US sub-prime crisis and India

Disclaimer: All views expressed by the author have evolved out of analysis and might suffer from paralysis. You are free to take your stand. :D

The hot topic as it may rightly be called. Economists world over are busy number crunching the illusion fall( or may be coming down to ground reality) of banks under the term,"Sub Prime Crisis". Well for my dear readers who are like me ( need things to be simple to get striaght in head :)), the crisis relates to increasing number of defaulters and foreclosures of home loans in US. The sudden increase of defaulters has led to an increase in availablity of houses and hence the lowering of property values. The general life style of US is based on hypes and valuations, so as they say, take risks, you will spur and you will fall down equally well, but you will enjoy both.
The idea here is high risk loans which fell on the wrong side. Stocks, securities and properties work on valuation mechanism. The fall of value is directly related to demand and supply. There were too many MBAs diversifying the portfolio of credit lending to make the share of sub prime lending in home loans reach to a proportion of one fifth and all calculations failed when risk anticipated turned into reality. This was just to give a brief context on the problem at large.

The question is, how does it impact India and other Asian developing countries, considering that this is an era of globalization and US' Godliness has been diversified, however, it still remains to rule because of its high risk taking appetite.
Things which are bound to be impacted-
Impact on IT? Oh yes. I have been involved in this industry for sometime now and i can say that around 60% of revenue for most of the big IT companies comes from US clients and Banks INVEST on quality and technology in quest to go global. While sectors like energy and utlity and retail are picking up, banks still remain to be the big HUB of investments in IT. To add to it, banks outsourced a lot of processing to India, so BPO busines is BADLY hit. So, a) reduction in customers ( to an extent). Falling value of US dollar would mean reduction in profit margins for IT service companies. So, b) Reduction in profit earned and that drives stock values in simple terms. Suddenly, the organizations are crying for improving productivity, reason, bottom line is what can be impacted, they really dont have control on top line. I dont count it as negative though, its a balancing act. Anything that grows leaps and bounds has to come back to ground reality and normalize. So, probably we are maturing and we will do balancing act to diversify our client portfolio to diverse geographies and most importantly understand the value of domestic business and drive demand from local industrialists. IT impacts a major part of middle class population, their purchasing power and hence the domestic needs. IT is one of the best pay master for youngsters, so yes middle class will be impacted, they might not come on ground, but the luxuries will reduce.

Things which are bound to balance-
Well, i do want to thank Tatas and Birlas and Reliance. We will survive and will be impacted mildly( if the assumptions go right) in the game because they have invested in food, shelter and clothing business. We as a nation invest in steel, we manufacture cars, we build infrastructure raw materials, and we export clothes. And here, we dont look at margins only, we look at volumes and geographies. We trade with Sri Lanka, singapore etc etc( which IT is waking up to do now). They have made right use of globalization by diversifying their organizational business portfolio to keep IT a part and reinvest its earnings in expanding the busiess on basics which can not be ruled out for life. So, we come in business which trades in salt, grains, clothes, wire, phones, steel and since we are a poor uneducated nation, the economy at lower end does not know what US mortgage is, they never even had a bank account. How does it matter if US falls or awakes, we will still live. May be we will reduce our two cell phones to one because banks dont give us loan anymore, but then what the heck, we never had a phone to start with.

So, guys the answer is yes, we will be impacted. IT is not all that rich till US comes out and IT companies diversify their client profile by taking a hit on their profit margins. And sadly, these guys pay well, huh! BUT, i will love to call it a balancing act. This is about a bubble that bursts. We get slightly impacted, but our economy gets chance to diversify and decrese geographical dependency to make optimum usage of globalisation. Only sad part is, we react, we dont pro act. Never mind!! everything that happens over next two years will take us more and more towards sustainable growth and development, might be a bit slow but yes, steady. :)