The word banking comes from two sanskrit words byaya or expense and onka meaning calculation.
The sindhi word byaj or interest is also similar to the original sanskrit word expense.
The Jews who are considered as bankers to the world have a history that can be traced to pre-christ times when they used to carry out the trade of money-lending at the temple of Solomon, built 1005 years before christ.
The jews and sindhis (a community engaged in money lending, since centuries) share many common characteristics the two major being trading and diaspora.
Some years back a professor in Allahabad University had even found that Sindhis and Jews share a very common gene pool too.
In India, private money lending has suffered since the past 12 or odd years, because of easy loans from banks and the inability of the sindhi moneylenders to recover their dues and principle amounts back.
But this community has learnt over hundreds of years, that there is no other business that can generate returns like banking.
The banking industry thrives because money is the chief ingredient with effort in creating wealth.
The indian stock markets provides an opportunity to the yearning sindhi community.
In this note I shall take some tips from an article which appeared in DNA on 20th October under the title " The agenda behind the anti-corruption agenda" written by G.
Sampath a writer whose ideas fall very close to my thoughts.
The article quotes eminent economist Prabhat Patnaiks theory that " by repeatedly associating state initiatives and programmes with corruption, you make a strong case for the handing over of public assets held in trust by the state ( such as PSU's) in to private hands.
" The average person is now burdened monetarily by paying much more for the services which were first rendered by the state at a nominal cost.
By corrupting our minds and making the difference between necessities and luxuries thin through the use of advertising corporations and industry are playing both sides of the game where the looser is the average person.
On one hand they try to make everything costlier and they also create an impression that it is necessary In such a situation people and families spend their money before earning it.
By taking loans and not spending it on making assets people fall in to the debt trap which sucks out the life of any family.
In fact the German word for debt is schuld means debt and guilt.
Everything that happens to us or is likely to happen should be taken in the correct spirit and just as as the captain of the boat never blames the storm but takes corrective and antidotal steps to counteract the storm so should we as captains of our family who are dependent on us for their existence and expense.
Looking at the whole picture with an intuitive eye and observing the trends carefully is it not a good time to invest in shares of PSU banks? Not only are they available at below market rates and pay yearly dividend but they may be the first businesses that herald the age of compulsive spending where private moneylenders give you money to purchase the goods manufactured by themselves at a price where paying for the interest is possible only by taking more loans.
Public Utilities and Public Sector Undertakings will be a thing of the past.
We are observing that cheap goods and cheap products and services are no longer available.
Future will be still hard and we may need some help or financing to carry on living a decent lifestyle.
By taking co-ownership in banks and becoming the shareholders, we may be able to endure the blow which is aimed directly on our children.