A.I.G.

I resisted writing about the bonus debacle because it was a little too close to home. After all, a fair portion of our household income is paid by a TARP-financed company and some of this money generally comes in the form of a bonus. Given the personal stake, I figured I wouldn't be the most rationale commentator on this issue. Ironically, recent events and the irrationality of legislators and the press helped me clarify and solidify my own views.

Bonuses are needed. Here's why:

Yes, too many people are paid too much. But, this does not mean that the concept of a bonus is wrong. You can question the size of the payments, but it doesn't make sense to claim that no bonuses should be paid.

Yes, bonuses are performance-based; so,where is the performance if your company loses billions of dollars and is funded by hardworking taxpayers. But, this is not an argument against all incentive pay. This highlights a problem with the structure of the compensation packages. The base salary within the financial firms is unnaturally low in relation to comparable positions in other industries. Within a finance firm, in an annual package of $10,000 your base salary is often only $2,500. The remaining $7,500 is paid as bonus. The $7,500 is based on the company's performance and your individual performance, but also consists of an amount that would have been part of your base salary had you worked in any other industry. Moreover, the individual performance piece serves as recognition of your last year's work as well as a retention incentive for next year. Thus, in 2009, the bonus will not include any part of the company's performance, but if the individual performed well and worked 12,14,16-hour days for the majority of the year, you have to recognize their performance at some level. In 2009, bonuses should definitely be lower, but not zero. Of course, this does not apply if you lost millions of dollars as the AIG finance unit and to whom the vast majority of AIG bonuses are being paid. This is just plain stupid.

Yes, there are few open jobs, so why pay any bonus as a retention incentive, you are not going to lose people anyways. But, you will lose the best. The best and brightest will find another opportunity and you will lose them at a time when you need them the most. Even if you don't lose them you will surely demotivate them when you want them to work their hardest. You just cannot deny the motivating power of money.

I recognize that the overal imbalance needs correction and many people have been paid too much for too long a time. But, that is a different conversation.

IPL and Elections

The Indian Premier League cricket matches have been moved to South Africa. For those who don't know, the IPL is a domestic cricket league. This year the games conflicted with the national elections and due to lack of security forces to cover both events the IPL games have been moved to South Africa (yes, it is still called the Indian Premier League).

And at some level I understand the reasons. It is not completely unreasonable to expect the elections to consume most of our security forces. Also, you don't just have to provide security for every match, but also for all the practices, press conferences, promotion events etc. I mean, just imagine the reaction if Sachin or Dhoni was injured in an attack. A very scary thought!

But, it is a rather sad. A little sad that our government doesn't have the capacity to provide the needed security but sadder that recent events dictate us to even require this level of security.

On a lighter note, a friend considers venue changes for other events -

Other events that will require attention in the coming year also have alternate venues selected. Indian Idol auditions are going to be held in Bahrain, the Kala Ghoda festival has been moved to Times Square in New York and the Lakme Fashion Week is now in Yemen. Currently there are 3 cities bidding for the August 15th independence day parade including Tehran, Lima and Caracas.

While most citizens are aghast by these happening, the tourism industry is thrilled. "My hotel is already sold out for 10 days in October since they announced that the festival of Navratri will now take place in Budapest," said Miklos Groza a Budapest hotelier. "We are all eager to learn Dandiya and Garba and have begun recruiting bands to play," he added.

Land of Alagaesia

I was pleasantly surprised when a couple of you noticed the lull in my postings. I have been a little busy with work and "life", but truth be told, the lull is because I've been totally consumed by the Eragon series. While I am a huge (and I mean HUGE) fan of the Lord of the Rings, I hadn't explored the fantasy gnere until now.

The author, Christopher Paolini, was 15 when he wrote Eragon, the first book in the series (though, I suspect he had some help from his parents who are writers/editors). You sense some of the inexperience in the first novel in the writing style and character development, but the second and third novels are vastly improved.

Though the books are meant for kids, I highly recommend them if you like elves, dwarfs, dragon riders, and of course, dragons. Yes, they might seem totally ridiculous, but they are fun and I'm having a great time reading them!

Immigrants in the US

I've been thinking about what it means to be an immigrant quite a bit recently - always happens after a trip to India.

A friend pointed me to the following NYT map on the flow of immigrants in the US. It is fantastic, you have to check it out - especially the changes over time.

Promoting peace through education

Last night I attended a talk by Greg Mortenson author of "Three Cups of Tea" - a book on Greg's experiences building girl's schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The talk, like the man, had a single-minded focus - education, particularly girl's education, is the key to development, the key to fighting terrorism and promoting peace and really, the only , viable,long-term solution to promoting change. He understands the complexity and difficulty in what he is trying to achieve and seems to have the required patience. He is absolutely relentless in his message and vision and while his presentation seemed rehearsed (he speaks round the year), I couldn't help wanting to support and believe him.

He threw out one statistic that stuck with me - In 2000, there were 800,000 boys in school in Afghanistan (not sure how they got the number). Now, there are 7.2 million children, including 2 million girls - apparently the largest increase in school enrollment ever.

Now, I know that enrollment in school is not everything; you need to worry about teacher and student absenteeism, the level of instruction, the actual curriculum, etc etc. But, it is a start right?

Boom De Ya Da

A friend recently commented that this blog has been pretty serious recently - what she really meant is that it has been pretty depressing. That is kind of odd actually, because if you know me, you know that I am an eternal optimist...and quite happy about it :)

In the spirit of staying more true to my nature, here is commercial that made me smile -



Link via hoopyfrood.org