Global Financial ...

No, i am not a finance expert. Far from it, actually. Which is why, expectedly (for those who know me), i have not written a single blog about the way the financial markets have turned out over the last few months. Well, this article i read (ok, so i read this maybe two weeks back, but still ...), got me thinking, and this was a train of thought i had to blog about.

I came across this article by Thomas Friedman about Time to Reboot ... Thomas Friedman has raised a question about something which i havent been able to understand. To quote ...

we’ve fallen into a trend of diverting and rewarding the best of our collective I.Q. to people doing financial engineering rather than real engineering.

And this is something i havent been able to understand. Why is it that returns are not too closely related to the value one is adding to society? And when i say value, i am talking about real value, not something notional which is great as long as its going, but then, one morning, vaporates with the news. Why is it that people working on technology, whether it be nano-technology, or solar probes are not the ones drawing the top salaries?

It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure

Somehow, the business world has gone into a scenario where notional concepts are far more valuable than real concepts. Like, making money out of money becomes more valuable than making money out of value add. As i had referred earlier to an article which was about how some businessmen in smalltown India are making hay in the market downturn ... its all about basic common sense.