Recent losses incurred by JP Morgan , supposedly due to lax risk management ,has again raised the controversy about bankers.Almost all articles mentioned that the Head of the Department was paid fourteen million dollars as compensation last year. This has once more raised the noise pitch of the media and the social chatter about these wicked greedy bankers.But are bankers any different than most other professionals or business men ? Lets look at the different strata of society and he who is without sin can cast the first stone.
The Indian Medical Infrastructure has been coming apart at the seams. When we were growing up, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences was recognized and still is probably the best post graduate institute for medicine with a attached hospital. They have among the best doctors in the country. Unfortunately like everything else in India , the government has not invested in replicating this center of excellence across the country ( except in a few limited locations), as they are doing for the Indian Institute of Technology.
With the growing population and the increase in income level, this has left a void and private institutions have rightly jumped in .They have built five star facilities with the state of the art medical devices. India does not produce as many doctors as required. We have among the lowest doctor per population ratio in the world.
The owners and administrators of these hospitals have been head hunting the best doctors from the government and armed forces hospitals and offering salaries on par with bankers. However the catch is, like bankers they have to bring in the revenue to be able to make the big bucks. Thus when you go there you will be required to go through a battery of tests ( some of which might be of marginal use and of which I am led to believe that they get a percentage of the fee charges - reminds you of these evil bankers ?) and often be told that you require surgery which might not be necessary. I have been at the receiving end of one of these.
Having said that you do occasionally come across doctors who stick to their Hippocratic oath as I had the experience recently. I had gone to a private hospital fully expecting to have to go in for a minor but important surgery, but the doctor was extremely firm and insistent that it was not necessary and stuck to his guns. This was confirmed by a second opinion I got from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Regretfully these are few and far between. This gets worse for the low income workers, the working classes and in the rural ares, who regularly get gypped by the doctors to take unnecessary tests. In the villages, they seem to think the panacea for all illness is either getting an injection or being put on a inter venous drip, with the latest being asked to go for a scan.These are the people you rely for your well being and in some of these cases, could be a matter of life or death.
Lets now switch to sports.Cricketers in India are adulated by the masses and the media. The stars are rewarded handsomely when they perform well . The God of Indian cricket has recently been nominated to the Upper House of the Parliament. But are they all clean? Ever so often there are stories in the media about matches being fixed. Recently one of the television channels conducted a sting on some of the Indian Professional League players where they were filmed talking about how some of the matches were fixed. I do not know whether that is true, but viewing some of the matches of late, I have always had my doubts, when a bowler who does brilliantly in the first three overs suddenly performs miserably in the second or last over which makes them loose a match. There have been too many of them of late.Perhaps this is just a coincidence and the bowler is tired towards the end. Also there have been allegations of match fixing in other sports as well and what about athletes taking drugs to enhance their performance The cricket sting accusations also allege that the owners who are among the top business houses in India are aware of the match fixing
Some of the top business houses are also linked with the numerous scams which involve paying off politicians whether is it for band width or access to iron ore or to coal mines or defence contracts. Allegations have been made also against the multinational drug companies for not conducting the appropriate drug trials before marketing. On a smaller scale, staff of multinationals find ways to skim on premises for staff or supplies.You hear stories of buyers for stores or retail outlets from the developed world demanding either entertainment or other means of pay offs. Suppliers whether they are garment exporters or other goods suppliers have to do so if they want to get the large volume orders to which these buyers hold the key.
Tomes could be written about bureaucrats and politicians.Daily there are news stories about these two being involved in some scam or scandal. From the most junior to the most senior persons in both the category. When you talk to real estate brokers in Delhi or Gurgaon as to why the market has not adjusted, considering the state of the economy and the high interest rates, the answer promptly is " money from the Commonwealth Games and other scams is being recycled". Believe it if you want, but I am sure there is some element of truth in it.The politicians and bureaucrats are regularly accused of siphoning off the equivalent of hundreds of millions from programmes meant for the poor and needy as a result of which they starve and in some cases commit suicide.
I could continue ad infinitum about movie stars, management consultants, lawyers, policemen, the armed forces, the media and others.You could sift through all layers of society and professions and you will find that each of them have their shares of bad apples. Bankers are no better or worse.
