Sunday, February 26, 2012

The Dot Com Bubble Burst


I doubt if there are too many people out there who doesn’t already know quite a bit about the Occupy Wall Street movement that took place around the end of last year. It was labeled as America’s own movement compared to that of Tahirir square in Egypt that saw the end of Hosni Mubarak’s long hold, for good or for bad that’s yet to be determined.  The question is – why? What might have caused this sudden change of events in the great land of opportunity – the sole superpower?  The answer to this question is not a simple one. Whether an individual decided to participate in the Occupy movement or not, there’s little doubt that there is a general concession among ordinary people that the disparity among classes – primarily focusing on wealth – is getting bigger and bigger, with rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. 

The answer to that question is neither simple nor straight forward. However, it is not difficult to figure out that in the corporate world a relatively small group of people controls majority of the cash flow and manages most of the tangible wealth while the rest have little choice but to become the cards of their hands – being played as they wish.  When things look good they take credit for the success and are rewarded with hefty bonuses, when things look bad they get to truncate workforce in their quest to make things look profitable to the investors and again receive hefty bonuses for making it look good. Talk about a fair deal!

Anyway, before discussing the occupy wall street it is important to look a little back to cover two major events in the recent history in the economy of America.  In this article I’ll briefly visit the circumstances of the two market falls – the dot com burst starting around 1998 and the real state bubble burst starting around 2007.
In the year 2000 when dot com bubble burst was going on in full swing I was right in the middle of it all, scared, affected, driven, suffered and finally jabbed right into the face, eventually made my way out of the burst into my new country Canada. At that time I wasn’t fully sure what had hit us but later as things settled down and everybody had time to think the truth started to become very apparent. Too many companies had mushroomed with similar ideas and started their journey with the money borrowed from venture capitalists and failed to bring any reasonably good product in the market before the funding wasted away.  Even the ones that did release some working products they faced stiff competition with other similar products. In such a situation only the best survives and most others perish, with all its ship load of contributors, investors and workers. With that coupled with high compensation for the high ups, offering public shares even before any tangible product was created, and irrational expectation of earnings – everything chipped into the downfall. At the end thousands were out of work, many companies closed.

At this point I must elaborate on the two occasions where I had lost my jobs. The first company was working on to create a new kind of search engine, the novelty of which I was unable to figure out even after working for six months. Everything looked about the same as other ones already in the market with majority quickly disappearing in the oblivion.  I wondered if an insignificant IT professional like me could see it then why couldn’t all the talented venture capitalists.  I guessed they had taken a chance, just in case some miracle had happened.  None did. Eventually the investors figured out they weren’t about to experience any miracle and quickly backed off and I was out looking for work – along with everybody else, must have been a few hundred. That made it even difficult, because too many people were looking for work in an already terrified market.

I ended up getting another position with yet another dot com running with venture capitalist money. This one looked more prospective.  I even heard they were about to get a buyer – a really good thing, sure sign of success. Not sure how things would have gone if not for the terrorist’s attack on the world trade center on September 11 2001 but after that already shaky market turned shakier and worst of all, our potential buyer backed off. So much for success! The company went belly up as they could not find anybody else to finance. The good – I bought a laptop for fraction of the price it was selling in the market from the now defunct company.  The bad – I was out looking for a job again and so were hundreds of others from my previous company. This time things became really personal. Anyway, had I not been working as a foreign worker and getting squeezed by the parent company that sponsored me and only provide a mere percent of the gain for my services I probably wouldn’t be too sour. The loot was all gone and I got barely any share of that. Some did get rich, bilking the cash cows to the max.

 Me and my misfortune!

I’ll continue this article to talk about the real state bubble.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Journey to the Kingdom of Florida (Final part)

We stayed in another Holiday Inn in Miami. 


This hotel was not as good as the Orlando one but it was descent for the price that we paid. The Miami that I had imagined from watching all the Miami vices(TV series) was nothing like that. It actually looked quite nice, green with all kind of tropical trees including large mango trees, something that I saw first time since entering Florida. This gave me immense joy as I have very fond memories of my grandparents mango garden from my childhood years.


We went to visit Marco island next day. This was sort of off the way but considering the day was in
the colder side there wasn't much we could do in Miami. It wouldn’t be a great day to be outdoor.
However, in Marco Island, an island city about 200 miles away from Miami was slightly warmer. It had
one of the finest beaches in Florida famous for its shells. My kids had always wanted to collect
shells from a sea beach. This was their opportunity to do so. Even though it was sort of windy and
perhaps a little uncomfortable temperature wise we still spent hours collecting all kind of shells.
It was a gorgeous day with sun shining over our head. We wished the wind was weaker, so that it
wouldn't feel so cold.

 


 The one reason why trip to Marco Island was so memorable is that we happened
to see real and live alligators lying down by the canals that went along the road in some areas.
There were wooden barriers in some parts of the road and many warning signs to warn the visitors not
to go too close. There were several occasion when many visitors had stopped by the road and
photographed those amazingly peaceful looking animals. Honestly, as far as I am concerned, that was
the high point of my Florida trip. 





 
Next day we went to see the coral reef close to the Keys. This is the only continuous coral reef in
the continental USA that is located so close to the main land. We went to Key Largo to take a glass
bottom boat. I had called them up from Canada and reserved our places. Weather is always a concern
for these type of trips. During bad weather the boat authority usually have to cancel such trips.
Fortunately, the weather was great on this day and we were quite eagerly looking forward to this
trip. The boat filled out rather quickly with mostly families with kids. The center of the bottom of
the medium sized boat was built of thick clear glass allowing onlookers a relatively good glimpse at
the bottom below.





It took us about 40 minutes to reach the shallow points where the coral reef ws
located. Even though the wind was slightly stronger than we expected making the water relatively
murky we still had a reasonable view of the reef. In summer people come here for snorkeling (scuba
diving). Whatever we were getting in December was more than one could expect. The best part was the
kids really enjoyed it. They actually took sincere effort to see the corals and the fishes that hung
out there. 







On our way back from there I thought of driving all the way to Key West- the southernmost point of
Florida Key where the famous writer Ernest Hemingway had lived several years. However, the traffic
was horrible and I turned around going only few kilometers. I did not want to waste several hours on
the road, not when the kids were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel.


                                                          Hemingway's House in Key West


On our way back to the hotel we stopped at Crandon beach. This was a wonderful beach with white sand
and coconut trees. There weren’t a whole lot of people but the view was absolutely beautiful. The day
was quite warm and the kids played with the sand for a little while. Mili was feeling a little cold
and stayed mostly in the car while I and the kids spent considerable amount of time playing on the
beach and collecting fallen immature coconuts.






We returned to our hotel in the late afternoon. Washed up and had dinner in the near by Cuban
restaurant. Miami is the home of many Cubans and it seemed like the right thing to do. The dinner was
very good. With it our Florida trip concluded.

Next morning we checked out and started back. We had a long way to go. We stayed overnight in two places including Washington DC before reaching New Haven, Connecticut to see my parents and sister's family.

Overall a great trip! I wanted to do this for a while and it was every bit of what I hoped it would
be.
Next? - Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Francisco. When? No clue. Whenever it is I'll keep my readers
posted.


[Read the author's current book - Kicking in Toronto. Get it from Amazon.com