Mandsaur agitation: How demonetisation brought MP farmers onto streets

[Jacob Martin]

take admission in nursery class

Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his own level and beat you with sheer experience. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way on PDF. That is why I am not there on Twitter as well.

These are the same people who were dullards and failures in school and University. Could never get through to better courses. At the back of their mind they resent the fact that liberals had a better background in education that consequently provided them with better opportunities. They usually come from backgrounds where they are only the first or second generation to receive something resembling quality education.

Of course, that education never really broadened their horizon, as they view the same cultural baggage that hindered their education as a badge of honour. That, coupled with a sense of superiority based in casteist elitism, means that their egotism and combativeness knowns no bounds.

They will not be beaten by facts, as they have always been immune to them. The only point in life they are forced to deal with facts are during exams and job interviews, after which they promptly revert back to their fact-free existence. What would seem to you as arguments based in irrationality or deceit are their daily thought processes, which they proudly believe to be part of a cultural tradition.

In other words, we have lost them. Our education system has failed them and we must suffer the consequences.

 

[DineshS]

Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his own level and beat you with sheer experience. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way on PDF. That is why I am not there on Twitter as well.

Well, I argue with idiots, Islamic Jihadis & Christian fascists.
That's how I expose your kind, otherwise, you will continue to peddle your lies without debate.

LOL. I have exposed your kind so thoroughly in this thread that NONE of you instead saying how farmers are affected by Demo, have resorted to this crappy kindergarten clowning.

This itself shows the world who the idiots really are

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

@Jacob Martin dear indian,


Firstly, good to see you back. Hopefully, tooth all fixed and sweet tooth found remedy permanent.

If you recall I did ask you to look at the midnight strike from purely profit angle.. who made billions?

Also, look into MNCs interested in large scale farming to Make in India kinda thing... There is enough to find about credit card, digital payment giants and of course, business who would like to enter the market for payment with pin-pass.

As you bieng a LSE man would know quite well that we have entered a Post Truth world.. so debating the Truth is passe.

Don't you find it a bit odd that Mr. Modi being a devout hindu and Son of the Cow, the Deity worshiped as Holy Mother, would like to have all the gold from your temples.... Gold to be deposited into the banks and given paper in return.

Same ideas of Mr. Modi for privately held gold.. as your society values gold since times ancient. How many kilo tons... you know rather well.

So unless there is a wholistic picture to put the mindnight strike of Mr. Modi into proper perspective, I fear people would be chasing shadows... but hopefully, not you!

Looking forward to be thrilled by your compelling and balanced analysis.

It certainly will NOT convince the converted but other indians can certainly benefit from such an effort on your part.


Take care,

SPF

 

[Jacob Martin]

Well, I argue with idiots, Islamic Jihadis & Christian fascists.
That's how I expose your kind, otherwise, you will continue to peddle your lies without debate.

LOL. I have exposed your kind so thoroughly in this thread that NONE of you instead saying how farmers are affected by Demo, have resorted to this crappy kindergarten clowning.

This itself shows the world who the idiots really are

You win. I lose. Go home now.

 

[DineshS]

As you bieng a LSE man would know quite well that we have entered a Post Truth world.. so debating the Truth is passe.

We can debate about post truth till cows come home, pun intended.
Fact is, we have been living in a post truth world for the last 2000 years. One has to open their eyes and look at history from a neutral distance to know how truth this fact is.
Every century had it's social media, it's media and it's politics, just that the medium was different.

Just to spin it, Churchill is a hero for allies in WW2. From a subcontinent POV, for us, he is like Hitler, who perpetuated genocide at a scale never before seen in India.
So, is Churchill being hailed as a hero post-truth or him being at same level as Hitler, post-truth?

you absolutely nailed it when you said, 'Truth is passe'. Now, I just want to add, Whose Truth is passe?

You win. I lose. Go home now.

It ain't about winning or loosing.
It's about you not backing up your claims about farmers being affected by Demo.
Not only not backing up your claim, you tried derail the discussion by bringing in nonsense to belittle people who don't hold your POV. The worst of was the tango you played with your buddy in trying to add salt to the insult.

I Still want to debate with you on how farmers were affected by Demo, hope you don't back off. Would love to genuinely know your logic on this issue.

FYI, how & why are farmers from Karnataka, AP, TG, TN, Kerala, WB, Bihar & Punjab not affected by Demo? If they are, why are they not on streets protesting?

 

[Jacob Martin]

We can debate about post truth till cows come home, pun intended.
Fact is, we have been living in a post truth world for the last 2000 years. One has to open their eyes and look at history from a neutral distance to know how truth this fact is.
Every century had it's social media, it's media and it's politics, just that the medium was different.

Just to spin it, Churchill is a hero for allies in WW2. From a subcontinent POV, for us, he is like Hitler, who perpetuated genocide at a scale never before seen in India.
So, is Churchill being hailed as a hero post-truth or him being at same level as Hitler, post-truth?

you absolutely nailed it when you said, 'Truth is passe'. Now, I just want to add, Whose Truth is passe?



It ain't about winning or loosing.
It's about you not backing up your claims about farmers being affected by Demo.
Not only not backing up your claim, you tried derail the discussion by bringing in nonsense to belittle people who don't hold your POV. The worst of was the tango you played with your buddy in trying to add salt to the insult.

I Still want to debate with you on how farmers were affected by Demo, hope you don't back off. Would love to genuinely know your logic on this issue.

FYI, how & why are farmers from Karnataka, AP, TG, TN, Kerala, WB, Bihar & Punjab not affected by Demo? If they are, why are they not on streets protesting?

Three quick observations and then we are done.

First, if you want to communicate in a particular language, learn it. Your English is broken, and needs to be dismantled and resurrected from scratch.

Second, I am discussing the topic at hand. You can read my subsequent posts in response to @Sinopakfriend and others, if you want some insight. Just that I will not discuss it with you.

Third, why won't I discuss it with you? I promise this is the last of my insults directed at you. I won't discuss it with you because look at it this way - you are obviously not particularly bright. It is safe to assume that you struggled with academics at a stage of your life when your future prospects (such as career) depended upon it. Where is the guarantee that here on PDF, where nothing hinges on your understanding anything, you will suddenly become smarter and begin the arduous journey towards comprehension?

And now I will ignore you. From henceforth you can talk to yourself.

 

[DineshS]

Your English is broken, and needs to be dismantled and resurrected from scratch.

You have an 'and' after a ',' and it's my English that's broken?!

It's not your fault though. Typically your kind has always brought in unnecessary trifle things into debate where it's not needed.
Your English sucks but I don't care. I am here to get the gist what others are saying and just answer them. I couldn't care less how your English is or my English is because this is not an official memo or a novel to be published.

If you really want to gauge whose English is better between us, PM me and I will reply to your PM's on the weekends when I have loads of time to proof read my responses.
Right now I guess we both have to make do with each other's crappy broken English, full of grammatical errors.... but this is all moot.

The point I am still putting across, is the lack of any points from your kind to show how farmers were affected by Demo.
What next? My German worse than yours? or perhaps you want some DickMeasuring contest to stroke your e-peen.

 

[Jacob Martin]

@Jacob Martin dear indian,


Firstly, good to see you back. Hopefully, tooth all fixed and sweet tooth found remedy permanent.

If you recall I did ask you to look at the midnight strike from purely profit angle.. who made billions?

Also, look into MNCs interested in large scale farming to Make in India kinda thing... There is enough to find about credit card, digital payment giants and of course, business who would like to enter the market for payment with pin-pass.

As you bieng a LSE man would know quite well that we have entered a Post Truth world.. so debating the Truth is passe.

Don't you find it a bit odd that Mr. Modi being a devout hindu and Son of the Cow, the Deity worshiped as Holy Mother, would like to have all the gold from your temples.... Gold to be deposited into the banks and given paper in return.

Same ideas of Mr. Modi for privately held gold.. as your society values gold since times ancient. How many kilo tons... you know rather well.

So unless there is a wholistic picture to put the mindnight strike of Mr. Modi into proper perspective, I fear people would be chasing shadows... but hopefully, not you!

Looking forward to be thrilled by your compelling and balanced analysis.

It certainly will NOT convince the converted but other indians can certainly benefit from such an effort on your part.


Take care,

SPF

Hello...

Yeah tooth all fine now. Replies are sporadic as time is currently at a premium.

As a preliminary point, I must say that what the government is doing is that it exploits the inherent social stability of Indian society. This stability may be due to various reasons, a certain sense of docility may be one of them. Be as it may, the fact that there was so little opposition to something as problematic as demonetization is being shown as indicative of its success. The fact is, there is not one other country in the world where there is relative peace and stability despite of such a venal ruling class, total absence of rule of law and a pervasive mindset where might is right. So lack of violent opposition in itself offers little insight.

By the motive for demonetization you mean clandestine bank re-capitalization, then it hasn't served that purpose. The people who deposited cash promptly withdrew all of it as soon as they could. Maybe the push to get hold of all the gold was also aimed towards re-capitalization, but even that has flopped miserably.

About the windfall gain to banks and e-payment portals, even that didn't end up happening. Paytm (the most popular of the payment systems in use) usage returned back to its pre-demonetization levels. So all the grand plans are still-born.

However, let me present an alternative explanation. My gut feeling is that the government did not hatch these plans as part of some neo-liberal initiative. They are partly political stunts (playing to the galleries) and partly misinformed understanding of economics.

It is an open secret that the ex-RBI Governor and the PMO were at loggerheads over macro-economic policy. Raghuram Rajan understood the limits of monetary policy, and restricted its use to target inflation only. The government, OTOH, has a monetary/fiscal policy that is the same - soak up as much money from the public as possible and make it available for politically motivated populism.

This process has started as soon as the government came to power - it had already made it extremely unattractive to invest in anything apart from either government securities or equity-linked instruments. I have little idea as to what they have achieved so far by doing so.

As for the aspect of vested interest, I think what is at play is bad advice coming from dubious quarters, rather than an actual conspiracy. To the type of ignoramuses running financial policy in India today, the lessons from 2008 is that we need more banking. Barely had the dust from the GFC settled down, when a Banking Reform Committee made some stunning recommendations. These included, inter alia, that we open our system to OTC derivatives and the sort of digitization dreams being implemented. So these delusions have been in the making for quite a while. Of course, due to a profound lack of understanding about what it takes to digitize an economy, these will remain dreams.

About the general economic malaise that has been inflicted on the economy; well, I don't think it is the government's doing. The global trends that are shaping the economic landscape are out of their control. Disruptive technology has made manufacturing a game of progressively diminishing returns as far as job growth is concerned. Where the government is at fault is for the fact that they have no idea about these processes. The fact that China gained from manufacturing is as relevant an economic lesson today as is the fact that Denmark gained from dairy cows. We have missed that bus and if that is our game plan for job growth, then we are in some deep s**t.

Basically, ours is a situation analogous to US foreign policy. The purported aims are not neo-liberalism or neo-conservativism. It just so happens that the people who are framing policies are informed by these ideas.

As for post-truth, I suspect we have always lived in a post-truth world. There is nothing about misinformation and propaganda that Joseph Goebbels did not know. I suspect what is different now is that the traditional safeguards have caved in. What we are doing right now is a classic example. We are both being forced to interact with morons who have a level-playing field due to the anonymous nature of this platform. I think the moron I just ignored in my previous post compared Churchill to Hitler. His view is as precious as ours. That is the power of social media. So what it has done is that the kind of drivel that was part of work-floor or drinking hole conversation has now become mainstream. The filter that people used to distinguish between that and news received from genuine outlets has disappeared.

So the allegation that media is biased and motivated has become irrelevant. It does not matter anymore, because the mantle of disseminating propaganda has passed on to the crowd.

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

Hello...

Yeah tooth all fine now. Replies are sporadic as time is currently at a premium.

As a preliminary point, I must say that what the government is doing is that it exploits the inherent social stability of Indian society. This stability may be due to various reasons, a certain sense of docility may be one of them. Be as it may, the fact that there was so little opposition to something as problematic as demonetization is being shown as indicative of its success. The fact is, there is not one other country in the world where there is relative peace and stability despite of such a venal ruling class, total absence of rule of law and a pervasive mindset where might is right. So lack of violent opposition in itself offers little insight.

By the motive for demonetization you mean clandestine bank re-capitalization, then it hasn't served that purpose. The people who deposited cash promptly withdrew all of it as soon as they could. Maybe the push to get hold of all the gold was also aimed towards re-capitalization, but even that has flopped miserably.

About the windfall gain to banks and e-payment portals, even that didn't end up happening. Paytm (the most popular of the payment systems in use) usage returned back to its pre-demonetization levels. So all the grand plans are still-born.

However, let me present an alternative explanation. My gut feeling is that the government did not hatch these plans as part of some neo-liberal initiative. They are partly political stunts (playing to the galleries) and partly misinformed understanding of economics.

It is an open secret that the ex-RBI Governor and the PMO were at loggerheads over macro-economic policy. Raghuram Rajan understood the limits of monetary policy, and restricted its use to target inflation only. The government, OTOH, has a monetary/fiscal policy that is the same - soak up as much money from the public as possible and make it available for politically motivated populism.

This process has started as soon as the government came to power - it had already made it extremely unattractive to invest in anything apart from either government securities or equity-linked instruments. I have little idea as to what they have achieved so far by doing so.

As for the aspect of vested interest, I think what is at play is bad advice coming from dubious quarters, rather than an actual conspiracy. To the type of ignoramuses running financial policy in India today, the lessons from 2008 is that we need more banking. Barely had the dust from the GFC settled down, when a Banking Reform Committee made some stunning recommendations. These included, inter alia, that we open our system to OTC derivatives and the sort of digitization dreams being implemented. So these delusions have been in the making for quite a while. Of course, due to a profound lack of understanding about what it takes to digitize an economy, these will remain dreams.

About the general economic malaise that has been inflicted on the economy; well, I don't think it is the government's doing. The global trends that are shaping the economic landscape are out of their control. Disruptive technology has made manufacturing a game of progressively diminishing returns as far as job growth is concerned. Where the government is at fault is for the fact that they have no idea about these processes. The fact that China gained from manufacturing is as relevant an economic lesson today as is the fact that Denmark gained from dairy cows. We have missed that bus and if that is our game plan for job growth, then we are in some deep s**t.

Basically, ours is a situation analogous to US foreign policy. The purported aims are not neo-liberalism or neo-conservativism. It just so happens that the people who are framing policies are informed by these ideas.

As for post-truth, I suspect we have always lived in a post-truth world. There is nothing about misinformation and propaganda that Joseph Goebbels did not know. I suspect what is different now is that the traditional safeguards have caved in. What we are doing right now is a classic example. We are both being forced to interact with morons who have a level-playing field due to the anonymous nature of this platform. I think the moron I just ignored in my previous post compared Churchill to Hitler. His view is as precious as ours. That is the power of social media. So what it has done is that the kind of drivel that was part of work-floor or drinking hole conversation has now become mainstream. The filter that people used to distinguish between that and news received from genuine outlets has disappeared.

So the allegation that media is biased and motivated has become irrelevant. It does not matter anymore, because the mantle of disseminating propaganda has passed on to the crowd.

Young man,


You honour me! You prove thant my belief in humnaity is valid. That you are as human as I am.

I wish you be going on the edge of creative thinking and push me to the limits os my own understanding. You have NO right to disapoint me!

I shall discet your post and throw it back to you... with belief that you shalll come back fighting...pushing me to the edge...

When you do that, you shall make me proud! And prove that you and I are human in Equality!


Rest assured that I shall never accept anything less than exceptional from you... you can waste your energies on your half wit countrymen... but you give 100% to Humanity.

Also, you are not allowed to prove me wrong!

Bless you my brother human where ever you are...

You know that I shall oppose you when it comes to Sino-Pak World...but then that is what Life is all about.

You enjoy the eveinng... Tomorrow I shall attempt to demolish your post...out of Love as elder Brother..and you shall demolish my post our of Love as younger Brohter.


SPF

 

[DineshS]

Young man,


You honour me! You prove thant my belief in humnaity is valid. That you are as human as I am.

I wish you be going on the edge of creative thinking and push me to the limits os my own understanding. You have NO right to disapoint me!

I shall discet your post and throw it back to you... with belief that you shalll come back fighting...pushing me to the edge...

When you do that, you shall make me proud! And prove that you and I are human in Equality!


Rest assured that I shall never accept anything less than exceptional from you... you can waste your energies on your half wit countrymen... but you give 100% to Humanity.

Also, you are not allowed to prove me wrong!

Bless you my brother human where ever you are...

You know that I shall oppose you when it comes to Sino-Pak World...but then that is what Life is all about.

You enjoy the eveinng... Tomorrow I shall attempt to demolish your post...out of Love as elder Brother..and you shall demolish my post our of Love as younger Brohter.


SPF

May be you would consider the counter opinion too.

Let this 'half wit' place some facts, which I would love the 'full wits' to counter, rather than insulting us.

1. Demo resulted in temporary cash crunch, no doubt but this is more or less resolved couple of months back.
2. During DeMo, if anyone had any cash, they could always deposit the money in their accounts. For example, if one had a Billion rupees in cash, that person could carry the billion rupees and deposit it - no one stopped them.
3. Only people who COULD NOT deposit are the people who earned their money through illegal means or hoards of businesses who did not pay tax.
4. Farmers had ZERO impact due to DeMo. Farmers in India DON'T have to pay income tax. A farmer could deposit a billion rupees and sit pretty.
5. After DeMo, the increase in tax base has gone up significantly. Meaning, govt has a base that's much higher than ever to collect taxes.

Now let's come to the uncomfortable facts.
1. A significant number of businesses run on black money. These were badly affected. What our 'full wit' friend wants is for this to continue unabated for some reason. Tomorrow these same people will take out dharnas against corruption in India.
2. A significant political parties run on black money. They were badly affected as well.
3. Most businesses that hire labour, pay them in cash. That means paying them less than what's legal but showing full amount. Since the labour is unorganized at this level, there is no tracking. These businesses were badly affected, for example, real estate. After DeMo, labour although initially faced tough situation due to lack of jobs is more or less happy since they are earning what they ought to have earned rightfully.

Some disgusting facts.
1. Businesses & Political parties that have lost their hard earned illegal money & power are sore at the current govt.
2. Since they can't say anything lest they get exposed, they fire the gun from the shoulders of the one group that no political dispensation dare to talk back - Farmers.
3. The farmer groups are strangely agitating only in BJP ruled states. In other states, it's as if the farmers have no crisis.
4. The people behind the agitations caught on camera are exclusively from Congress party urging people to burn vehicles, Police stations etc.

If only instead of generic economic lessons from our 'full wit' friend, we get some facts to state why & how DeMo affected people, it would have been great.
As they say, you would never find two economists saying the same thing. there are economists who are pro-DeMo and anti-DeMo, for various reasons, some genuine and some politics.

Ponder this fact though. DeMo was recommended by RBI to Indian govt long back.
It is not some thing Modi got up one fine day and decided to do it, ala Tuglaq.

Coming to RR Rajan. the less sais the better. This is same clown that gave away thousands of crores of rupees to Mallya without collateral because his PM buddy MMS asked him to.

Your 'full wit' friend has political agenda, hence the gripe. When challenged to debate on facts, he has always run away as proved in this thread.

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

May be you would consider the counter opinion too.

Let this 'half wit' place some facts, which I would love the 'full wits' to counter, rather than insulting us.

1. Demo resulted in temporary cash crunch, no doubt but this is more or less resolved couple of months back.
2. During DeMo, if anyone had any cash, they could always deposit the money in their accounts. For example, if one had a Billion rupees in cash, that person could carry the billion rupees and deposit it - no one stopped them.
3. Only people who COULD NOT deposit are the people who earned their money through illegal means or hoards of businesses who did not pay tax.
4. Farmers had ZERO impact due to DeMo. Farmers in India DON'T have to pay income tax. A farmer could deposit a billion rupees and sit pretty.
5. After DeMo, the increase in tax base has gone up significantly. Meaning, govt has a base that's much higher than ever to collect taxes.

Now let's come to the uncomfortable facts.
1. A significant number of businesses run on black money. These were badly affected. What our 'full wit' friend wants is for this to continue unabated for some reason. Tomorrow these same people will take out dharnas against corruption in India.
2. A significant political parties run on black money. They were badly affected as well.
3. Most businesses that hire labour, pay them in cash. That means paying them less than what's legal but showing full amount. Since the labour is unorganized at this level, there is no tracking. These businesses were badly affected, for example, real estate. After DeMo, labour although initially faced tough situation due to lack of jobs is more or less happy since they are earning what they ought to have earned rightfully.

Some disgusting facts.
1. Businesses & Political parties that have lost their hard earned illegal money & power are sore at the current govt.
2. Since they can't say anything lest they get exposed, they fire the gun from the shoulders of the one group that no political dispensation dare to talk back - Farmers.
3. The farmer groups are strangely agitating only in BJP ruled states. In other states, it's as if the farmers have no crisis.
4. The people behind the agitations caught on camera are exclusively from Congress party urging people to burn vehicles, Police stations etc.

If only instead of generic economic lessons from our 'full wit' friend, we get some facts to state why & how DeMo affected people, it would have been great.
As they say, you would never find two economists saying the same thing. there are economists who are pro-DeMo and anti-DeMo, for various reasons, some genuine and some politics.

Ponder this fact though. DeMo was recommended by RBI to Indian govt long back.
It is not some thing Modi got up one fine day and decided to do it, ala Tuglaq.

Coming to RR Rajan. the less sais the better. This is same clown that gave away thousands of crores of rupees to Mallya without collateral because his PM buddy MMS asked him to.

Your 'full wit' friend has political agenda, hence the gripe. When challenged to debate on facts, he has always run away as proved in this thread.

Dear indian,


Please, allow me to thank you for putting forward your views as you see them. You made the effort of composing your thoughts/beliefs as you saw them fit. This on its own is commendable.

@Jacob Martin enjoys my esteem because of his ability to have critical view of himself as person and honesty towards analysing his beloved india despite him being avidly patriotic. This is quality which I do value... he and I don't have to agree on anything...however, this doesn't hold us back from a respectful discourse.

Normally, I don't engage other indians on this forum for reasons of them going either abusive or too frigid to have self critique. But there are very many indian friends who are the total opposite. They are perhaps more patriotic than the zealous nationalists.

When I shall repond to Jacob's post... I shall keep your valuable input in mind.

I think I should stop saying this...but perhaps for the last time.... I have NOTHING against india or indians...anything that advances Human Condition anywhere is beautiful sight to behold. I do have opposing perspective when it comes to certain state policies of your country. Herein as I value the feedback and retort that I recieve from valued indian friends. We do respectully agree to disagree. In the process, my sense is, we do learn from each other. Good thing!


Allow me to wish you the very best in life.

Regards,


SPF

 

[DineshS]

Dear indian,


Please, allow me to thank you for putting forward your views as you see them. You made the effort of composing your thoughts/beliefs as you saw them fit. This on its own is commendable.

@Jacob Martin enjoys my esteem because of his ability to have critical view of himself as person and honesty towards analysing his beloved india despite him being avidly patriotic. This is quality which I do value... he and I don't have to agree on anything...however, this doesn't hold us back from a respectful discourse.

Normally, I don't engage other indians on this forum for reasons of them going either abusive or too frigid to have self critique. But there are very many indian friends who are the total opposite. They are perhaps more patriotic than the zealous nationalists.

When I shall repond to Jacob's post... I shall keep your valuable input in mind.

I think I should stop saying this...but perhaps for the last time.... I have NOTHING against india or indians...anything that advances Human Condition anywhere is beautiful sight to behold. I do have opposing perspective when it comes to certain state policies of your country. Herein as I value the feedback and retort that I recieve from valued indian friends. We do respectully agree to disagree. In the process, my sense is, we do learn from each other. Good thing!


Allow me to wish you the very best in life.

Regards,


SPF

Humbly accept the reply.

Just to clarify, there are a quite a few Indians who is on the opposite end of political spectrum to mine, Like Jacob. I would not dare treat them anything more than that, let alone think of them lacking love for India.

Good luck to you too mate.

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

Hello...

Yeah tooth all fine now. Replies are sporadic as time is currently at a premium.

As a preliminary point, I must say that what the government is doing is that it exploits the inherent social stability of Indian society. This stability may be due to various reasons, a certain sense of docility may be one of them. Be as it may, the fact that there was so little opposition to something as problematic as demonetization is being shown as indicative of its success. The fact is, there is not one other country in the world where there is relative peace and stability despite of such a venal ruling class, total absence of rule of law and a pervasive mindset where might is right. So lack of violent opposition in itself offers little insight.

By the motive for demonetization you mean clandestine bank re-capitalization, then it hasn't served that purpose. The people who deposited cash promptly withdrew all of it as soon as they could. Maybe the push to get hold of all the gold was also aimed towards re-capitalization, but even that has flopped miserably.

About the windfall gain to banks and e-payment portals, even that didn't end up happening. Paytm (the most popular of the payment systems in use) usage returned back to its pre-demonetization levels. So all the grand plans are still-born.

However, let me present an alternative explanation. My gut feeling is that the government did not hatch these plans as part of some neo-liberal initiative. They are partly political stunts (playing to the galleries) and partly misinformed understanding of economics.

It is an open secret that the ex-RBI Governor and the PMO were at loggerheads over macro-economic policy. Raghuram Rajan understood the limits of monetary policy, and restricted its use to target inflation only. The government, OTOH, has a monetary/fiscal policy that is the same - soak up as much money from the public as possible and make it available for politically motivated populism.

This process has started as soon as the government came to power - it had already made it extremely unattractive to invest in anything apart from either government securities or equity-linked instruments. I have little idea as to what they have achieved so far by doing so.

As for the aspect of vested interest, I think what is at play is bad advice coming from dubious quarters, rather than an actual conspiracy. To the type of ignoramuses running financial policy in India today, the lessons from 2008 is that we need more banking. Barely had the dust from the GFC settled down, when a Banking Reform Committee made some stunning recommendations. These included, inter alia, that we open our system to OTC derivatives and the sort of digitization dreams being implemented. So these delusions have been in the making for quite a while. Of course, due to a profound lack of understanding about what it takes to digitize an economy, these will remain dreams.

About the general economic malaise that has been inflicted on the economy; well, I don't think it is the government's doing. The global trends that are shaping the economic landscape are out of their control. Disruptive technology has made manufacturing a game of progressively diminishing returns as far as job growth is concerned. Where the government is at fault is for the fact that they have no idea about these processes. The fact that China gained from manufacturing is as relevant an economic lesson today as is the fact that Denmark gained from dairy cows. We have missed that bus and if that is our game plan for job growth, then we are in some deep s**t.

Basically, ours is a situation analogous to US foreign policy. The purported aims are not neo-liberalism or neo-conservativism. It just so happens that the people who are framing policies are informed by these ideas.

As for post-truth, I suspect we have always lived in a post-truth world. There is nothing about misinformation and propaganda that Joseph Goebbels did not know. I suspect what is different now is that the traditional safeguards have caved in. What we are doing right now is a classic example. We are both being forced to interact with morons who have a level-playing field due to the anonymous nature of this platform. I think the moron I just ignored in my previous post compared Churchill to Hitler. His view is as precious as ours. That is the power of social media. So what it has done is that the kind of drivel that was part of work-floor or drinking hole conversation has now become mainstream. The filter that people used to distinguish between that and news received from genuine outlets has disappeared.

So the allegation that media is biased and motivated has become irrelevant. It does not matter anymore, because the mantle of disseminating propaganda has passed on to the crowd.

Valued friend,


I had to sleep on my reply... didn't want to dishonour your thoughtful post.

I must admit that I do like the cohesiveness, simplicity and 'flow' in your thoughts. Made me enjoy reading it.

As you know I neither like debating nor arguing... and when the dialouge is intelligent, well... it does bring joy in discourse. My operating principle is always beginning with 'you are right, I am right', and if there is quality then dialouge can progress, leaving understanding as fruits of mature discourse. Then there is 'flow'.


Regarding, your post... I can not but agree with the thrust of it. So, sorry, no throwing back at ya!

However, I do maintain that midnight strike on indians was not the brain child of the current government... that it was executed with such haste only exposed the inherit contradictions of the system. Which when analysed and managed correctly will only benefit indians in the long run.

So, this self inflicted adversity did bring a blessing in disguise. I have no doubt that you would figure that one out.

RBI has in fact served indian state, thus the people, rather well in the past couple of decades. It did produce some outstanding thinking-bankers... your man in BIS, as case in point.

You did correctly pointed out about the 'desperate' need of showing off decisiveness. However, the rootcase evaded itself in your composition. I tend to believe it had to with time issue. Otherwise, you could have provided your views on the rootcause as well. Please, do.

If you look closely the shinny story about the 1+ bln market and youth dividend etc., bestowed daily on your population and this demonetisation strike... indeed, suffering is self inflicted.

Apart from showing resoluteness, I do believe that your country is being prepared to be fully opened up for MNCs... be it GMO on large scale farming or pharama.... And not every thing is sinister, as you tried to underline... That being said, by creating the operating conditions for local and international big business, I do see increase in suffering.

Is it possible that systematic promotion of indianness* and inspiring the masses to regain mythical glories can perhaps serve a broader purpose?

Nationalism like uncontrolled religious zeal is a caner for humanity.

Nationalism and Humanism are polar opposite, of course. While you and some others here on PDF do try to promote Humanism..which I have supported all along, are in minority...and shrinking.

If we look at the global picture, we can see this intertwinning of media-big business-politics.... is it any different in your lovely country?

The indian establishment of yesteryears has been replaced by a new corp of ambitious clutch...leaning very havily towards the DC led West. Nothing wrong with it. But it does bring with it new challenges, notwithstanding the brovados of indian independence. Not even China and Russia would directly confront the US.. not yet anyway. Hyper power afterall.

Now how does it relate to matter at hand?

Why don't you crack the utterly simple Code and tell me what is the broader Context, governing the emerging dynamics.

Somehow, I do have this growing feeling that your good country will go through the cycle of identity rollercoaster. At the same time I also sense that the inhert need for peace might pull the plug to any nastiness that such enterprises bring with them as byproducts. Call it self interest or Humanism...opposing forces to the emerging power equations in india.

It is in the nature of political beast to sell snake oil... how could it be any different in your lands. Global economy and financial architecture is going through a transformation.. a downwards trend. Apart from a controlled dismantenling, I do fear a massive repeat of 2007-2008.
Many will be going belly up.... bad omens...since, this breeds the grounds for major conflicts...especially when nationlistic populism is already anchored.

It is a separate dialouge to dig deepr into why/how your country missed the manufacturing train and how its going to be almost impossible to attain it...barring some labour intensive industries... global supply chain is very entrenched. We shall keep hearing 'great' news of someone opening bln plus plants... but when calculated from population to employment ratios... you know what I mean.


Looking forward to have your critique. You take care!

SPF


PS. English is not my first language, so there will be mistakes in spellings and grammar. Do, ignore, please.

Also, every now and then indulging in good hearted, respectful humour is a good thing. Mostly, I don't. My posting here in this section are but resverse mirroring of the obvious... I am sure people like you understand that actually I mean well to my fellow humans, be it indians!


(*I wanted to say hinduness, but, that might be percieved as intolerance on my part)

 

[wiseone2]

@Jacob Martin @baajey @padamchen @takeiteasy @ashok321

what is the solution ??
Implement a clearing house where checks are expedited in 2-3 days

@Jacob Martin dear indian,

Also, look into MNCs interested in large scale farming to Make in India kinda thing... There is enough to find about credit card, digital payment giants and of course, business who would like to enter the market for payment with pin-pass.

Mark my words:
there will be no large scale farming by MNCs in India

 

[pothead]

These are the same people who were dullards and failures in school and University. Could never get through to better courses. At the back of their mind they resent the fact that liberals had a better background in education that consequently provided them with better opportunities. They usually come from backgrounds where they are only the first or second generation to receive something resembling quality education.

This is some serious elitist shit bordering on mani Iyer kind of arrogance.

Do people like these clowns exist in real life? I have met a tiny few like these in my life and they usually are shown their place in few minutes. Surprising thing about these elitists is that they are as cowardly as hell. First spanking and they bend down and lift their bottoms us. Must be something genetic, something hey are used to doing for centuries first in front of Mughals and next in front of the white man.