Mutual Fund Performance based Asset Management Fees and Compensation Policy

Most of the Mutual Funds in the Industry have flat Asset Management fees and Asset Manager Compensation Policy. This needs to be changed. Previously I had suggested a compensation policy in line with Hedge Fund. It should have a low flat fee and Percentage of Profit sharing above the High water Level level(meaning the Profit sharing starts only after a Benchmark return is achieved). I can think of another improvement over this plan. We can have an Industry standard set for all Mutual Funds for following this policy. Let me provide the outline of this policy. We should have a Benchmark set for each MF. Also we should have a Record Date for Uniformity in Performance Measurement(many MFs show their best return period in their advertisement which does not truly protrait their performance). For example for a Diversified Equity Fund the Benchmarking Index can be Nifty. The record date can be January 1 of each year. The Asset Management Fee structure will be as follows:
Return Below Benchmark return(Does not matter if the return is Positive or Negative, in a bear market less negative means good performance)- A small Fixed Asset Management Fee. Say .25% of the Asset under Management(AUM)
Return matching Benchmark return .5% AUM
Return more than Bechmark return not exceeding 10% - Asset Management Fee should be 1% AUM
Return more than Benchmark return exceeding 10% - Asset Management Fee should be 2% AUM
Out of this 50% of the compensation should be in cash and 50% of the compensation should be in managed fund's unit having a lock in period of at least 3 years.
These numbers can be changed but this should be the compensation philosophy.

Creative destruction:We don't need GM, we need kiva!

American Car industry is an inefficient, old, dying industry. It has huge operational and overhead costs. American cars are not technologically competitive with Japanese or German cars. I can see that we can not save them in the long run(at least in their present form) even if they make Electric cars or Fuel-efficient cars(as advised by Barack Obama) because of the fact that they are fundamentally inefficient. Still we are bailing out huge amount of money(although people don't think Billion is a large unit nowadays after we started this Bailout concept). Even the lawmakers and the company executives are pretty much sure that they can not survive in the long term. But just to save some jobs(which can not be saved in the long run) we are trying to infuse oxygen to a dying patient. This is a very wasteful use of resources.

Steve Jobs called death the "single best invention of life". We need to get out of old dying industries to create the new ones, which are efficient, meaningful and promising. Rather than prolonging the life of a dying patient we need to give birth and provide education to the new generation. That is the idea of creative destruction. We need more kiva and less GM. Let the GM Fail and let these people get resources from kiva(Goverment may bailout kiva for that matter) to start their own small companies. We need new Technology inventions, new process innovations and new entrepreneul sprits to get out of this recession. It's a tough and painful process in the short term but that is the best way the world can see a new sustainable prosperity. To quote Tom Peters, "Fail fast, succeed sooner."

We need Futurists and not Analysts

Let me define these two terms in my own way. Analysts are those people who collect historical numbers(company quarterly performances etc.) and analyze them to suggest right decisions. Futurists are those people who analyzes future trends and try to suggest better options(which include new thinking, disruptive change ideas). At a high level both analyze the present situation and information available. But there is a small difference. Analysts think in the domain of existing human knowledge but futurists think beyond the obvious. To give an example an analyst will try to explain the Economic crisis in historical terms(like how we managed to rescue from the great depression, how the future stock price should behave based on Technical Analysis etc.). But there is a high probability that this crisis is something completely new and may not be described by any of the past trends. To face this crisis we need new ideas and new solutions. Futurists are the people who will suggest these ideas. Futurists will offer out of the box ideas to fix this great crisis.



Let me tell you why I am frustrated with the analysts. We waste a whole lot of time for analysts. Every quarter we need to show results to these analysts. Many intelligent people need to spend whole lot of time in these crappy number collection, report preparation etc. In one word these are boring stuff to do and does not add any value to the business. What is more dangerous is the short term planning needed for fairing every quarter. Many of the times executives manipulate numbers just to look good. In a complete business cycle you can not be good in every quarter. But the analysts demand that just to keep your stock value afloat. I feel for best results we need long term planning and execution. We need more prudent risk taking attitude and think beyond quaterly results. Many of our excutives waste a lot of time in planning the statement for media and analysts. They can better use this time in research and innovation.

Proper and timely information is needed for efficient price discovery by the market. This helps to reduce account manipulation to some extent. So we can not and should not stop the market reporting process completely. What I am proposing is to try something new. Let's start reporting Half-yearly results instead of Quaterly results. In this way we will keep the best of the both world. Executives will be able to concentrate on long term company performances. At the same time analysts will also allow the capital market to function properly.

Recession effect:Increase in crime rate

The USA can see huge increase in crime rate and deterioration of public safety system in near term. People are loosing jobs at aceelerated rate, media is creating a panicky and hopeless picture of the economy and investors loosing their wealth through decreasing home and equity prices:all of these creating an enormous amount of frustration. People are angry and frustrated and this frustration can turn into violence and mass disobediyence of law and order.

At the same time budget cuts have forced the Federal and state goverments to reduce security measures including number of police per capita. This creates another threat to the overall security.

The USA has another problem for people safety. People here can legally keep guns and I believe this creates another vulnarability for the angry and frustrated society.

Tough Problems need tough solutions:

I propose few solutions which may not be acceptable to typical US culture but can help to solve these problems:

1. Ban the personal use of guns.
2. Use food for work program to increase the number of police and security officers per capita. This way you can reduce the frstration of a few unemployed people and at the same time increase homeland security.

Americanized world need a culture shift

As they say:The world is not being globalized, it is becoming Americanized. The USA has tremendous influence on the world. Most of the new ideas come from US and the rest of world blindly accepts it without any second thoughts. Such is the power of America. Fortunately, most of these are wonderful ideas and the world has benefited by pursuing these. There are plenty of such examples: from Freedom of expression to Internet, and from Free Market Economics to Conveyor belt Batch process. Largely american ideas have shaped the world for a better place to live in.

But today I want to discuss few 'American' ideas which went terribly wrong. The US as well as the 'Americanized' world need to take immediate steps to correct them to see a better tomorrow. And unfortunately we have not seen any radical action or paradigm shift in the mindset of the americanized world to correct those mistakes.

Let me start with the great American Greed. Some say that greed is good and for progress we need greedy people. Greed motivate people to start new things, take risks and make large breakthroughs. But I feel there is a very fine line between ambition and greed. Ambition is working hard and trying new things for a better future. But greed is a mindset to make fast and easy money without much hardwork. In most of the times greed is associated with dishonesty and fraud which harms majority of the stakeholders. Social cost of greed is huge and today's subprime and credit crisis are example of that. The americanized world need to change its mindset. From peer pressure, rat race and greed to have enormous wealth we need to focus on more phylosophical themes of life like: Peace, Honesty, Satisfaction, Living in Present, enjoying small beauties of life, harmony with people and nature etc. 'There is enough for every man's need but not greed.' Once people can differentiate the need from the greed we can have a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

The second is the culture of wasting resources and living in excesses. Byproduct of greed, american lifestyle is an example of living beyond the means. Here are some statistics:In the US alone $48 Billion worth of food is wasted anually, American Credit Card Debt is valued at $950 billion, as per the 2003 data 291 million americans(out of which only 196 million are drivers) drive 231 million cars(more car per driver), In the US alone the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 44% of junk mail is discarded without being opened or read, equaling four million tons of waste. This Economic downturn may proove to be a boom in disguise if this can change the wasteful spending oriented mindset of americans and create a culture of living within the means. If the Obama government takes the energy issue seriously we can see more Green energy sources. At the same time we need to create a culture of public transportation and car pooling simply because those are much efficient systems from energy use perspective and having less environmental impact.

Third culture which needs dramatic change is lack of effective oversight and stopping lobby powers to misuse the laws. Instead of one of the best tracking and policing system in the world we have seen many big oversight failures in the US: Financial Frauds from Bernie Madoff, irresponsible mortgage lending and derivative trading by Wall street. Also in everyday life we see so many crimes starting from prostitution to drugs and Internet crimes to detainee abuse. Narrow mindset of different lobby powers affect the proper growth of the society. We waste huge amount of money in agriculture subsidy; car lobbyists have stopped the growth of public railways and transport system; we have a nexus of insurance companies and medical practitioners creating a inflated healthcare cost; our budget is grossly misused in ineffective programs etc.

Let's think about the solution. Let's accept that we don't have any easy solutions and we can't fix all these in one day or one month. But we need to have a vision and the top leadership need to honestly pursue these dreams. We need to change acts and laws and plan big for future. We need constant communication to the people for chaging their mindset(BTW Obama did a good job in last presidential address). We need to think beyond short term political popularity and take hard decisions. From theoritical perspective these issues look simple because we know the solutions. But in practice actionizing the solutions are challenging because these involve people and changing people's mindset is a tough job. Unfortunately we don't have a plan B.

Slumdog Millionaire and other issues

Tonight is Oscar night and most of the Indians wish to see Slumdog Millionaire(SM) winning Oscar in all ten categories. I see great excitement over this film and several true SM stories in Internet.

Frankly speaking, I think the film is not extraordinary. The storytelling is good but the film looks unreal because of its use of English and Hindi. In India English is a foreign language and a slum dweller is not supposed to speak in English. I think the director could have justified more to the reality if he tried to make the film in Hindi with English subtitles. The music is just OK considering the genious and potential of A R Rahman(although I wish he wins the Oscar; it would be like Einstein getting Nobel prize not for General Theory of Relativity but for Photovoltic Effect equation). I think one of the reason the film has received so much attention in western press is because of its link to famous production house and director. India has made many great films such as Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par which could not make to the Oscar. I think the reason is that these films were more Indian in form and type with lot of music and dance, which was not acceptable to western critics.

The reason I wanted to discuss this film is something different. We have seen a lot of protests against this film. See the details from wikipedia.

"Following its release in India, the film faced criticism from various members of the public alleging that the film fuels western stereotypes about poverty in India and that it peddles "poverty porn" and "slum voyeurism".[47] Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, a representative of a slum-dwellers' welfare group, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the film's music composer A.R. Rahman and actor Anil Kapoor, alleging that slum-dwellers were depicted in a bad light which would be a violation of their human rights.[101][102] Vishwakarma's lawsuit alleged that the name of the movie is derogatory and he was particularly displeased that Indians associated with the film did not object to the use of word "slumdog."[101] Nicholas Almeida, a social activist working in Mumbai, organized a protest against the film on the grounds that it intentionally exploited the poor for the purposes of profit, and that the title 'Slumdog millionaire" was offensive, demeaning and insulted their dignity. The protesters were slum dwellers in Mumbai, holding posters like "I am not a dog"[103] who objected to being dehumanized as "dogs" in the film title.[104]
Protests against Slumdog Millionaire have extended beyond Mumbai to other parts of the country. Slum dwellers in Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar, have intensified protests against the movie. Activists have reported that slum dwellers will continue to protest till the film's director deletes the word 'dog' from the title.[105] Protests in Patna intensified on 26 January 2009, when "protesters tore down posters and ransacked a movie theatre" screening the film. The following day, the police in Bihar tightened security "outside theatres in the state to thwart any further attacks."[106]
Hindu Janjagruti Samiti has protested against the film for its allegedly inappropriate portrayal of the Hindu God Rama.[107][108] The activist group believes that the portrayal of Rama is derogatory and "hurts the sentiments of Hindus". Writing for the conservative Daily Pioneer, Kanchan Gupta reiterated the objections of the activist group that the film provides a one-sided portrayal of the complexities of religious conflict in India, and that the film depicts Hindus as "rapacious monsters".[109]"

All these criticisms may be true from their own perspectives. But I see some missing points in all these criticisms. The truth is that most of the Indians are still very poor. India still faces lot of socio-economic challenges like extreme poverty, human exploitation like child labour and prostitution and religious riots. As the truth seekers press and the movie-makers have all the rights to make stories on these themes. And I think Freedom of opinion actually helps to improve the existing system in a free pluralistic modern society. Our(most of the Indians) problem is that we are not open to critism. We don't prefer to accept the critism and improve on that and rather try to attack the critic evenif we know that the fact is true. We know we live like dogs(in all possible inhuman conditions) but we get upset if someone says that. We are much more discussion oriented and much less action oriented.

We get excited about our glorious past and that is good. India is one of the most fascinating country in the world having rich culture and traditions of music, food, science and phylosophy. We should be proud of this tradition and do our best to promote this to the world. At the same time we should be open to other cultures and learn from their experiments with truth. As a nation we should become more confident in accepting the fact that we are not perfect. We have problems and we are open to learn from our own mistakes and other's experiences. We need to stop arguining whether we are 'slumdogs'. But rather we all should aspire to be 'millionaires'. We need to stop cheap day-dreaming but start dreaming big. You know that Dream is not what you see when you sleep;dream is something that doesn't make you sleep.

H1B VISA Program etal.

Senate approves 'strict' rules on hiring H-1B workers and there has been a growing controversy whether H1B VISA Program should be stopped completely or at least regulated. Let me first start with the disclaimer that I am a beneficiary of H1B VISA program and continuation of this program will be good for my career. Said that I will try to access the effects of this program on American Economy and also the World Economy in general.

H1B program was created to supplement American workforce with foreign workers having highly specialized knowledge in Business or Technology on a temporary basis. It was designed to help American business to source global talent to remain competitive. And I think this program helped US in many ways to achieve that goal. Best talents of the world are still attracted to study and then work in US making it a hub of continuous innovation. And I believe that is the most important competitive advantage US Economy enjoys over other economies.

It is true that many of the times H1B program(or for that reason any worker VISA Program like L1 etc.) has been exploited by different organizations. Companies have hired foreign workers with skills available in the US mainland. They were paid lower wages than the standard prevailing rates mentioned in the program. These temporary workers have been used as onsite coordinators to move jobs offshore. US corporations and Offshoring companies used this process to increase their profitability. Because of this Nobel laureate Economist like Milton Friedman think H1B is just another government subsidy .

Truth to be told all these are true but stopping H1B VISA program will not help US or world economy in any way. Protectionist view have never been successful in a Free-trade world where companies look for value. Let me explain why this will not work and what we can do to make things better:

1. Offshoring work to low cost countries will continue to grow even if H1B programs are stopped. The latest trend in Offshoring is not the use Onsite H1B and Offshore Contractors model. Instead US companies themselves are moving their own operations to low cost companies(For US this means american job loss and Income tax loss, in H1B model at least Income tax revenue was not lost). In this model you can have some key employees(US nationals) in US and a huge back office operations in low cost countries like India or China. That means even without H1B program american jobs(which does not need local presence) will be lost. If the US government even tries to stop offshoring completely the effect will be worse. US companies will lose their competitive advantage and Foreign companies with access to cheap labor will rule US and world economy. In that way much more US jobs will be destroyed. In a hypothetical situation if US stops Free-trade contracts with its partners it will become a country like North Korea(enough said I believe).
2. I think the only way US and the world economy can prosper is through free-trade and more wealth distribution. For decades US has been living in enormous excess. US consumers have continued to spend by taking loans from developing economics. On the other hand workers from poor countries have continued to work harder to create products, services and finance options to their American sisters and brothers. They saved that money and sent to America so that their US friends can fund their offerings. I believe this model is not sustainable in the long term. We need to acknowledge that the value created needs to be redistributed or at least balanced. That means we need to see a lower consumption and more savings by Americans and less saving and more consumptions by emerging countries. That is the one of the way US and world can maximize economic prosperity and continue business operations. For this we need have more free-trade and growth of american business for world consumption. If implemented properly US can have more high end jobs(thus low unemployment), more balanced budgets and more sustainable economics. On the other hand developing countries can see less dependence on US economy(we have seen huge job losses throughout the world because most of depended on US consumer),better lifestyle and better infrastructure and prosperity. It may sound socialist, but a capitalist economy can not sustain with massive wealth accumulation in the hand of few fortunate people and the rest of the crowd left behind. We need to see money in the hand of common people(bottom of the pyramid) so that they have ability to spend and purchase products and services. Some ideal scenarios for future? An investment banker from NYC happily accepts a job in a micro-finance company in Bangladesh(because he or she will be able to maintain almost similar lifestyle and also do more satisfying job of helping people with money rather than creating synthetic derivative products) or a Indian banker can afford a honeymoon in Mediterranean cruise.
3. The basic difference between the US and any other coutries is that US is the country of immigrants. No other country in this world has so many hard-working, talented opportunity finders and innovators. US has always been the hub of innovation for new technologies and new ideas and the only way it can continue to survive as a prosperous country is to continue that trend. For that US should keep the border open for truly high quality foreign sudent and workers. Here quality is the keyword. I think what we need to have is a right gating process which is enough comprehensive and clear in its directions so that the exploitations can be minimized. We should ensure that only the very best gets a chance to enter the country. At the same time I think we need to increase the number of intake of foreign students and workers because we are not really doing a good job in global sourcing. I believe that there will a lot of fantastic talent available throughout the world who do not get opportunity or don't have enough information on US immigration. US can do better campaign on those counties to invite right talents by showing opportunities and also change the immigration laws to ease this gating process for the right people(today H1B Visa can only be obtained by a sponsoring company and many of the times right talents do not get those sponsors or are exploited by those sponsoring companies). At the same time US should concentrate on educating its own workforce with latest technology and skills(job skills as well as basic money management skills) needed for the next economy. US should effectively invest in higher education and research(should make affordable higher education) and work on creating a new economy( may be green technolgy, energy technology, bio-technology, space-technolgy,geo-engineering, computer science, business etc.) which will create millions of new jobs save the world from our most pressing issues.

This is the high time that we be ready for the new rules of the new economy. We can not(and should not) artificially stop companies from improving their operational efficiencies. Hence we can not save amrican jobs by stopping H1B Visa programs or offshoring. What we need to think is to create new economy, new technology and new ways we do business. That is the only way we can save american jobs(for that reason jobs all over the world) and see a prosperous world.

Intelligent Cell Phone

I am not a Mobile Technology guy. But I have this idea which can solve lot of problems for busy executives.
Problem Statement:
1. If we are using calling card to make international calls we need to call a 1-800 number and once connected we need to type our registration number and password to make the calls. This is problematic for the users as they have to remember those data or type it every time.
2. For Virtual online meetings also executives need to make call to one 1-800 number and then enter meeting ID and passcode.
Solution:
The mobile phone should have facility to save the numbers (registered number and passcode etc.) associated with such numbers (1-800 number) and once connected should automatically type those numbers. In this case the user can enter the data once and for all and he can be free from remembering this data in future calls. This solution should have fantastic CBA numbers as the users will have a premium experience with their smart mobile device.

Economic Crisis: Was a Soft Landing possible?

Was there a way to avoid this messy Financial crisis? Could we have avoided this in the first place or at least could have arranged for a soft landing? Lets analyze some perspectives.



Greed, fear, artificially concentrated growth and Lack of proper oversight are the four main root causes of this Economic Crisis. In last decade or so we were behind easy money. Short term results defined the success. The policymakers never thought big enough for sustainable growth which needs inclusive growth. Don't make a mistake here. Inclusive growth does not mean just communism or providing free money to poor people. But this means creating more jobs in unexplored areas and new technologies to solve the biggest problems facing mankind(like green technologies, future energy solutions etc.). To save capitalism from the capitalists we need to create wealth and buying power at the bottom of the pyramid and the only way to do that is to redistribute wealth by creating huge amount of well-paid jobs. Instead what we saw is huge difference in salary structure between the working class and the management class(The differentials between the lowest and highest paid have risen to 1:300). Very few people made enormous amount of money by doing some Investment Baking and Management jobs. Most of these people were creating some artificially inflated wealth by derivatives and different other esoteric financial instruments. They were also fantastic in packaging and selling these produts to common people who had no idea about what they were buying. For short term profit they sold home-mortgages to people who did not have capability to repay those loans. They thought that is not a problem as the price of homes will continue to increase indefinitely and in case of foreclosure they can still sellout the house and make profits. American consumer consumed like anything by taking loans from all over the developing world the world. The developing countries found opportunities in selling their products and services to the American consumer and all those earnings were again reinvested in US as Treasury bonds. Unfortunately this loop of lending and consuming can not sustain and nobody thought about systemic risks of all these transactions. People were greedy and lacked common-sense. Stock market prices of emerging markets gained like anything and people stopped valuating stocks by Financial ratios. At the same time common people were not getting the benefit. They did not have health insurance or retirement savings or consumption capacity. Still they were lured by tempting advertisements to lead a quality lifestyle by borrowing on Credit cards and buying homes on loans which they can not repay.Government and other oversight agencies never did their jobs by properly controlling this greed. Opportunistic market makers created cheat funds and ponzi schemes. Hedge funds charged crazy amount of service fees and made huge amount of over-the-counter(OTC) risky transactions. And the most interesting thing is that all these unsustainable business continued for more than a decade. And then came the shock! Home prices went down, Foreclosure rate increased,Stock market plummeted, Default rate increased on Credit card loans, million of jobs were erased, banks failed, thousands of business went bankrupt, government bailout continued without any positive results, credit market collapsed, government debt increased and everyone is today fearful and puzzled how all these happenned so soon.



Was there a way to avoid this crisis? The answer is Yes and No. Theoritically 'Yes'. We could have done right things at the right time. We could have had more effective oversight and compliance, we could have planned for right kind of human resource allocation(best minds of the nation could have done research on green technologies and work on solving future energy problems instead of creating esoteric financial contracts), we could have planned for sustainable job creation and wealth distribution for creating a bigger market. Connecting dots backwards is easy but life needs to lived only in the forward direction. Hence I believe considering the condition present at those times it was not possible to stop this crisis. When things are going good it is very tough to take hard decisions like increasing government control and executive pay, investing in not-so-attractive green technologies, controlling credit limits and thus creating better spending habbits of the people. Hence in practical sense this crisis was due.



Let's see if there are anything good we can make out of this crisis. What are those important decisions which can help us out of this crisis soon. Following is my recommendation:

Greed and Fear are the root cause of this crisis. First it was greed: which inflated prices by creating artificial demands and then it was fear: which deflated prices to the artificial rock bottom. I call it artificial because if you think critically you will appreciate that our capacity of supply and demand should not change so drastically. We had almost same number of people living in 2007 and 2008(actually more) and the total natural resources avaiable in the world was actually less. Then why our home prices were dropped so dramatically. Why limited natural resources like gas prices can drop so significantly? Why we needed so less products or services in 2008 because of which we had to cut so many jobs? The answer is that the market sentiment changed from greed to fear. Previously people were getting much more than needed and they consumed much more than needed. After the shock it just reversed. People started a selling wave in Share market, stopped any discretionary spending and the sentiment continued to drop. One way we could have(or in that we still can) ensured a soft landing was through adjustable pricing of everything we transact. When demand drops down share, commodity and home prices fall but few things do not change in so linear fashion. For example salary or value of a mortgage loan(in general sense value of currency). Instead what we see is job cuts, or mortgage foreclosures etc. This process creates shocks in the market and creates more problem in Federal budget. People loss jobs and they bcome unproductive. At the same time they continue to cost in unemployment benefits increasing federal defecits. During the housing boom period people had baught houses in very high valuations and now those property prices have dropped creating loss for sellers and banks having foreclosure inventories. This is a vicious cycle which continue to decrease the price of the properties and the foreclosure rate. How can we solve these problems. Reprice the instruments and share the loss through mark-to-market accounting so that this process stabilise soon and we can again get back to the right track. I would suggest ban any future job cuts and foreclosures. Instead start a price discoery process to reprice the salaries and property values. Typically I am suggesting to follow simple demand-supply pricing. If the job demand is less you need to accept the paycut(it is still better than unemployment right?). If the value of a house decreases it is still better to renegotiate the loan terms and stop foreclosures. In both these cases all parties(including government) need to accept some loss but that should stop the downward spiral fast.

Economy depends a lot on the market sentiment, risk-taking mentality and consumer spending. Hence one good way to help the economy to recover is to instill consumer and investor confidence. Today both leaders and media are saying all negative things about the economy. This is actually lowering consumer and investor confidence. Instead of this if the leaders and the media(President Obama and other leaders, CNN, CNBC, FT, WSJ, NY Times)start saying some convincing but optimistic views the Economy can recover faster. If all the people again start buying stocks, houses and products the economy will be back on track very soon.

Become a Brand

Christin Dior, Prada, Gucci, Rolex, Apple, BMW, Orient Express: All of these are extraordinary brands, famous for their premium products and services. Many of us do not have financial capacity to avail these brands, but we all dream of using these products and services one day. What makes them special? What helps them to charge 100% or more premium pricing for their products and services? It is their goodwill of supreme quality. They are never value players. They are never cheap yet very useful(WalMart or COSTCO). They are enormously costly but enviously wanted. They are made for class differentiation. They are made for page-3 discussion. Only the super-rich can afford show-off their wealth with these products. And that makes them special.

There are many people who work like dogs to become that kind of wealthy. Many of the times they even don't love what they do. They just slaze in office just to live better in the future. Unfortunately some of them they never think that they have earned enough money and they can now lead a good life. At that time they become greedy money making machine. Worst, they even take loans to buy these costly designer products and to repay these huge loans they need to continue to do the same monotonus hardwork which they don't enjoy.

I have a better solution for these people. You must be extremely good in some area. You need to recognize that special profession which makes you tick. How you can do that? Easy, just experiment and listen to your heart. You will surely find a profession that you love and once found just stick to your core genious. You can be rich and famous only by doing things which you love. Because to be successful you need to work hard; work hard long time; and that effort can only be sustainable if you love the job. Once you do the job you love, you will become successful and create a brand of your own. For example you love cooking. Just stick to your love and you can become a famous chef one day. That can make you the brand ambassador of one of your loved product which you wanted to own for so long.

So dream big, work hard and smart by choosing the job which you do best and never think short term. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of the last item. Never do things which you don't love but gives you easy money or buy things beyond your capacity and waste the rest of your life in paying the debt.

Become a brand for yourself by your own inner qualities and don't try to become a brand by buying other famous brands.