Why I hate this time of the year

[Guest dada_rocks]

Every tom dick hary kamala vimla shimla aulia maliya jamaliya coming up with articles after articles over how the year turned out sort of summary and we are expected to read those bloody episodes which I lived through; most probably even beat them to death as and when it all happened.. Give me a break.. Rant over..

[gator]

lol DR... u seem pretty frustrated, man... this year is prolly one of the best in ur online world... Dada made a fantastic comebak... Modi won a landslide victory... CC disappeared for a looong time.... u should love reading the summary of the year ;)

[Guest dada_rocks]

India has lost the match in MCG and that kind of trumps all the Dada heroics Modi one I am still cherishing no doubt CC now this sample whether stays or leaves I cud care less.

[chunky_lafanga]

Is your wife back?

[CC1981]

I hate this time of the year too....where i live, it rains, snows & plunges below zero all through this holiday season. Everyone is sick, which by default makes ME sick. F*cking cough & cold at this time of the year is a ritual for me by now.

[Guest dada_rocks]

Is your wife back?

Not yet..

[Guest dada_rocks]

Yes I am also sick of girl's fascination for Lehenga and those designer Sari.. Bloody why any sane person would spend 20+ thousand for a sari that she is going to wear for a day or two at most.. and 50000 for lehenga.. What the hell is this new tradition of ornaments where u hang gold pendants from every part of your hair like hanging fruits.... I had seen one called tika but it seems one tika is not enough they need as many as possible hanging from everywhere.. had hoti hai sala sick ostentation ki..

[CC1981]

Dada- my father used to say EXACTLY the same thing about my mom's obsession with jewellery. But you know what ? he realized something and then TOTALLY changed his views- infact, he used to (and still does) buy her jewellery on his own, without her wanting it and hoping what he'd think about the price-tag. You know what he realized ? two things : 1) If its what makes your woman happy, then it makes your woman happy. PERIOD. Nothing you can do to change that- no amount of financial planning will change that- even if Amartya Sen dropped in, he could perhaps get her to keep quiet/tone down on the jewellery -but she will NEVER accept it completely. Sort of like a chain-smoker setting '10 cigs a day' limit and sticking by it..he/she may do it but will not really LIKE it. Its not about gender- its about what attracts people to what kinda stuff. If your wife is into expensive clothing & ornaments, thats no different than so many dudes who are obsessed with cars. Better to get the stuff that makes them happy than not and having them being perpetually a lil grumpy about that stuff. 2. If its ornaments and jewellery, TRUST me, it can be VERY good. Appreciate her gold necklace & earrings etc- hell, try to get her more gold stuff than 20,000 rupees saris. Why ? simply coz buying Gold-in any form- ingots, coins or jewellery- is an asset investment. And it is the asset investment of the STRONGEST kind. The richest people i know- who are completely unaffected by stock markets & business ventures, economies booming or cooling are the ones who buy and sell Gold. Because nomatter what you do or try, the value of Gold ALWAYS goes up on a long enough timescale (yes some years may be bad, some months may be bad, but take ANY two 5 yr period and compare- the value of Gold is ALWAYS an upward curve)and it will keep going up. And if your country/place you live's economy starts to collapse, thats when holding gold means FAR MORE than holding property, assets or cash. You may be a millionaire and have a million in the bank and a multi-million dollar house+ land- but if the dollar just dies, all that means very little in terms of value and LIQUID asset. If you own gold, you are now talking. And gold is gold- whether it is in a nice jewellery or an ingot- as long as you buy 22-carat (or whatever it is- i dunno much about gold purity standards) pure/near-pure gold, it is a financial investment.

[chunky_lafanga]

I will have to force my simple wife to wear gold jewellery then :hysterical: Luckily she is not into all the bling bling. Long live hippie girls.

[Guest dada_rocks]

My wife is not into Jewellery I am commenting on what i see on the basis of jewellery shopping for my sister inlaw's wedding.. Yes she still is into those desginer sari/lehenga etc ..I guess some work is needed there to wean her off this fascination..:D See jewellery may be an investment but when I see the number 80% gold consumption of the world happening in India it pains me to no end. We have 50% population managing to make their ends meet somehow.. btw even this poor population will buy whatever gold jewellery they cud afford..... it's some kind of disease....

[CC1981]

See jewellery may be an investment but when I see the number 80% gold consumption of the world happening in India it pains me to no end. We have 50% population managing to make their ends meet somehow.. btw even this poor population will buy whatever gold jewellery they cud afford..... it's some kind of disease....

Yaar, it is not a disease- i highly doubt stopping this fascination with gold will do anything for the poverty angle you are looking at- Gold is just the 'choice' for the fascination- its place will be taken by something else. Out here, its obsession with gyzmos- people need a tv upgrade every 4-5 yrs or so ( do you really need a 50-inch plasmatron, given how most stuff on tv is pretty crappy anyways?!?). My take is, every culture/society has its levels of materialist obsessions unless you are literally talking of 'bamboo-hut tribes in Papua new guinea) and gold obsession is not bad in the larger scheme of things- i'd rather have a gold obsessed culture than electronic gyzmo or car-obsessed culture- gold counts for a lot more when times go nuts. And if anything, your comment (which i agree with in the content btw) is implicit proof of the value of gold. Don't you see how tumultous and utterly insane Indian history has been over the last 1400 years or so ? People like to blame the Islamic invasions (no doubt they were the biggest single contributing factor) but the fall of Indian stability essentially came with the Guptas annihilated by the Huna/Hepthalites. Given how tumultous our history is, you never know when a pretty stable place can just 'explode' in a matter of months over a whole host of religious/political nonsense. That is when Gold comes in handy- its value is THE most stable (gold is more stable than ANY paper currency in this world!) and its a relatively liquid asset- you can use it practically anywhere(moneylenders will take gold, pawnshops will take gold-its value in quantity being far more stable and appreciating over time than what a 50 dollar bill can really buy for you over the long term) and it is fairly transportable ( you can carry a few MILLION in gold - current price is 830 roughly per OUNCE- do the math for how much that money is for 25-30 Kilos of gold which is what your average suitcase can carry in terms of weight). So its no surprise that Indians have a huge fascination with gold- its stability has been very suspect historically for a very long time. Sh!t can hit the fan bigtime in many ways in matter of months back there. Btw, this is pretty much a gold/platinum/silver only phenomenon ( with varying stability, prices and market value for these precious metals) and precious stones count for little. Yes, when times are bad, your big emerald will not count for much- it will be how much gold your ring has ( don't ask why- i don't know why, its just an observation that i have found to be universally true). So if you are going to go the 'jewellery for missus' route for hoarding gold, i suggest you get items heavy on gold/siliver/platinum and light on the 'diamond studded/emerald studded' part. Those are where people blow their money stupidly- they count for squat when everything falls apart but are high-demand when times are stable.

[sandtest]

So if you are going to go the 'jewellery for missus' route for hoarding gold, i suggest you get items heavy on gold/siliver/platinum

man, the rate at which gold prices have jumped up, I am sure Gold is a good investment. Last time I purchsed just 4 buscuits of gold (24K) from Gulf, acting on the advise of Pitaaji, and today the Gold price is almost near 1000 Rs. per gram, so that is almost 10K profit within months. No interest rate can match this.....but fear remain, if prices depreciates.:D

[sandtest]

one bad thing while Purchasing Gold jewellery is the manipulation of rate in the name of "Making Charges" by Jewellers. I fail to understand, why jewellers can't standardize the making charge BS...Making charge differs from shop to shop and type of Jewellery...and people even bargain like vegetable market :D. So one always remains confused if he got a good rate or bad rate due to this.

[CC1981]

.but fear remain, if prices depreciates

Not much of a fear man. Well,nothing is foolproof- but for Gold to be worth little/not much at all, practically the whole world has to turn into a battleground pretty much simultaneously- like you really need a WWII-like front in Asia,Europe, Africa, North America & South America for gold prices to totally crash. Seriously,that is as 'doomsday' as it gets and yeah, if the whole world falls apart all at once, you better have a gun, an axe and make your way to the wilderness. Yes, there will be mini peaks that won't be seen for many years ( that is the contribution of supply/demand and gold-politics to the whole curve) but overall, on a long enough timescale (think of it as long term saving/retirement saving etc) gold prices will always go up. Sure, something little crazy might happen in the market and prices might spike relatively high ( say a short term 30% rise in value)- but the natural upward curve means the 'normal' rate for gold will get there 15-20 years from now anyways. A simple policy with Gold for me is, to hoarde it and only trade a little of it : say atmost 50% of the gold you buy is open to trade- the rest you just collect as sort of 'retirement/my-part-of-world-going-to-the-sh!tter budget'. People like to save in terms of cash or investments or property values- just treat gold itself that way. Sure, it gets a bit pricey- you might end up paying 3000-4000 dollars per year to protect your gold in some secured location- but by then your total gold value is in 100s of thousands of dollars anyways due to continuous price appreciation effect on the long term and then it is a worthwhile expenditure ( where you are spending 1-2% of what you are protecting in protection costs such as secured location,vaults,etc). The serious perk of Gold is, it gives you ultimate liquid-asset bonus. Say for eg, if the US economy collapses due to some special event- then the dollar means little and most world economies get f*cked to high heavens due to the dollar running the show. All this investment/stockmarket boom etc. will count for diddly squat- everyone will take a big hit. Now say you own gold and conditions in the US gets totally dire in terms of violence- you wanna leave- its pretty easy. You basically just pick up your gold, distribute it within 4-5 luggage items and take the next flight outta town. Yes, you run the risk of your luggage getting lost or whatever-but my extensive experience with international air travel has shown the risks to be minimal in this regard. And just that simply, you left the country/city/province/state/continent for somewhere nicer/quieter and you arrive as a near-millionaire. Keep in mind, prices of gold more or less shows inverse relation to the currency- in the great depression for example, where paper money meant NOTHING (people were burning paper money instead of wood coz it was cheaper!) gold prices just shot through the roof- to levels it wasn't seen till the 1970s. So now not only do you have a highly liquid and pricey asset, your asset usually appreciates in times of crisis. I say screw investing in a house/stock markets/whatever- just buy gold. Yes, if you wanna trade around some of the gold to cash in on the short-term boom effects, go for it- but then you are succeptable to short-term busts as well. Just as a crisis can increase your gold value by 30-40% in the short term, another crisis can reduce it by 20-25% in the short term too. Its just safer IMO to see gold as 'this is my retirement money- i will sell this in 40 years from now and i will have atleast 200-300% profit in the worst case scenario' ticket.

[fineleg]

Yes I am also sick of girl's fascination for Lehenga and those designer Sari.. Bloody why any sane person would spend 20+ thousand for a sari that she is going to wear for a day or two at most.. and 50000 for lehenga.. .

Lehengas are beautiful :thumbs_up: Not saying u shud spend a fortune, but certainly a good one is worth something.

[fineleg]

1) If its what makes your woman happy, then it makes your woman happy. PERIOD. Nothing you can do to change that- no amount of financial planning will change that- even if Amartya Sen dropped in, he could perhaps get her to keep quiet/tone down on the jewellery -but she will NEVER accept it completely. 2. If its ornaments and jewellery, TRUST me, it can be VERY good. Appreciate her gold necklace & earrings etc- hell, try to get her more gold stuff than 20,000 rupees saris. Why ? simply coz buying Gold-in any form- ingots, coins or jewellery- is an asset investment. .

Both 1 and 2 are true. Its a far better investment than buying shiny new expensive cars which will depreciate quickly.

[varun]

Moving to "Chit Chat"

[theguyinallblue]

Lehengas are beautiful :thumbs_up: Not saying u shud spend a fortune, but certainly a good one is worth something.

Yess...Lehengas are good...at least ladkiyo ki thodi si kamar dikhti hai...:D.. at time of the year when everyone tries to cover every inch of body because of near zero temperature of Delhi...but go to any marriage ceremony in December or Jan.. you will find girls only in Lehangas with probably shawl... but perfectly bleached and waxed shoulder...back.. and ..waist are always on the show...:cantstop:..

[Guest dada_rocks]

I will have to save my wife from prying eyes of these teen-agers..:haha: One more reason not to wear lehenga ladies or may be one more reason to wear one :giggle: I say wear lehenga for God's sake ladies u got one at the time of marriage wear that one is it necessary to buy one every time some marriage happens in the family.. Sala Bihar ki shaadi ak din mein hoti bhi nahin hai, ab designer sari next din ke liye again I queried so u got at least 50 odd this or that silk saris why can't u wear one of those.. The reply I got was well I have worn them all at least once and people have seen it all can't wear that again.. apparently bloody women folks have 1000 GB memory when it comes to who wore what on which occassion..:haha:.. Now I will have to make some excuses and not attend my sister in law's marriage to cover these costs:giggle:.. Tight schedule at work is the ready-made excuse:D PS: GIB how do u know those exposed part's are well waxed unless u get little too close it's hard to tell.:D PPS: Sandeep buy from khanna jewellers in Delhi u will find consistency in their making charge and they will take it all back whenver u want at exactly the weight they sold it to you..

[theguyinallblue]

DR...waxed skin glows...and it appears extra smooth to the eyes...thoda experience ho gaya hai..:cantstop: it really bewilders me that..just to grab few eye balls and some extra attention..girls fight the bitting cold with just a piece of cloth.... there were days when i had to wear thermals under my school uniform when i used to go to school at 7 AM...but girls would just come in knee length skirt without even stockings... "what women want"....:nervous: