Fear is the key.

Last week I heard from one of my friends, a comment from someone at a party that he/she would not like disciplining children. I do not understand this concept of not disciplining children and letting them learn things on their own. When we are at home, we have some liberties, and freedom. But when we go out we want to present our best face to others. We try to be nice, wear presentable clothes and be on the best possible behavior. When we tell others that we do not like to discipline our children, what are we conveying? We may not mean it, but are we trying to say, that we care only about ourselves and not others?

We can give our children the freedom to experience, understand and develop on their own, but some parental oversight is warranted. There are certain things in life which are to be taught. If there were no rules, regulations and laws in Society, imagine how difficult it would have been for us to live our lives the way we are used to. Similarly, I think there ought to be rules and regulations in our personal lives to help us in our daily life and also to achieve our future goals.

So what makes us follow these rules? - The fear that there are consequences for our actions or inaction. Without this fear it is very difficult for us as a Society to enforce discipline. I guess this fear stems from the basic nature of life, without which any species cannot survive for long. I believe children to some extent are a reflection of how we live our lives.

Take the case of Nadya Suleman, who was in the news recently for her octuplets. She is young, unwed, unemployed Mother of Six children, living with her parents. How did she decide to have 8 more on top of the 6 she already had? What would have prompted her to take the decision to bring more children into this world, when she was not able to support herself and her children on her own. Would she have done this if there were known consequences for her actions? In US you have freedom to do what you want to do. But, what about personal responsibility? Isn't she being irresponsible to do what she did? Yes, I believe so. No one is trying here to tell her how to live her life. That is her life anyway. But we do tell people that they should not be cheating, stealing, killing and so on... How come there are no rules about Responsibility? Where is her personal accountability in all this? Whatever happened to the Doctor who performed these procedures for all her 14 children and his responsibility, morals and ethics? Something is wrong somewhere, which allowed all these players in this sordid drama, to do what they did. This is a tragedy for everyone involved in this episode, especially her aging parents and all 14 children.

Sometimes we need to have fear without which we lose our bearings. Being fearless is good but not all the time. What is happening all around us with people losing their 401Ks and all other savings, is because of the fearless greed that engulfed us. Many people believed that the housing boom will last forever, just like in the last tech boom many thought with "irrational exuberance", that we entered ‘a new economy’.

I am not advocating being fearful irrationally, but I believe we could have avoided much of this pain, if as Individuals and as a society, we were fearful of the consequences of our actions. It is no longer a virtue to be fearless!

There is no free lunch.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt said "Buy America" Provisions in the latest Stimulus jeopardizes US Exports. I could not agree more. In the larger interests of everyone I think, any kind of protectionism is bad. When smaller, developing economies had problems earlier, they were told by us that they can not be protectionist. Then, how can we say that we need to do that, now that we are in difficulties. I believe, that this will set a chain reaction around the world, which will have disastrous consequences. This certainly is not in our interest.

But when he said, that Government should not interfere in the Business of running the businesses, I could not entirely agree. These are two different things and can not be clubbed together. What Government is trying to do, is to enforce some rules in the Business, because they themselves are not ready to do that.

Remember what Alan Greenspan said “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.” One thing which divides all the Human beings is the element of greed.

All these Madoff Ponzi schemes, Housing bubbles, would not have happened, but for this greed. Goldman Sachs CEO was drawing 100 Million in one year. This is something so ridiculous, that we cannot even dream of seeing this kind of money all our lifetime. If the Government does not impose sanctions on how to compensate their Executives, who will do that. Public is so disgusted with this, but they cannot do anything. All this Bailout money that is being pumped into the Economy belong to us. When someone in the Private enterprise invests money in the Business, they will dictate the terms for doing so. It is not as if the Government is making it mandatory for all the businesses in US to follow this diktat. What is being said, is if you need our money, then you need to cap your executive salaries at 500K. I believe that this is not telling businesses how to do business.

Mr. Immelt's premise that you can not attract the Best and the Brightest when you have caps in salaries is erroneous and reeks of protectionism in favor of his fellow businessmen. If the caps are enforced for Bank of America, will the CEO Ken Lewis leave because he does not get enough salary? Where will he go, if he leaves? How many Bank of America's do you have in this world, and which are not in trouble and do not need bailout money. Once these Businesses start making profits and return the Bailout money, I am sure they will go back to their old ways of paying in hundreds of millions of dollars in executive compensation.

Yes, we can screw up and admit it too!!!

How refreshing to hear these words from one of the most powerful people in the World. I believe it takes not only courage but also conviction to say that they blundered. It is such a change from the days of our former Presidents, from whom we never heard an apology for the monumental blunders that they committed. I think as Human beings we let our egos get the better of us, in admitting mistakes. Very few among us believe in the saying "To err is human".

"I’ve got to own up to my mistake. Ultimately, it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules — you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes," Obama said.

I felt good today, that Politics is, after all not the last refuge of a scoundrel ,but can be home to Gentlemen too!!!