News of the day… “Rupee falls, PM seeks India Inc’s advice” – HT headline. Cartoon quip in Mumbai Mirror, 10/7/13 ridiculing PM’s economics doctorate. (Me: The uninformed may be utterly dismayed by the foremost economist seeking help from elsewhere, that too interested parties, to bail out the government on the precipitous rupee falling. Me admit, am no economist, let alone an expert; on the contrary, the subject is my pet hate. Having made the candid confession, I must say that the PM or any other economics luminary – say an Amartya Sen – could have done any better : economic theories rarely work to the desired extent or seldom work at all: they merely remain on paper because their working depends upon the happening and not happening of myriad variables and imponderables, just for example, the unanimous support in the larger interests of the country from opposition benches without which, in a parliamentary democracy, no just legislation is possible. However, one of the few economic principles that holds good for all time to come is, one should live within one’s means – aptly vouched by a Hindi film song, “Aamdhani Attanni, karcha rupiah”. And alas, this country is playing ducks and drakes with tax-payers’ money, from massive loan waiver to bounties to government staff and pensioners at periodic intervals to equally mind-boggling subsidized food. Ruling parties resort to this populist ploy to remain, and as long as they do it, there is no cure for the country’s economics malady)
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 06:07:18 +0000