[Arjun Bharadwaj]

Its a shocking reality, but it is what it is - the economy is rotting. We understand it and accept it.

The above posts have explained the situation on hand much better than I ever can - but in my humble opinion, I am keen to learn what "I" can do as a common man to reduce the impact of the blow and if possible even start to reverse the rot.

Immediate thoughts that come to mind obviously revolve around helping the less fortunate around us, as long as we are capable of doing so. But what do we do next? - build micro societies which are capable of basic self sustenance? no idea.

I unfortunately have only questions and no answers and am eager to see that silver lining around the cloud which is an answer to the above.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by su1978

First of all, the situation is going from bad to worse due to the environment that has been created by the so called entrepreneurs..... Over years, i have seen these so called maggots(entrepreneurs) amass huge wealth in forms of expensive cars, houses, huge parties etc. So why worry for them.

Originally Posted by poloman

Either the forum is full of bleeding heart liberals or other side is quite silent.

As a bleeding heart liberal and a maggot, I guess I have to put up some defense.

Entrepreneurs start businesses for making profits. They don't do it for creating jobs or doing charity. Successful businesses can generate lot more wealth than a person working for someone else. But the risk is also very high, unlike working for salary. So depending on the risk taking nature, one can start a business or work for a salary.

In order to maximize profits, the company board will expect the management to try everything within legal means. It may not be popular or ethical, but if it is legal, the management will do it. They are not really expected to be compassionate and benevolent at the cost of profit. Such management will be quickly replaced by the board, at the demand of shareholders. This is basically shareholder capitalism, you may call it maggotism. I actually prefer stakeholder capitalism over shareholder capitalism. I have taken lot of heat for that stance in the forum.

Guess who decides what is legal and what is not? Voila... the government. That is why government makes statutes and regulations to prevent companies getting away with murder. They can go to an extreme and strangle the businesses from many any profit. This is called socialism, you may call it bleeding heart liberalism.

The balance is somewhere is in between. Right now, government is playing both sides. It is acting like a capitalist while dealing with people and businesses crushed by Covid-19, and is acting like a socialist with businesses that are still running. This duality is a real problem.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by Samurai

As a bleeding heart liberal and a maggot, I guess I have to put up some defense.


Guess who decides what is legal and what is not? Voila... the government. That is why government makes statutes and regulations to prevent companies getting away with murder. They can go to an extreme and strangle the businesses from many any profit. This is called socialism, you may call it bleeding heart liberalism.

The balance is somewhere is in between. Right now, government is playing both sides. It is acting like a capitalist while dealing with people and businesses crushed by Covid-19, and is acting like a socialist with businesses that are still running. This duality is a real problem.

I am not against socialism or liberalism, but against liberalism propagated by elites. These people who sit in their glass houses declare that they are with poor. They are against all government policies whether good or bad. A hollywood or a bollywood elitist sermoning on social justice is a simple example.

Now coming to what the Goverment is supposed in a crisis like COVID. No one is sure. The Govt pushed and imposed a failed lock down is a matter of fact. That was lifted 4 months back. Why businesses are still shutting down and people getting fired? There is no demand, people are not doing discretionary spending. They are simply sitting at home and afraid of coming out.

What the Govt can do to kick start demand? Put more money in to pockets of people by cutting taxes or direct cash transfer?? Experts say in these situations, that may not work, people will simply save the money. So what is the solution?

But we will have to support weaker sections by transferring money directly to accounts. From what I know Govt has done this. But if we feel the amount is insufficient, Govt need to find resources. Only two ways left, borrow or hike the taxes. Now how many of the bleeding liberals will agree for a higher tax outgo for this purpose. My guess is as good as yours.

So the only way is borrow like there is no tomorrow. This was exactly countries like Greece and Venzuela did. Socialism does not have many shining examples to model on.

That is why Govt is playing in both the fronts. Otherwise like the businesses you will soon find the Govt bankrupt.

The voter of this country is very intelligent. He will forgive failures if the intention was not meant that way. Demonetization is a classic example. The intent of the exercise was not bring misery to people, but uncover the black money. It failed, but people still forgave the ruling dispensation in the elections there after. They feel atleast some one tried..

[ashish.uno]

Originally Posted by am1m

Could you point us to some link or data that shows how the money from that fund was spent? That would certainly provide some assurances and answers.

This page has very high-level information: https://www.pmcares.gov.in/en/web/page/faq More details would be welcome.

Ofcourse.

For example, you may look at this report in Economic times detailing how Rs. 2000 crores from PMCares have been allotted for procurement of 50,000 ventilators. The supply for which, I believe, is ongoing.
Link

You may also look at this report in TOI from August 2020 which mentions plans of financing 2 500 beds Covid hospitals in Bihar exlcusively funded from PMCares Fund trust.
Link

Since PMCares is a trust and will publish an Audit report, you are welcome to analyse the spend pattern, in case the motives of the funds and the man behind it are suspect.

Originally Posted by fordday

Is it true for USA?

I liked the sweeping finality of that part of your statement.

If that is so, this whole discussion seems pointless.

I spoke only about the persons in my extended family. 2 individuals from my mothers side (to be precise). As for the other part, this is a forum, nothing is pointless. Knock yourself out. We can have a discussion even on this

I get the severity of the situation. My point is to do all we can to help our near and dear ones, and if possible others. Rather than mindlessly doubting and criticizing each and everything.

[Cessna182]

Name-calling other members and blaming governments from the past won't get people jobs, so please stop this. Also, to those quoting statistics without context, India's population growth is headed downwards and many states are below the replacement levels.

If you are interested in a good conversation about the economy, globally and in India, Ruchir Sharma gave an interview yesterday. It was partially a promotion of his new book, but there were many interesting points.

https://youtu.be/F7L1llPoc24

[Carpainter]

The situation we find ourselves in at the moment is very regressive and in dire state. What is even more surprising is that the government that ordered lockdown to prevent spread of virus and save lives are now unable to do either of these and yet to submit to their mistake.

People losing their white collar jobs are resorting to trading which leads to increase in demat account opening. Not to mention they are at risk of losing whatever savings they have unless they have the right skills to know the correct way to do investment and mostly trading on speculation. Then there are some who are going in for gold loans as it is easy to get without much document or income proof leading to a surge in gold loan business for all the banks. But taking a loan to run your daily life is not a solution specially when you don't know if and when your salary will be full again or when you will get a new job. Heck, I've heard many private schools are up for sale in many parts of the country.

What saddens me most is the fact that even after all this suffering of poor to lower middle class to middle class, govt is turning deaf ears and busy making a new parliament. Trains haven't started, yet they are going to increase the fare by different means. With corona virus still firing on all cylinders, if this continues then that day is not far ahead when we will hear a suicide pandemic developing in our beloved country.

[puntOOs]

Originally Posted by poloman

Only two ways left, borrow or hike the taxes.

You have arrived at the right approach. Let me elaborate on this. Let us say this year we take a unexpected hit of 1000. Now this hit can be made up by making richer people pay more and/or borrowing from our future and/or absorbing the losses. A typical decision could be: let us absorb a hit of 200, raise taxes by 5% starting next year on higher incomes which give us back 500 and let us borrow from the future to the tune of 300.

No one is blaming the Govt for such a event happening and that a hit of 1000 happened. But regarding managing the fallout itself, they have to find the best way forward. Shortcomings can always happen but admitting what went wrong and correcting course is the main expectation we can have.

So the govt should decide the above breakup of numbers, explain why this approach make sense, track and manage to see if it works and course correct if it has not.

Imagine at the level of a family. A person loses their job due to COVID but is still accountable to manage their family right? They can blame COVID for their circumstances but ultimately have to see how to make the best of a bad situation.

[sunishsamuel]

Originally Posted by ashish.uno

Ofcourse.

For example, you may look at this report in Economic times detailing how Rs. 2000 crores from PMCares have been allotted for procurement of 50,000 ventilators. The supply for which, I believe, is ongoing.
Link

You may also look at this report in TOI from August 2020 which mentions plans of financing 2 500 beds Covid hospitals in Bihar exlcusively funded from PMCares Fund trust.
Link

Since PMCares is a trust and will publish an Audit report, you are welcome to analyse the spend pattern, in case the motives of the funds and the man behind it are suspect.

Rather than mindlessly doubting and criticizing each and everything.

Few of the articles that mentions the challenges with the ventilators procured under PM-Cares

1) RTI reveals huge gap in pricing

2) Gujarat Firm's Controversial Ventilators

NOTE: the above is from the Wire - which is known to be anti-India. So please read at your own risk.

3) Only 6% ventilators under PM-CARES manufactured so far


4) AgVa Manipulated PM Cares Ventilator Software

I don't think the intention is to mindlessly doubt and criticize everything. There were lot of promises and claims made but when the reality is different people will question. And that's the beauty of democracy isnt it ?

Instead of asking the government to be accountable, I am afraid if we are making a mistake by judging fellow citizens.

The cycle of spending and economy once stopped will affect everything for a long period of time. We had so much of data available on the demographic situation of India along with health care facilities in each state - so why didnt we implement selective lock down instead of blocking everything ?

Fine, that phase is over. Let's look ahead. But what we see is confusion and myopic policies. Instead of focusing on getting the skills developed, fixing infrastructure and supply chain management, coming up with policies that can improve manufacturing and consumption (like implementing LED lamps on the sides and rear for all trucks, making safety gadgets and tools mandatory for the skilled workers at the lower end - sanitation, plumbing, electrician etc.) simplifying approval related process, we are busy banning apps and games. And everything except the real issues are getting air time. I am not sure who got benefited eventually.

Agreed none of the above are easy, at-least show the intent and rest will follow.

Instead of hating all entrepreneurs, what is stopping from the government to formulate policies that can help resolve the issues with respect to minimum wages, job security etc ? Is it not reasonable to ask such forward looking policies ?

Why are we still creating an environment which is detrimental to do business and causing further damage to the employment prospects and investment climate ? The recent AGR case which involved telecom companies and the final judgement along with claims by Department of Telecom is a good example.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the topic of population - one side you see the educated and well off welcoming 3rd, 4th and 5th babies with "cute" videos on social media. And other side the Below poverty folks end up having more babies often due to ignorance or by the clarion call made by political and religious heads - and trust me no one is a saint here. Why can't consistent education and policies along with penalties (that are not too harsh) be implemented so that we do not end up increasing the population numbers further ?
.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by poloman

1. They are simply sitting at home and afraid of coming out.
Experts say in these situations, that may not work, people will simply save the money. So what is the solution?

2. So the only way is borrow like there is no tomorrow. This was exactly countries like Greece and Venzuela did. Socialism does not have many shining examples to model on.

1. There could be a section of society that can spend right now, but decides against it citing future concerns. Why would a citizen save if citizen is getting money directly from government ? Future medical expenses/education/retirement could be the reason ? On which fronts are the citizens of India covered ? Do we have a citizen friendly robust healthcare which will cater to citizens especially when they are retired and with limited income ? Do we have quality education at even reasonable costs ? Do we have retirement security in India even after paying hefty direct plus indirect taxes ? Since we don't have such things in place we tend to procrastinate expenditure and opt for savings. That savings is not getting good returns in India is another story.

2. How about reducing expenditure when things are halted ? Railways passenger services were not operational (and I guess they are still not operational) so we can assume that Railways was not fully operational. Was the salary paid in full then ? Government teachers ? When things are not fully operational, did the outgo from government reduce atleast where things were halted ?

Do we have any reasonably accurate data on number of jobs created in private and public sector during last 5 years ? Also some data GDP contribution by public and private sector and the trend over last decade or so ?

Originally Posted by JayPrashanth

The government. So, the government MUST be blamed for letting the virus come in without taking adequate measures.

Absolutely right. But I don't see this happening anytime soon. India has its Covid19 restrictions almost removed by now at a time when Europe is staring at renewing restrictions or even a partial lockdown. We could not prevent Corona from spreading and economy from crashing and now we are beyond the stage, in my view, where corrective measures can bring us back to pre-Covid19 times.

[ashish.uno]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

I don't think the intention is to mindlessly doubt and criticize everything. There were lot of promises and claims made but when the reality is different people will question. And that's the beauty of democracy isnt it ?

Instead of asking the government to be accountable, I am afraid if we are making a mistake by judging fellow citizens.

The cycle of spending and economy once stopped will affect everything. We seem to be having a chronic hatred for entrepreneurs,

See the expectations will hardly ever match reality. This holds true in all spheres of life, both individually and collectively. The question is can we be mature enough to realize this and offer constructive suggestions?

I am of the view that intention and competence are the only two things that matter in the long term.

Even then, these two qualities are sometimes not enough to guarantee success. Does that mean we condemn the man doing a difficult job in difficult times to the best of his ability. (talking in general terms)

PM starts a transparent, well publicized, public funded trust. Which will be audited and has head of various ministries (not the head of a political party as in PMRelief fund) as its trustees. Why cast aspersions so early?

I am not judging fellow members, merely trying to understand the thought process. Maybe there is something that has missed my eyes and i will be happy to be educated.

Only socialists and freeloaders have chronic hatred for entreprenuers. I have nothing but respect for them, their perseverance, commitment and contribution to society.

[Cessna182]

Originally Posted by ashish.uno

PM starts a transparent, well publicized, public funded trust. Which will be audited and has head of various ministries (not the head of a political party as in PMRelief fund) as its trustees. Why cast aspersions so early?

I am not judging fellow members, merely trying to understand the thought process. Maybe there is something that has missed my eyes and i will be happy to be educated.

Only socialists and freeloaders have chronic hatred for entreprenuers. I have nothing but respect for them, their perseverance, commitment and contribution to society.

If you donate to any organization, the minimum transparency and trust needs to be established. One should at least know where the money would be used. Will you give even your kids some money if you don't know where it will be used? Then why this aversion to transparency and this trumpeting of obfuscation?

For your kind information, every government employee was asked to pay a day's salary to the fund. Many even donated a month's salary. And yet no government body can audit the fund?

As for your name-calling, as I said earlier it won't help and I sincerely request you and anyone who uses these economic principles as pejoratives to read and understand more about economics in modern societies in successful countries. Please delete if OT.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

1. There could be a section of society that can spend right now, but decides against it citing future concerns. Why would a citizen save if citizen is getting money directly from government ? Future medical expenses/education/retirement could be the reason ?

We are talking about different class of people. I am talking about people who do the discretionary spend and keep the economy moving. A person who plans to buy a 1L mobile phone may not buy it or postpone the buy since he won't be able to flaunt it. A person who was eating out 4 times a month is scared to do it. A lady who spent 10K in a beauty parlor is too scared to go there. There are such millions of non essential spendings which keep the wheel of economy moving.
So any new savings by tax breaks or income coming in to people's hand will most probably will be saved which does not benefit any one at the moment.

But try removing the fear factor and then give the stimulus, there will be spending with vengeance. Timing matters a lot.

Also to people who say Govt is building this and that and not giving money to the people..Which one is better? Giving out doles or give a job? Give a fish or teach fishing? Agree, spending can be more judicious and can focus on quality infrastructure.

What is the productivity factor of NREGA? How much assets are being generated out of this colossal spend? Everyone knows these are simple hand out doles.

Any spending by Govt under current circumstances should be welcome.

The easiest thing in the world is to sit in ac rooms and criticize every one around and enjoy the gratification one get from it.

[chieftain]

It's quite amusing to see the olympic levels of mental gymnastics some people do to blame anything but the subpar job the government has done in dealing with this pandemic. I'd award a gold medal had I the authority!

It really isn't a political issue folks, it's the basic ability to govern. Don't let your own agenda/beliefs blind your judgement.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by ashish.uno

PM starts a transparent, well publicized, public funded trust. Which will be audited and has head of various ministries (not the head of a political party as in PMRelief fund) as its trustees. Why cast aspersions so early?

The size of the fund aside, what problem does this *new* fund solve that PMNRF could not?

[ABHI_1512]

Originally Posted by ashish.uno

See the expectations will hardly ever match reality. This holds true in all spheres of life, both individually and collectively. The question is can we be mature enough to realize this and offer constructive suggestions?

I am of the view that intention and competence are the only two things that matter in the long term.

Even then, these two qualities are sometimes not enough to guarantee success. Does that mean we condemn the man doing a difficult job in difficult times to the best of his ability. (talking in general terms)

PM starts a transparent, well publicized, public funded trust. Which will be audited and has head of various ministries (not the head of a political party as in PMRelief fund) as its trustees. Why cast aspersions so early?

I am not judging fellow members, merely trying to understand the thought process. Maybe there is something that has missed my eyes and i will be happy to be educated.

Only socialists and freeloaders have chronic hatred for entreprenuers. I have nothing but respect for them, their perseverance, commitment and contribution to society.

Intention and competence matter when you are on a track which is the best possible option amongst the rest. My intention and competence will always be judged no matter what. If my intention and lack of competence puts the lives of many in jeopardy, then that intention and competence doesn’t matter at all. A person has been elected to take care of the country as a whole, that man has the responsibility and best available resources to come up with well intentioned and competent directives. The country can’t be held hostage to the whims of intentions only.

PMcares was well publicised for sure, but don’t tell me it’s transparent at all. A public fund which denies RTI inquires into the fund can call itself anything but transparent !! And sorry to disappoint, PM relief fund is also headed by the PM only and not by any head of some political party. Also, the audit part you are mentioning loses its credibility when the firm entrusted with audit is a private entity and not CAG. That CAG will not audit the fund itself is a joke since the trust is run directly by PMO officials.

Judging others is a favourite thing to do these days. But instead of questioning the government on failures, we tend to question fellow members and friends. The government is not a joke. It has the best of resources, talent pool etc etc to run a country. Yes, policies can fail sometimes, but accepting failures goes a long way in assuaging people of the country.

We all know demonitisation broke the back of the informal economy but did anyone from the government say so ?? Did the policy helped in unearthing black money as it was propagated ? The answer is no and we all know it. But then try singing the intention lullaby to folks who have lost everything and are treated to double whammy of Covid as well.


Can anyone tell me here if the railway coaches which were turned to Covid wards were used even once across the country ?? Try knowing the amount of money spent on turning coaches into Covid wards and even without using once, those same coaches have been turned back to normal train coaches again. But yes, so what if whopping amount of money wasted, intention was right I guess !!