Well. Put the cart before the horse or horse before the cart? This question should be answered at all times – because every time, situation changes. The inquisitive, intelligent investor – small or big – should always question the borrower and himself whether the investment is worth considering.

The way we have country risk factors that are built into pricing, we should have past defaults also loaded in the pricing. As the name goes, these past default compensation will be permanent in nature. It is a different matter – such marks up go to the new investor instead of compensating the investor who has been defaulted (or better deceived?). As long as the payer remains the same – the same country or its citizens, corporate or individual, it is okay. You pay a price for the past deeds

Well. This approach will definitely put a stop to such massive squandering of gullible small investors around. It is another equally important aspect, whether such small investors can be penalized for their knowledge or lack of it in such high stakes international ‘cover’ operations indulged in by big countries and big names!

Coming to the country risk factor – we know by now, well, how this can be propped up or pulled down. If a friendly country were to be promoted and rewarded, at the time or just before, the country goes for international begging (oh.. borrowing should be the parliamentary language), leading ‘international’ ‘rating’ agencies come out with their ‘up gradations’. On this basis, fence sitters or other small one time reader-small investors form an opinion and go for investing their life time savings with the fondest hope everything would be fine with the report card produced by the rating agencies.

It may be another cover story how such rating agencies pull such strings at the last minute to make the small investors lose their life time savings. We should have a rating system for such rating agencies. It can be a very good business proposition. Just follow up the ratings awarded by the rating agencies and closely monitor such beneficiary-rateds! You may have some interesting patterns!

Well. Loss is nothing. Life is full of them. There is always a price tag… We really cannot improve something or create anything new unless we are willing to give up something. This is a fundamental truth of life that everyone must learn to accept.

But the real loss is the time spent on thinking over, deciding next course of action, getting advice or feedback from the so-called self-appointed self-servers. Had the small time small investor spent their time on further productive efforts, they could have much more…

Again to invest in another country offering may be at fancy prices. The market is full of them – from the poor countries and the rich country.

As long as our dear hapless small time small investor does not really bother to up grade himself and sift good from the bad, he will have to burden himself – not only with the resultant loss but also with the SASS suckers (am again sorry for this un parliamentary usage… but my vocabulary does not have another one word replacement!)