First week of work. End of days for Lehman.
it’s the end of days for lehman brothers. obviously, the smartest financial minds decided that helping aig, freddie and fannie was more critical to the financial system than helping lehman, but what I can’t get over is the amount of people who went into 745 7th ave on sunday to clean out their desks. 3 years ago, that would have been me. 4 years ago, i would have had a 1 year lease in nyc with no income to pay for it. 5 years ago, many of my good friends from georgetown and michigan and i would have been scrambling for jobs as the campus recruiting center would likely have been a ghost town.
last june , when the sub-prime crisis became public and the credit crunch started, the attitude on the street was that the market would rebound in early 2008. at work, people were less optimistic and my friend, kal, kept warning me that the financial system was broken. in my previous two jobs, i worked closely with the debt markets and looking back, it was incredible to see how everyone’s risk appetite kept increasing (including me, i was bullish about most deals). i can now see how we got ourselves into this mess, but during orientation, a few of the fellows asked for a simplified explanation. click on the picture below for a humorous and simple explanation of the sub-prime mess:
i’ve completed my first week of work. rajendra joshi (raju bhai), my mentor and founder of saath, set up a one week orientation for natassia and me. we’ve been visiting with the saath’s different slum development projects (microfinance, vocational services, resources centers, health awareness, artisan organization, etc.). we sit down with raju bhai on tuesday to determine our projects for the next 9 months. from what i’ve seen, the projects fit saath’s mission to provide an “integrated approach to slum development”. they help secure basic essentials (water, electricity, housing) for slum dwellers through ownership (not charity) strategies. they help educate, empower and train people to allow them to secure jobs in proper ahmedabad. the services are mostly fee-based services so the recipient has a stake and a say in the quality and a sense of ownership. i will write more on each of saath’s projects once i learn more and will post what my specific project will be next week.
wishing everyone at lehman the best of luck.
finding rickshaw. 
not sure if you read rodrik’s blog… http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2008/09/where-did-we-go-wrong.html