'Observer of Business and Politics' when the Indian Express campaign started hurting it real bad but it failed to click. But the author does acknowledge that given the opportunity any other businessman does and would've done the same things Dhirubhai did.The only difference with him was the courage factor and the scale on which he did whatever he did. By his own admission he took advantage and worked hard to exploit the opportunity while others remained complacent and therefore had no right to complain. He attributed complaints to the jealously factor he says is so inherent in Indians.

To say that he played a big role in changing the face of Indian politics forever (inadvertantly though) won't be an exaggeration. He got V.P Singh (who was the Finance Minister in the then Rajiv gandhi Government and was bearing down upon Dhirubhai's empire) sidelined upon which the latter resigned and then led to Rajiv's downfall in the next elections.Fearing a Congress comeback he then took the reservation genie out of the bottle which has completely changed the contours of Indian politics forever. The man who had a reputation for honesty and efficiency (as Chief Minister of UP he rid the state of notorious bandits to a great extent) became a villain(or a hero depending on which side of the fence you are) overnight.

Perhaps the most shocking side of his personality was the willingness to take recourse to violence as the last means. At various times he got beaten up his own workers agitating for higher wages and overtime pay, his business rivals(son of Kapal Mehra, his rival in the polyester business)-the latter couldn't be proved in court and got threats issued to a number of people as well(none of which have been proved). A manager of his company Kirti Ambani was arrested for hatching a murder conspiracy against Nusli Wadia and Reliance immediately dissociated itself from his actions.

The author also gives details of the Ambanis association with Harshad Mehta in order to jack up Reliance share prices by manipulation of markets but says that the joint Parliamentary probe was stopped by Murli Deora before it could throw the noose around Dhirubhai.

Dhirubhai's contention was simple-Everyone has a price, whether low or high.His personality is best summed-up in the author's own words-

Dhirubhai Ambani built his company through outstanding abilities and drive on many fronts: as an innovative financier, an inspiring manager of talent, an astute marketeer of his products, and as a forward-looking industrialist. The energy and daring that showed itself in his early pranks, practical jokes and trading experiments developed into a boldness and willingness to live with risk that few if any other Indian corporate chiefs would dare to emulate. His extraordinary talent for sustaining relationships, and sometimes impressing men of standing, won him vital support from both governments and institutions.

The dark side of his abilities was an eye for human weakness and a willingness to exploit it. This gained him preferential treatment or at least a blind eye from the whole gamut of Indian institutions at various times. Over decades in India, some of the world’s best minds had applied themselves to building a system of government controls on capital ism. Dhirubhai Ambani made a complete mockery of it-admittedly at a stage when the system was decaying and corrupted already. The Ministry of Finance and its enforce ment agencies, the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Company Law Board proved timid and sometimes complicit in their handling of questionable episodes concerning Reliance. The public financial institutions that held large blocks of shares in Reliance and had seats on its board were passive and acquiescent spectators, rather than responsible trustees for public savings.

No Need for me to Write and for u to Read This!

   Saw "The X-Files: I Want to believe" yesterday. Booooooring!!!!!! I'm not even sure I completely understood what it was all about. Two retired FBI agents(a male and a female), a priest with 'visions'(also a convicted paedophile), abduction of a couple of serving FBI agents and lots of bullshit-pretty much sums it all up. Complete waste of time. Better avoided.

 

Battle for the Black Gold

   Saw an excellent documentary yesterday-"The Battle for Oil- China vs the US". It pretty much sums up all the political, economic, geographical and strategic factors at play today over this precious resource and the dangerous future that lies ahead if an alternative isn't found soon.

   The US is the biggest consumer of oil in the world and imports two thirds of its requirements-all this despite being the third largest producer in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Russia-and on the whole consumes one quarter of the total world production. China's economy has grown sevenfold ever since it took the road to capitalism and needs massive amounts of oil to sustain itself.At present 50% of the requirement is met through domestic production and the rest is imported but it's projected that very soon it shall have to import two-thirds of its needs. As a result the Chinese have been on a buying spree around the world trying to ensure long term supplies of oil to feed their industries and have gone out of their way to woo African and Latin American countries. China's main suppliers of oil from Africa are Sudan and Chad and from Latin America it's Venezuela. Unlike their western counterparts the Chinese attach no strings in dealing with these countries. They make it quite clear that all they want to do is business and steer clear of meddling in the internal politics and affairs of these nations. They invest massively in the infrastructure sector- building roads, bridges, railway stations and airports- and provide huge loans on easy terms to these countries. They deal with the government and not its people which leaves the former to use the oil revenues in any which way it might wish. In short, windfall oil revenues are no guarantee of improvement in the lives of the people.If the regime is rogue and corrupt there's little that can be done.

    On the other hand the US has been trying to make inroads in Africa too but since the government is not directly involved the private corporations are unable to match the monetary power of the Chinese who do business through state-owned entities and are therefore able to commit massive government funds. Also the Chinese have been encroaching upon traditional US turf by getting Venezuela to commit a major chunk of its production to China.Before Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, the regime was US-friendly but now the new socialist regime is less kindly disposed towards the US-infact Chavez loses no opportunity to lambast George Bush and his policies in public and is trying to forge an anti-US coalition within Latin America to further harm its interests. On the other hand, China is also getting friendly with Iran which has been at loggerheads with the US for quite some time now over its nuclear ambitions. It has used its muscle in the Security Council to oppose any sanctions proposed on Iran by the US and has in turn been rewarded with oil. China's unique status as the sole Asian country with the veto power attracts the oil-rich anti-US countries to an alliance with it. China has also prevented any action against Sudanese government for its atrocities in Southern Sudan and Darfur. These are the oil-rich regions of the country and government raised, funded and backed Arab Janjaweed militias have been carrying out a vicious genocide campaign against the tribes in this region. These tribesmen are either non-Arab Muslims or pagan worshippers. Either way, the Arabs don't care. Considering that 85% of Sudanese oil is exported to China, the stakes are too high for China to let the international community take action against Omar-al Bashar, the Sudanese premier who has been convicted of genocide by the International Court.

   Another piece in this game of chess is Taiwan. It's an island country whose independence is recognized by very few nations of the world as a result of Chinese pressure. Chad, which formerly recognized Taiwan as an independent country has now changed its stance to support China under diplomatic pressure as well as coercive tactics(China was fuelling insurgency in the border areas of Chad)China has for years been threatening military action if Taiwan were to issue a formal declaration of independence. On the other hand, the US has pledged to protect it in event of a Chinese aggression. More than anything else control of Taiwan is important to China from a strategic point of view. Most of China's oil comes by sea and in the event of a crisis Taiwan would be China's Achilles' Heel and it would be at the mercy of the US navy for the latter controls the Taiwan Strait which lies on one of the main oil routes supplying all of East Asia. Therefore China is not only investing heavily in a blue water navy but also trying to build enough pipeline capacity to bring oil through ground from Russia, Kazakhastan etc. All the same,  control over Taiwan would give it the right to control the Taiwan Strait itself than allowing the US to do it thus eliminating threat of a blockade during war.

    There was also an attempt two years back by a Chinese oil company to take over the US oil company Unocal as a perfectly legitimate corporate acquisition which raised a storm in the US political and strategic circles. It was touted as an issue of national security and was blocked. Having failed to meet its needs through acquisitions China intensified its search of oil in other areas of the world.

   However, some years down the line, with the ever growing demand for energy this quest is set to intensify much more and might even result in wars being fought for control of oil supplies. The US can neither tell China and India to contain their growth nor agree to consume less and leave more for others. The problem is with the pie-its size is fixed and cannot grow. Although rapid advances in technology has made it economically viable to exploit reserves of heavy crude as well, its nothing more than a stop-gap solution. The bottomline is- unless we manage to discover an alternate source of energy capable of meeting all our energy needs, we are staring at a bloody future ahead of us for in the face of dwindling supplies, wars will become inevitable. Already energy security is the prime motivating factor for a number of existing strategic alliances in the world and as new players come into the picture, realignments are most likely to be based around energy concerns.