Annus horribili largely

2008 comes to a close today. I spent the 1 st day of the year gone with my brother and his family and our parents in Detroit. We went around the table and did our usual "so whats the resolution for the year". And the usual answers around losing weight, eating more healthy, no resolutions, etc emanated from everyone. Now as I look back, I wish I had made one resolution and implemented it: To save more cash and put it inside a pillow for investing after Black September.

Let's see the downs of last year:
a) The global consumer whose income got eroded due to various factors
b) The global economy save China and India to some extent (not the Indian stock market)
c) Small investors who got hurt - I dont care for the large fund managers and investors- they missed out on one year's multi-million dollar bonus
d) The financial community who literally blew away a trillion dollars due to excessive risk taking and GREEEEEEED.
e) The incredible rise of oil price driven by speculators and not by China
f) CEOs of the auto companies flying in private jets to ask for a bailout
g) The blow to the unbridled capitalist form of economic systems
h) The Bombay attacks


Let's see the ups now:
a) The election of a pragmatic and thoughtful leader for the US and the "free world" - Is he the "chosen one"? - let's see if he can deliver
b) The decline of oil prices in the last two months
c) The shattering of the ways of the greed driven financial community
d) The increasing focus on saving the planet and on renewables
e) Krugman winning the Nobel prize for economics
f) The Beijing olympics and Phelps
g) Abhinav Bhindra for winning India's first solo gold
h) The signing of the US-Indian nuclear deal

What I will never forget - Watching Obama standing in Chicago on the evening of Nov 5, the bombs in Bombay, Li Ning running around the stadium in Beijing hoisted up by a crane over 100 ft from the ground, The Indian national anthem being played at the Olympics for the first time in over 28 years