"Consensus thinking is how you stay mediocre. I only bet on non-obvious ideas and never follow the herd"
Blake, 33, ex-Google PM now doing a vertical AI SaaS. Into ice baths + Huberman protocols, tracks his sleep with an Oura ring. Quotes Naval daily
the entire world has seen a sudden influx of Indians in the last 10 years
really remarkable. i don't think i've yet read a good explainer. everybody focuses on receiving-country dynamics.
why did south asia's emigration rate suddenly go BOOM after 2015?
CRED was an absolute waste of a product. I used it extensively as long as it "paid me" to settle my CC bills in return for cashbacks. For some strange reason it was hailed as a genius move by pliant media. Maybe there is something behind this move that we do not understand
Right now, the best advice I can give you as an automotive journalist is to stop buying new cars and bikes, until this #ethanol mess is sorted out. OEMs are too scared to say anything to the government, so this will be one way of pressurising them as well.
My first tweet on #RajeshExports was in 2014. The suspicion started much earlier. There is something called a smell test. It decades to develop - if you keep your ears and eyes open.
@suchetadalal@BalakrishnanR
My piece in @livemint today.
India faces 2 choices: Indian households blow up their savings, giving F2s minimal cost exits.
RBI blows up reserves, defending the Rupee, swapping SIP Rs into USD, giving F2s low cost exits.
Our projected import ( merch+ services) cover is just 6 months. Deep red zone.
Our projected BOP deficit is ~13% ( that's optimistic IMO) of current reserves. Even in 2008, it was just 8%.
So get the magnitude of the problem.
We can't fight this 2 front war. It's a ticket to the IMF.
Sensible choice: sacrifice the Stock Market. It never busts a nation.
FX crises always do.
Remember the 80s multiple Latam Tequila crises?
My reco:
RAISE taxation on MF investing.
Lower F2 new investment taxes.
( We used to have 0 tax on F2s and 20% on locals, in the 90s. We needed dollars then. We need dollars now. )
So:
Stock market crashes.
That's fine. F2s try selling but there are few willing buyers on the other side.
Selling into illiquidity always crashes prices.
But we don't lose USDs because quantum of selling absorbed will a fraction of today.
And at 30-40% lower prices, after a crash, the same selling F2s will become buyers.
I have seen this multiple times in my sell side life. " Market is cheap now": becomes the chatter in Manhattan after some champagne. " Let's go back in"
We saw $20 billion flow in 09-10.$ 10 billion in 13-14.
Each after a massive crash.
Crashes almost always trigger massive F2 inflows.
We must make this happen.
We simply can't give easy exits.
Exits must be made costly.
Even unviable.
That's the way it used to happen before.
I am prepared to endure the pain on my India holdings for a while.
Stock markets always come back in a year or two.
No currency ever regains the glory of its pre-crisis levels. Almost none.
Absorb this fact slowly.
Since March this year, I have put ~ Rs.200 cr into India.
I am fine to take pain on my holdings if it saves the country.
Are you, the Jain, the Gupta, the Patel, and millions others, prepared to do the same?
MF distributors? Asset Managers?
Are you prepared to let go your swarth for the country?
Because else, 12 months from now, we will be teetering at abyss' edge.
The Lutyens Elite began losing power from the mid-1980s, as the dirigiste system collapsed.
The truly prescient ones sold their family silver and packed their kids off to US universities to become future investment bankers, UN diplomats, and IMF-World Bank staffers.
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