My Journey

I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest -(Napoleon)

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Budget (06-07) Analysis

I am not in particularly good mood today so don’t blame me if that reflects in the analysis of Budget of Government of India for Financial year 2006-2007.

Overall tone

Pretty generic budget without focus on anything specific. There is something for every sector. May be the economy is doing so well that no particular thrust is needed for any one sector and could be done with attention across sectors. This is always evident in the 3rd or 4th budgets of any government. The first budget start with bold steps and becomes populist by the 5th year.

GDP growth is expected to be 8% for 2005-06 and government aims to raise it to 10%

Social Sector

There has been increase in allocation for social sector spending and pension for destitute has been increased. Funds have been allocated for poverty alleviation, rural employment, healthcare and education. Considering the track record of the spending in these sectors, I was expecting something innovative from our Harvard educated minister. But same old story, money will go into some black hole. There is no focus on implementation and accountability of schemes for which funds are allocated. Why does the government not understand that real problem is not lack of funds but lack of available funds being utilized properly?

Taxation

There has been no change in personal income tax or corporate tax. The limit of 10,000Rs in Pension funds has been increased upto 100,000. But the budget does not say anything about the Pension regulatory bill which has been hanging fire since years. Without it, any focus on pension fund does not make sense.

Fringe benefit tax has been modified. I had put forward my suggestion in one newspaper for removing it for superannuation fund. This has been accepted in part and contribution per employee upto 100,000Rs has been kept out of FBT.

One good thing in this section was bringing constituency allowance of MPs and MLAs under Income tax. I was also expecting abolition of 'MP local area development fund' which has proved to be the cesspool of corruption.

Service Tax

Since its inception this tax has been the favourite with successive finance ministers. They have either increased the rate or increased the coverage of services or even both. Present budget has done both. I, in particular don’t like brining ATM operations under this net, considering the fact that ATM operations in India hasn’t yet reached the maturity stage.

Infrastructure development

The minister has promised to get the 'north-south' corridor completed by 2008 and 96% of Golden quadrilateral by June, 2006. Considering the myriad land acquisition and contract issues with the 'north-south' corridor, I am skeptical about the deadline being met.

Finance minister has talked about increasing the power generating capacity by 15,000 MW by 2007. Coal is major fuel for our power plants and the least growth as pointed by Economic survey was in Mining sector. So how will the power generating capacity increase? I am not sure if FM has put forward any FDI or privatization proposal for mining sector.

Finance minister has also promised to encourage investment in refineries and pipelines.

Stock market

The Securities transaction tax (STT) has been increased across the board by 25%. This was largely expected, considering the fact that when he had originally proposed it last year it was higher.

Indian mutual funds are now allowed to invest upto 2bn US dollars abroad. Finance minister is happy with the maturity of our stock market, this being reflected in raising the FII investment limit to 2bn US dollars in government debts.

Farm sector

FM has talked about farm sector growth rate to be 2.3%. The 2002-07 five year plan had envisaged an agricultural growth rate of 4%. Thus government does not seem to put focus in this regard. No concrete steps for food processing industries has been proposed as of now.

(This is my primary analysis and I will do detailed analysis later.)

Elastic Graph


For the past one hour I tried everything, shifting in bed, going under the covers, listening to good music, bad music and almost everything less of popping the pill. I give in. I am not going to get sleep whatever I do. After having a long day; working in two offices of two different cities, traveling in the bus for 240kms, with countless bones of body in pain and yet no sleep. Fair enough. Tonight the only charm of Helsinki for me was the prospect of quiet dinner at one of the Indian restaurants, which never materialized. I had to do with burgers because there wasn’t time. On my way back, I profusely cursed Helsinki for having only -5 C when we had -21C in Hameenlinna.

My mind goes back to those experiments we did. There were two kind of material ductile and brittle. When increasing load is applied to a brittle material it reaches a point and snap breaks. This is the yield point. When increasing load is applied to a ductile material, after a certain point, it does not snap breaks but starts elongating. It won’t break but keep on elongating, resisting the stress with its basic character i.e. ‘ductility’. How long? After a while it will give in and break. It also has its yield point. I somehow feel that experiment decrypts life of an individual.

When we are kid we have the entire world in our fist. We want to achieve everything under the sun. With passage of time we recognize the reality. The list gets shorter and priorities change. May be we reach a point when there is only one entry left in that list. We chose to go ahead for that entry forgetting every other thing in life. Can you compromise on it? I guess no, or else you reach your ‘yield point’. But how much of control one has in his life? No one has control over the greatest event which goes a long way in shaping one’s life. Where you take birth will decide the society you live, people you interact, places you study and possibly the culture where you work.

I can’t think anymore, but it feels good to take it off my chest.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Individuality

It takes time for someone in a foreign country to totally understand the society, the culture and underlying themes. I have been observing for 17 months now in Finland, and there are few aspects which impresses me most. Independence or Individual identity, this is what I like most in Finnish society. The level of independence an individual possesses and professes in Finland is amazing. I don’t mean to say there is less importance of families, relationships or friendships but there is a seamless integration of individual identity with all these.

Even if someone is in a relationship they have their own independence. The relationships here are largely symbiotic. Everyone has the ability to lead their life without depending on anyone else. College going students, young professionals, middle aged couples and even senior citizens, they all live by themselves. One may argue that man is a social animal and needs to live in society. In my opinion, the pinnacle of human development is true ‘individuals’ making a society. This can aptly sum up the Finnish society.

I don’t think this evolution would have happened overnight. Finnish history is quite complex and full of ups and downs. They had quite a difficult past and all the adversity nurtured the ‘individuality’ and created a virtuous cycle. Now the excellent social security network adequately supports this individuality. But this comes at a price. Finland is one of the countries having highest tax rate.

On a related note, result of a survey to find the Finnish feel-good factors.

1. Home sweet home, a home of one's own
2. Sunny weather
3. An honest relationship
4. A trusting relationship
5. The freedom to be oneself
6. A freshly cleaned home
7. Friendship, gestures/words in a relationship
8. Friendship, actions in a relationship
9. Fidelity in a relationship
10. Security in a relationship


(Well every society has its downside. For Finnish society it would be that Finland has one of highest suicide rates in world.)

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Just like that


I just wanted to sort of 'document it'. DNA a daily newspaper of Mumbai,India in their blog round up mentioned my blog. You can read it here.

The articles mentioned by them were on Mittal steel's bid for Arcelor. I had written two articles on it, here and here.

Thanks to Kaps for pointing the newspaper article to me.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Why India does not have global brands?


Finland has a population of around 5.2 million, which is less than even one-third of New Delhi. If we think of global brands from Finland then there are quite a few. Nokia, Kone, UPM, Fiskars are world famous in their segments. How many global brand India has? Apparently none. Isn’t it strange? Why India failed to produce brands which are known in world?

Let’s go couple of years back. Around 2001 when internet started to become popular, lot of cyber cafes came up. In those places you could pay and surf internet. Most people didn’t have computer or internet at home. The charges at these cafes were around 60Rs (Indian Currency) for one hour. These cyber cafés started to become popular and were doing brisk business. Few of the cyber cafés started stocking soft drinks and other beverages, which the customers could buy and consume while surfing. I remember the price of a 250ml bottle of Coke in any such café would be 15 Rs while at any beverage store or kiosk it would be 10 Rs. Similarly for other beverages, the café owners were charging premium. Was there any logic for over charging? If someone else is selling coke for 10rs and making profit then it should be profitable for café owners as well. More for them, as their infrastructure being primarily used for internet surfing was already factored in the surfing charge. Rather than charging premium they could have sold them at lesser price and yet made similar/more profits. But they didn’t do it?

This example is symptomatic of Indian business mindset. They never held a collaborative approach for customer but wanted to exploit them. This gave them a higher return in short term but failed to establish a relationship. In the café example, if the experience would have been of customer delight then even today, when people have internet at home, one would have gone there to surf internet over a cup of cappuccino. Until and unless it became absolutely necessary, Indian businesses never passed on the values achieved due to efficient supply chain or economies of scale. Customer was never a partner of the supply chain. It takes a time and effort to create a band and does not give return in one or two quarters but in a long term. All the efforts during the initial period goes in creating the brand equity.

This was also evident in the retail industry till few years ago. Big retail chains never passed on the benefit of volume margin or economy of scale rather charged premium for items. When this trend was changed by one or two retail chains the competitive pressure forced others to change it as well. Now they don’t want global retail chains to be allowed in India. They want some legislation to cover their abject mentality of exploiting customers.

Clearly India has still a long way to go for creating global brands.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Rules are simple



I have been thinking for the past few days and stumbled upon something. I know this is not a new or novel and everyone knows it. If you keep driving through any complex phenomenon then you will reach very simple and basic concept. The base always has the simple rules. The only difference is what way the rules are applied. If you analyse Schrödinger wave equation or movement of a pram the basic rules are simple and same.

We all know the simple rules. For example it is most basic understanding that ‘All eggs should not be kept in same basket’. This is the driving concept of Portfolio management and decision theory or basic feature of a successful human relationship. Brutus asks Cassius to attack than to wait cause ‘what goes up will come down’. This is same as used in financial management.

There are and can be many examples like this. When ever there is dilemma one should try to think from the most basic views. The answers would be there.

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Update :- Those in India could do well to buy the stock of Venkey's and few other hotel stocks. Venkey's is down by around 14.5%, expected to go down further. Have a investment range of 6 months.

P.S - I hold no position in any of the above stocks. Advised in academic interest.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Open letter to Google (Larry & Sergey)



Dear Google,

Despite the world wide protests, I am sure mine this letter finds you both in best of spirit and health. Let me start with a story.

Few years ago I was doing my internship. One day I needed some purchase related data. I went to the purchase clerk in the purchase department. He was a nice guy in his late thirties. When I reached his desk, I saw he was doing something on computer. My eyes went to the monitor, he had opened MSN search and had typed ‘Google’ as the query. Before I could blink my eyes, he pressed enter and the search result came on the screen. I was stunned!!! He had just searched ‘Google’ using MSN search engine. I asked him what he was doing. He put a sheepish grin on his face and said, “I have seen you guys do lot of goog-leee (Google), so wanted to do myself, hence was searching for it”. I could not believe it. Please don’t mind the pronunciation. I have been told that ‘goog-lee’ is some kind of cricket bowling and Indians are known to use cricketing terms in real life. Not surprising considering Americans have also been using terms borrowed from baseball such as first base, second base, etc.

I am sure if this news reaches MSN, then the punch line for MSN search engine would be “We have searched ‘Google’ too

So the upshot is I have seen your rise from that day to present. Now not only you have excellent search engine, but many other innovative products and one of them is blogger. I have been one of the most extensive users of this facility for hosting my blog, reading other’s blog(s) and to interact with them. It is with this interactive or comment facility that I have few issues.

Few months back you introduced the ‘word verification’ scheme to ward off spam comments. I appreciate your concern. But for the past couple of weeks I am smelling rat. I am pretty sure this word verification has driven quite a few bloggers to opticians. Do you get some cut from the opticians, considering you have the capability of identifying the physical location of any blogger? If so then please get in touch with brain surgeons as well. I might not go to optician but I am surely going to have brain hemorrhage while decoding the words.

I am also not sure if the real purpose of word verification is to stop spam comments. Who knows you might be collecting the data on ease of typing of different alphabets individually and in combination. This may be used to design a new kind keyboard in place of conventional ‘QWERTY’ ones. But still if you make me believe the purpose is to stop spam comments, then, I might pass a tip or two on how to make it simpler. Let me know.


I am putting two interesting incidents of using cricket in everyday lives of Indians. This is in comment section to make sure you see the word verification yourself.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Should Stock Options be Scrapped ?



There is this excellent movie released last year ‘Enron: The smartest Guys in the Room’. It is not a commercial kind of movie but more like a documentary one. It traces the rise and fall of Enron, which at one time was 7th largest corporation of US. By now I am sure everyone knows what fraud was being done at Enron? The profit, which the rogue team of Ken Lay, Jeffery Skilling, Andrew Fastow and few others made, was due to stock options. They made millions of dollars by exercising their stock option. A stock option is the stock given by company at a fixed price (may be even free) which most of the time is less than market price. They sell their stocks when the market value is considerably high.

Stock options are part of compensation package of the most of the top level executives of any corporation. They run into millions of dollars. We also have example of the both the founders of Google taking an annual pay of 1 dollar since 2004. They will manage the rest through their stock options. The amount of money they can make this way is directly connected to the share’s market value. The underlying assumption of this was to reward them for appreciation of shares worth which in turn is beneficial for all the stock holders of the organization.

If we see this in the context of Enron then these stock options seems to be the biggest motivation for those ‘smart guys’ to artificially inflate the company’s profit and pump up the stock’s market worth. Would they have done this had they not have any stock option? Hard to tell, but I think they would not have done it this way. So, should a company give stock option to its top level executives, and if not, then what instead? Before we think of it, let’s look at another incident which happened last week in India.

Last Thursday (2nd Feb), a top Indian IT company announced it has bagged a deal worth 300mn US $ from a beleaguered US automotive giant. The deal was spread for 5 years, so an inflow of 60mn US $ each year. The media was quick to catch this news. This was the second ever largest deal bagged by any Indian IT company. The stock immediately appreciated, not much, but still 1.14%. This company does not have much of its stock in circulation as the promoter group has close to 82% of the stake.

Next day it opened at much higher price but ultimately settled at lesser value due to weak market overall. On Saturday the same company clarified that the deal was not for 300mn but for only 27mn US $! The figure of 300mn was its estimate of future business they wish to bag from the automotive company. This comes to less than 6mn $ per year. The stock predictably declined on Monday. It is now for the regulatory bodies to find out if anyone profited from this pumping of the stocks. There has been no news till now of anyone even thinking of investigating this. But we saw one more method of artificially pumping the shares. If someone had stock option then it was a good opportunity to exercise it.

All this leads me to think this, Should companies continue to give stock option to its top executives? Of course due to tough regulatory norms and surveillance this kind of fraud is becoming more difficult but still chances always remain. Should the companies explore other ways of rewarding its top executives while acting in good faith of its shareholders? A good option could be to give percentage of revenue or profits realized. This will also, secure the interests of the share holders, as increase in revenue and profits will ultimately increase the market worth of the stock. This would have worked well even with Enron.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

February

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What is with February and birthdays? Almost everyone seems to be having their birthday in February, be it celebrities or blog-people or family members. Both of my sisters have their birthday in February, one of them today. February has always been the month full of days. Those days when I was student, my allowance never seemed to be sufficient in the month of February. I made future plans to blow up my whole paycheck. Now I earn but the days are not there.

Anyway today after hearing the beep coming out of my cellphone, I called my sister and wished her. I had put the reminder incase I forget. These days a birthday seems to be so closely associated with wishing that most of the time I forget that this was the day when the person took birth.

I remember when I was kid; I never bothered about my birthday. It is not that only others forget my birthday, even I remember it after a week or so has passed. There were few years, when I was conscious of my birthday but now I am back to my usual self.

While writing this, last year’s episode comes to my mind. I had taken the morning flight to Italy for my seven days vacation. It was a typical hot summer day and I was checking into a hotel in Venice. The receptionist was filling the details while I was trying to locate ‘Piazzale Roma’ on map.
Suddenly she said “Happy Birthday”. I could not understand anything and said “What?” I guess I had not reacted in normal way because she put a timid face and said, “It’s in your passport” and then I realized it was my birthday. I was totally embarrassed, managed a weak smile and said “Grazie”.

Well, that was it. “Happy Birthday” to all those who are having their birthday in February.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Socialism, Capitalism & Free Market Theory

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I remember couple of months back I had said to ‘Soyyo’ about writing about my views on Socialism & Capitalism. And now when me and ‘Sher’ are discussing this topic, I finally got to write this one.

I find it quite difficult to explicitly term myself as endorsing socialism or capitalism. There are reasons for it. Having been brought up in a socialist country I have imbibed socialistic ideas and my education has inculcated capitalism. As a result, I am neither a perfect socialist nor a capitalist.

The heart of socialism is equal distribution of wealth and if it proceeds to communism then it becomes “means of production to be controlled by all of a society”. Marxism proposes a series of changes which ulitmately will lead to this. But Socialism for me is only ‘equality’. I see socialism as “to be given equal opportunities to acquire skills”.

The heart of capitalism is “means of production are owned by individual or privately owned”. But capitalism for me is the one which breeds entrepreneurs. If a person hasthe skill and opportunity then he(she) be allowed to reap the benefits of his(her) hard work.

I am completely at peace because ‘my’ idea of socialism and capitalism are not in conflict with each other. Socialism gives everyone equal opporutnity to acquire skills and then capitalism allows them to exploit their skills. One should not be limited to derive less benefits of his(her) skills cause others are not doing so. The fault lies with the one who has less skills cause there was equal opportunity to gain skill.

It is in here that I place the concept of “free market”or laws of demand and supply. The only way I think skills could be valued properly is to let the market decide and not what some cartels or governments think of it. If you have been given equal opportunities then there should be no need of regulation. Take for example – you are given equal opportunity of taking coal and gold. You want to take coal and then want some regulations to price coal more to gold. Isn’t this trying to cover your wrong decisions ? Would it be fair to make others who chose gold to pay for your wrong decision ? If you think that those who chose gold did it by fluke, then this is not true. They would have invested in market intelligence and getting the pay off for it.

It is only free market that can deal with inefficiencies. Those who do treasury operations know that arbitrage gains are possible only due to inefficiency of two markets. It is much like there are two different water levels and the only way to make them come to the same level is to have a free flow.

I agree that a welfare state has certain social obligations. There can be two ways to handle deficiency. Either make everyone deficient so that it ceases to be a deficiency or work to overcome deficiency. Unfortunately most of the time governments tend to go by former. Putting controls and regulations are way to do this. This is the reason ‘free market’ theory is not popular with ‘psuedo welfare’ governments.

To summarise, I consider the socio-capitalism in a ‘free market’economy to be the best choice.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Weather update

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Ladies and gentleman, I am reporting the weather, live from North Pole. After the two weeks of perfect Siberian winter in January end, which even Napoleon was not able to conquer, we are having it again. This time the alcohol refuses to budge from -26C.

The only change this time is the sunlight. It is a welcome realization that there is something called Sun. As I write this, sunlight is gracing my laptop. I look outside window and see the glistening snow particles. The myriad particles, spinning and revolving seems to be telling the story through their kaleidoscopic flight.

Eyes with their reflex tend to avoid the sunlight. May be they are not used to it or those bouncing from snow and ice seems hurting. But, where to escape? Soon the days will come when there will be no night. But till then may we all survive.


Saturday, February 04, 2006

French opposition to Mittal Steel bid

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The only surprise in the bid of Mittal Steel over Arcelor has been the bid itself. Every step after the bid is proceeding on expected lines. France is leading the vociferous pack of political opposition to this bid. Given the history, no one would have expected anything lesser from France. It has proved itself to be the most protectionist country in world in recent times. Only last year, it had all its political leadership united to oppose the ‘rumoured’ bid of Pepsico over Danone, the French food firm. The bid never saw light of the day.

France is the most subsidy driven economy in the developed world. It is also involved in a debate with Britain in the EU over its protectionist policies(see my post of 29th November on this). It has used the money paid by EU under Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to effectively protect its agricultural sector. It was not long back when Christine Lagarde, the French trade minister, bluntly said that Tony Blair is talking about reform as it is fashionable and he is looking for scapegoat in this context.

On closer look, I find many other compulsions for Mr Villepin to oppose this bid. The GDP growth rate of France has been 1.6 % in 2005 and unemployment rate is 9.5%. France is going through the phase of stagnant economy and rising unemployment. The riots by unemployed youths couple of months back must have been fresh on his mind. The social security network and health insurance schemes are also going through a rough phase. Top of all this, France is having Presidential election in 2007, so all the aspirants which may include President Chirac and Prime Minister Villepin are trying to improve the labour situation. With 30,000 French citizens working in Arcelor, they don’t want to take the risk and may be this will give them some brownie points with electorates.

But things are different this time for France. Neither it has any stake in Arcelor, compared to 5.6% stake of Luxembourg government, nor is Arcelor listed in France. This is the reason that French Prime Minister Mr Dominique De Villepin is invoking concepts such as ‘Economic Patriotism’. I wonder why this is not invoked when France accuses US of favouring its Boeing.

I would rather Mr Villepin invests his time in doing important things as reforming the labour policies and improving the GDP growth rate. It has been proved in many cases that impractical protectionist schemes have always backfired. Let the bidding process take its own course. There is EU competition commission for all other issues.


P.S. - Due to some reactions, I think I need to clarify myself. I am indifferent to 'Indian' connection in this bid. I am supporting Mittal Steel bid only cause of my believe in 'free market' theory. I know Mittal steel has its downside and I will try to come up with a post on it as well.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Expat Forum

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We have an online expat forum in Finland. This forum is quite useful if you want to get all sort of information when you move in, or start living in Finland. Things like where to get currant juice, loose black tea and cheap hair cut. Or may be how to transfer your driving license from New EU/Non-EU country to Finnish ones, how to extend your residence permit, what all things are needed to get married in Finland ( like girl/boy…), what certificates are needed to get married(may be sanity..), whether Nokia phones are cheaper in Finland (they are not !), why Finns don’t hold the door or even say ‘thanks’ if you hold for them (they have said thanks to me), etc. You can also organize get together or you can ask someone to meet you if you are feeling lonely or where to get friends etc. The list is long.

There is always someone who can share the information. Most of the people in the forum, particularly the old members, know each other. There are quite a few interesting people there, each of them would need one post to describe. I am a mber there since Septber, 2004. The forum has helped me a lot as well.

It is a great time pass to read through the threads and interact with others. Sometimes the requests are funny and the answers funnier. Let me put one such thread here.(Nicks are changed and no known copy right violated)

(Ttu is a 'dude' from US, who is trying to locate a Finnish girl)

Ttu - I need help with trying to locate a lady friend. I recently went to Finland and met this lady. Unfortunately I did not get her correct e-mail address and now Ican't contact her.
I'm having a tough time trying to get the correct spelling of her first name. Her name sounds like Minnah (Mee•nah). Can anyone help with the spelling.
Thanking you in advance.

Bunny – Minna

Crisis Manager - Well, could be 'Miina' as well

(Crisis Manager is one of the founding member of this forum and is the most resourceful person and hence his nick)

Bunny – Which is more likely ?

Crisis Manager - Well, if it sounds like mee-nah its spelt the way it sounds. Really can't tell. Though I think probabilitywise Minna is more popular than Miina, which is quite... hrm... old-fashioned.

M2 - 'T ain'nt me -- nahh, must be someone else

(M2 seems to be a Finnish woman)

J1- are you sure her name wasnt hannah??

(there is a similar but more interesting story of a guy searching for Hannah)

(The US dude chips in again)

TTU - Could someone possibly help me with trying to locate or contacting her?

Uhk - Yeah, tomorrow I'm going to go to the market and yell 'mee-nah' randomly. If something comes of it, I'll let you know

Native Finn - Well, the chances -with this information- would be more or less the same as if you said, "I want to find this girl in Ireland, her name is Fiona, please help me!"...

Hame Boy - I guess the name was Minna. Now if you could please come out with more details then people might be able to give you pointers.

Where she works ?or anything that might narrow down the search.


BTW where is that dude these days who was desperately looking for Hannah .....

Fix Guy - If she gave you a wrong e-mail address, maybe she does not want to be found and contacted

(crisis manager chips in as usual with his resources)

Crisis Manager - There are 30925 women named "Minna" found in the Population Registry Syst database. Majority of them, over 21 000 born between 1960-1979.
Now tell us exactly whom of those 30 000 Minna's to email?

Minna Girl - I'm Minna.....born between those years.....but not that Minna - oh well....

(seems forum has one girl named Minna)

Hame Boy - We are seeing lot of requests like this. Someone is searching for Hanna or Minna ... this leads me to think that Finnish girls are quite common in doing this. They don't give their fulll details or give wrong mail ids..

what say you all ?

(By this time the US dude is getting frustrated)

TTU - Sorry I didn't come out with more details, but I didn't want to get into great details about the situation on an open forum. I was hoping someone would private message me with a suggestion or possible state that they would help. Instead I got alot of negativity. Again, I know I didn't clearly state myself and I'm sorry for that.

I also know that there are many people around the world with the same first name, but right now I guess I have too much hope with meeting her again. It will be only a dream.

Another reply stated that they are seeing alot of these requests like this. I hope this is not the case and hope that all Finnish people don't act this way. This is not the way I perceived people when I visited the country. I had a great visit.

Crisis Manager - It is not "negativity" you dumb idiot. It is "REALITY". I do not help touchy-feely idiots, I help realists.

Bunny - Come on Ttu,

How you expect anyone to PM with the idea they can help I really don't know.

You're looking for a girl called Minna or Miina, If I told you I met a girl called Bonnie in your home state, how much help could you give me in finding her?


Pettas - Perhaps there was an obvious error in the email address? Someone here may be able to help if it was just a mispelling of luukku.com or the like...

Bunny - Click here for 14,200 Minna images from .fi domains

Now that should keep you busy for a while
(Bunny comes with a huge database of pictures of Minna(s) from Finland)

Native Finn - Well, well; Finland is not a big country it seems - I happen to know one of the Minna's on the first page of results

The discussion is still continuing ..