I was a bit undecided about what to blog about today. On one hand, Lindsay Lohan is doing community service at the morgue. On the other, the nation is having a financial meltdown and people are taking to the streets.
In an effort to not become any dumber while living in L.A. I'm going to blog about the latter. Namely, the arrest and 11-year jail sentence of finance titan Raj Rajaratnam, who ran the hedge-fund at Galleon Group, and the imminent court date of Rajat K. Gupta former director at Goldman Sachs. Apparently, these guys were best buds and were sharing inside information. Maybe it's because they both had the same nickname "R.J." Whatever the case, WHOOPS!
As a South Asian, I'm troubled by this. Not because they did something wrong but because they got caught. I know it's immensely greedy and a lot of innocent people were hurt. I guess I'm biased towards Indians. Probably because Hollywood is a dogfight for South Asians while finance seems like a meritocracy where you just have to be smart. Anyways, Rajat is indicted on 5 counts of securities fraud and faces 20 years for each count. Looks like he better use his money to buy a time machine and fix this mess because he is not going to get off easy.
A little while ago, I was planning to work at CAA, a talent agency in Hollywood and I was having nightly meetings with my other friend who worked at WME, a rival talent agency. We were coordinating ways to share information for personal use. Did we care? Not the slightest. As anybody in Hollywood knows, living here is like total anarchy and you fend for yourself.
It makes me think that some South Asians are hyper competitive, and we are wired to pull every trick in the book. To think, thousands of years ago we were probably goat herders and things were the same.
Goat herder #1 - Hey did you hear? Raj is retiring next month and will be selling his goats. Goat herder #2 - Are you insane?! You can't tell me this! That's illegal. (thinks about it) Saaaay.... how many goats does he have?
We live in a country where our forefathers stole land from Native Americans so we could build Walmarts. Perhaps our absence of morals is substantial proof that we have successfully assimilated into American culture.