"I have never made but
one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And
God granted it."
—Voltaire (French,
1694-1778)
Word for the day
Commodious (adj)
Spacious and convenient;
roomy: a commodious apartment.
Malice towards none
"Intellectual
Bankruptcy".....huum!
Should government consider
making it part of the proposed Bankruptcy Law?
First random thought this morning
The monkey of Brexit has been riding the back of global financial
markets for some time now. No respite is seen from this lingering worry till
June.
There have been strong arguments made, both in favor and against
Brexit. The June referendum might settle the matter for now.
What I fail to decipher is how Britons would overcome the lure of
free ECB money and free European market that may explode with rehabilitation of
millions of refugees. My vote is "nay".
Could it be different this time - 1
In my view, Indian economy and hence the Indian financial markets
(equities, bonds, currency) are on the cusp of a major transformation. A
successful crossover may lead to multi decade bull market in Indian assets;
whereas a failure at this juncture will push us back by a decade at the least.
The markets are certainly sensing this opportunity. But the
investors remain skeptical about the chances of success given their
disappointing empirical experience.
The first generation reforms that began to take shape in mid 1980s
when a non-career politician (Rajiv Gandhi) and his sundry friends took over
the mantle to unshackle the Indian economy from the traditional feudal
lordships. The outcome was rather disappointing. The traditional feudal lords,
and the new uncontrolled "whatever it takes" class of entrepreneurs
overwhelmed the good intentions of inexperienced leaders.
The economy ended a happening decade in an unprecedented fiscal
crisis with domestic investors badly bruised by the first major scam in the
Indian financial marked bruised . I call it Reliance-Harshad phase.
The fiscal crisis of early 1990s forced Indian government to
initiate next phase of reforms, including opening Indian market to foreign
investors . The reforms in this phase, in my view, were hurried, reluctant, and
guided purely by short term goals. The adhocism in the policy making was
too palpable. The conceptual framework for inclusion and holistic growth was
conspicuous by its omission in the entire "reform" narrative. The
consequence was rise in income inequalities, civil unrest, and social division.
Though this phase provided a good platform to take off, the Indian economy did
never really took off. Despite getting a humongous opportunity in Y2K, for lack
of conceptual development framework we could not make India a knowledge base
economy.
The two material positives of this phase were (a) emergence of a
strong middle class and its acceptance as a political influence group; and (b)
beginning of a move towards devolution of greater power to the federal states
and local bodies. This was the age of Maruti, Satellite Television and
beginning of the end of Congress as sole custodian of Indian democracy. I call
it Maruti-SEBI (an epitome of adhocism in policy making) era.
With the nuclear blast at Pokharan in 1998, India embarked on a
new phase of economic policy - driven by nationalism and self-reliance. The
then NDA government embarked on a ambitious credit driven infrastructure
building program to overcome the impact of sanctions and global slowdown. This
was a classic mistake of advancement of investment demand; that too without
making any concerted effort to augment future consumption demand that would
justify the so called advanced investment. The subsequent UPA governments not
only continued with the mistake but made it worse through lax governance
standards. Indian financial system is still bleeding from the natural fallout
of this mistake.....to continue tomorrow
