Stock Holding

I was wondering why it is called so, in ‘modernised’ economies, while in India, it is called Share-holding, Share market etc.

May be it is about stocking something for times of need. Basically an investment. But, for the purpose of disinvesting, to buy something else needed urgently.

I used to admire one particular set of people, who are nomadic. They carry just a few utensils for cooking, a few clothes, and perhaps a thin mat tightly wrapped, tied to a thin twine of thread, dangling on the back along the shoulder. The woman folk had to carry babies. That is all. Their whole world was on their shoulders. ‘Lock, stock & barrel’ as the sayings goes. In urdu language, they are also known as ‘Khana-badosh’ (entire kitchen on the shoulders!).

There was a time, when people felt a likely hood of price rice in petrol, they would rush to nearest petrol pump, fill the vehicles up to the brim! And most of the outlets would promptly put up a hastily hand-written sign, on a small placard/ card-board, saying “No stock”. (And yet, we can spot a few vehicles quietly sneaking to their ‘office’ room, and leaving stealthily with a ‘fill up’!). This kind of “stocking” happened about any item, that is likely to become scarce, and hence over-priced. (At school, when we were kids, we used to stop bringing ‘notes’ book when the exam dates approach, for fear of some boy ‘picking’ it up for his own ‘stock’ of reading material. Those with ‘unique‘ handwriting did not have this apprehension! That was when we learned to admire the value of undecipherable handwritings, those which only the writer could read! I had an elderly cousin who was then slogging at short-hand, and for a brief while my mind got engaged at looking at the ‘know-how’s’ of this phonetic writing skills. I even managed to beseech him to demonstrate a sample of ‘non-English language’ being written in that “English-shorthand” symbols! But the visuals of slogging that I could see for years strongly dissuaded me from getting polarized any further to that art!).

I still felt that this ‘stocking’ is not being properly handled. People used to jealously hold polythene covers (used ones!), conceal it carefully in un-reachable corners of household!
But, even I used to store large brown envelopes, because it came handy when the school books needed replacement of its brown covers. I could just invert these large brown packing covers, and manage as notebook/textbook covers for the rest of the school’s that-year-term. The biggest stockist of ‘plastic-cover’ in our family, was my grandmother, who had no access to even small towns then. Anything packed in a polythene cover, the cover itself was ‘prime’ consideration, and she used to hurry to ‘carefully’ store it in a very ‘safe’ place first! (Now, the whole planet is littered with unwanted ‘plastic bags’ causing the biggest problem as a non-biodegradable material!

So, I kept wondering what is it, stocking which, all other kinds of stock-holding can be obviated!

This question helped me to look at it cohesively!
(I thought, it is worth sharing it with a few readers too!)

psn(18th January, 2011)

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110115084121AAfL6a1
What are your solutions about UPA GOVERNMENT going ahead with another petrol price rise today midnight?
Poor Indian people already suffering; Middle class income group people suffering due to poor petrol price mismanagement; Indian rich people 15% are not at all bothered about 85% of Indian people affected by price rise;Rich people will also suffer due to imperfect frequent price rise of all commodities and services.

My reply:
It is not just about petrol.
We pay heavily for something that is our own product in abundance!
Even that stupid court-fee stamp is seldom sold at its MRP (or rather face value!). Petrol is 'freed' to decide its own cost at international prices for crude. So, its cost is now decided by the oil producing countries. The lasting solution amidst all these price-rise, inflation, stampede deaths, scams, etc is to rebuild the lost glory of our country, through one single irreplaceable thing called 'trust'!If we take a look at the history for some ten thousand years, up to two centuries ago, economy finds very little mention. We have that Chanakya's artha Shastra about 5 centuries ago. Not that we never had good economic conditions. Economy did not warrant too much attention. We were an evolved lot, and material aspects of life were effortlessly taken care of! The problems were much greater, and uncertainties too large. But they never really mattered! Trust, mutual trust, was a giant shock absorber that took care of everything. For example, right now, when we plan a vehicle to land on moon or mars, we improvise the vehicle itself, not the land there. This vehicle can face any road condition on the 'other' planet. On earth, we have improved roads, so we now spend less on vehicle-cost because the sturdiness can be diluted. This concept cannot be blindly adopted to human beings. We cannot dilute our character, our capability because we have the comforts of gadgets, mechanisms, rules, administrations, (a government, a democratic right to pass on the blame!). Please see, calculators made us lazy with calculation-tables. Computers, emails made us lazy to take up a pen and paper to write a letter. Mobiles make us lazy to walk up to a neighbor staying three blocks away!

(To whatever extent we improve on mutual trust, we reduce the 'cost of living'! Within a family, trust helps emotional costs.
At work place, trust builds team spirit to reduce work-cost, productivity etc.
At national level, trust helps security cost, bribe costs, PDS-costs, election-costs, parliament functioning-costs, police-costs, form-filling costs, too many 'xerox' copies costs (photo-copies, it is ) as proof of address/identity etc! The district level education dept officer insists on a "Xerox" of his own order permitting a school's recognition for that year, when we apply for inter-state migration no-objection certificate on the school's TC !)
...
Trust would have helped us avoid that needless stampede deaths at Sabarimala route this week. Four policemen cannot handle the lakhs strong crowd, when those Guruswami's fail to be guru's for the 'trusting' chela's !)