On Tuesday 01 May 2007 12:06 am, Srini Ramakrishnan wrote: > The US maybe headed for a fall, but a similar fall in India will have > rather more pronounced and dire consequences.
This may be a simplistic assessment. If you drive up towards Yelahanka past Mekhri circle you will see, on your left a grey ghost of a building that was supposed to have become the much vaunted "Cauvery Medical Center" financed by "US based NRI's". That project died after there was a property value crash in the US about a decade or so ago that wiped several million dollars from the assets of the prime investors. However, it did nothing to other people and there are dozens of new corporate hospitals popping up around the ruins of Cauvery medical center. These new corporate hospitals are being built to cater to a very small and very wealthy group of Indians - and in keeping with the fact that these wealthy Indians are young and are beginning to have families, newer hospitals are coming equipped with "birthing suites" so that the wealthy young Indian can cough up a cool 1.5 lakhs (150,000 Rupees for the uninitiated) for luxury for 5 days while your wife delivers and brings home a baby. This is in addition to the 25,000 a month he pays for his Toyota Camry. These hospitals and facilities are aimed at less than one percent of the population and that one percent is greatly dependent on the US economy. For the rest, its business as usual whether the property market in the US goes up or down. The one lesson from all this is "Make hay while the sun shines", and with any luck the sun won't stop shining, and new suckers will continue to be born inside or outside those birthing suites. PS - I have a garden with a lake for sale - about 240 acres in all. It's called Lalbagh. Anyone interested? I'm selling it cheap because I'm emigrating to the US shiv
