Dear Kudesiaji
Even though the question is asked to Safal, let me throw in my 2
cents. This really is time to be sceptical about long term Indian
growth story.
1. The crisis of 2008 was due to reckless private players mainly in
the US and to some extent in Europe. India was spared because our
economy was too small and conservative. Also, the private sector in
India works more efficiently than anywhere else. But this time round,
the crisis is because of governments. The Governments in Europe,
particularly the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain)
have been on a reckless borrowing spree and spending on popular yet
detrimental schemes.
2. Growth is not only a factor of productivity, its also a factor of
sentiments. Even a single country in EU defaults, all lenders will
have to take big cuts on their bonds and this well definitely turn the
sentiments in a downward spiral. Borrowing will become tough and many
businesses will collapse. Case in point is Reliance Communications.
They have so much debt on their balance sheet; and they cannot
refinance that debt, nor can raise equity because of poor sentiments
in Indian Telecom markets due to several players and even more scams.
3. Coming to India, whatever growth we have had is despite the
government, not beacuse of it. The credit for liberalization is
wrongly attributed to Manmohan Singh; it was much viled and reviled PV
Narsimharao who ushered economic liberalization. And he too was forced
to start this journey as India was on brink of a default in 1991.
Anyways, once the floodgates were opened up, there was no looking
back. But there was no support from government, except when there were
big bucks to be made. All this growth by private sector not only
generated $$ billionaires, it also generated huge taxes for
government. This part is almost always glossed over by the media and
the socialists. They always point to the obscene salaries of CEOs and
$2bn house of Ambani. But they never recount the billions of dollars
of taxes contributed by the private companies and income taxes from
salaried guys working there.
4. Government should have done two things to spread the benfits of
this windfall -
a) Promote and environment in terms of policies and
infrastructure (roads, ports, telecom, fibre, manufacturing
industries) to support this growth. This will generate additional jobs
and will fill the coffers of the government with taxes. Win Win for
both industry and government (i.e., the people).
b) Utilize the windfall money on social schemes in a
transparent and accountable manner. (Whats the use of opening new
schools, when old ones dont have blackboards, classrooms and
teachers?) Government has failed on both accounts.
5. So now with reduced revenues and unsustainable social schemes
government is short of funds. What can the government do?
a) Increase taxes on business and make them shift their businesses
out of India?
b) Print more money and increase the inflation further?
c) Borrow more money and spend and be like the PIIGS in Europe as
described above?
d) Make policies and incentivize business so that it starts
growing again and contributing to the governments coffers?
Any sane person would choose option D. But this is not electorally
correct. People are happy if wealth of Ambanis is reduced, even if
that means lower tax contribution and hence lower outlay for
government social spending.
People have to understand that government doesnt have a gold mine to
draw its resources from. It depends on business activity to get its
revenue for spending on social schemes. But this logical thinking
bites people in the short term. So, government chooses option C as a
strategy. This results in:
a) Higher budget deficit which fuels inflation. Inflation hurts the
poorest the most. If a guy earns Rs.50,000 he is not heart that much
when milk rate increase from Rs. 30 to 36 per kilo.. But it hurts the
guy barely earning 3 to 5000 a month. How he is going to feed his
child. His monthly budget goes haywire if dal become Rs.100/kg.
Basically government gives him with one hand in the name of social
schemes and takes back with the other by persuing policies fueling
inflation.
b) Higher deficit also results in devaluation of Indian Rupee
(INR). Exporters are happy, but they contibute a miniscule tiny to the
Indian economy in terms of taxes or jobs. On the other hand
devaluation of INR results in increase of petroleum products by
several hundred crores. This money again is lost. Had the budget
deficit not so big, rupee would have apprciated and resulted in
savings for government that could have been used to fund the schemes.
Again zero sum game.
c) Increase tax rates as Chdambaram has proposed. Mr. Chidamabaram,
how about increasing the tax net and include more people instead of
taxing the honest guys even more. Only 3% people in India pay income
tax and support the 100% of 120cr people. Why not simplify taxes and
bring the shopkeepers, rich farmers, bogus consultants and brokers in
the tax net?
6. On a small base it is possible to grow for a decade or two. But
then you need proper infrastructure and atmosphere for grwoth. It is
so difficult to find a suitable place for setting up a factory, its
impossible to mine any minerals, its impossible to make highways and
railways. Indian railway has not increased fares in last 10 years,
Result - a creaking infrtastructure which results 15-20 deaths every
month. Can the death of these people justified by saying government
has done great job for poor by not increasing the fares. On the
contrary the funds that should have gone to open up/rev up schools and
hospitals for poor have been diverted to subsidize railway fares. This
logic beats me.
How you can progressively make 'doing business' in India difficult,
keep spending mindlessly, wreck the infrastructure that you have, no
new infrastructure plans and hope to continue growth. Its very sad
that the Indian growth story today faces most serious threat not from
outside but from the government of India.
I am extremely sorry that this post has gone on for so long. My
apologies in advance.
Regards
k
On Oct 9, 3:02 am, "Kudesia, Rajesh K" <
rkkude...@rasgas.com.qa>
wrote:
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