This Tuesday our honourable Prime Minister hogged the prime time , a time usually reserved for the likes of Arnab Goswami. The nation had wanted to know many things. Such as, was the lockdown going to be extended? If so what would it’s restrictions be? When can businesses start? What about the migrant labour ( God, how I hate the word. As if they are some kind of transient slaves, who come and go according to our wishes and command)? He spent half an hour on prime time basically to inform the nation that his finance person would get back to us.
Well true to the PMs word, the Finance minister showed up on TV the next day. This time at 4 PM so as to not cut into either the Ramayan broadcasts in the morning or Arnab’s TRP ratings in the evening. From then on there has been a steady slow drip of disjointed drivel masquerading as reform/stimulus.Whatever happened to the Big Bang theory of reforms. Someone forgot to inform the FM that reforms work ideally when they shake the foundations of conventions and traditions. Incremental, marginal reforms are doomed to failure at the starting gate.
I am not sure if the FM was briefed on how many zeroes there are in 20000000000000.? Not sure if I got that right..but what is a zero, here or there. I know my phone calculator can’t handle it. Neither can our FM, it seems. Maybe her brief, was something very brief, like make it sound like 20 lakh crore in 2020. The theme is not Covid, it is 2020.
Anyway, from Wednesday onwards we have been exposed to never ending episodes of the equivalent of watching paint dry. What our FM lacked in content, she was unable to make up with oratorial or sartorial skills unlike her master. So here we are, with no clue as to where we are and where we are headed. To be fair, it is hard to come up with a number like 20 lakh crores and expect someone to come up with the math. There are two approaches to budgeting, planning and stimulus’s..bottoms up or top down..but never to a slogan like 20 lakh crores in 2020. Imagine, if she takes 20 days to unravel her stimulus plan? Just to stick to the theme?
Smoke and mirrors cannot make watching paint dry, exciting. How is refunding income tax to people who have paid more than their share, to be considered a stimulus? And what is it going to stimulate? Also how is stuffing an absurd amount of potentially bad MSME loans onto Indian bank balance sheets a stimulant? All that will stimulate is the forced euthanasia of Indian banks. Cutting advance tax rates by 25% when most people are trying to figure if they will have any income to pay tax on. Is that a reform. Or is it a stimulus? And old schemes, freshly dusted, inflated and sold as brand new stimuli. And she still has a long way to go. She may run out of old schemes to re present. Like I said 20 lakh crores has a lot of zeroes.
I can’t wait for the next instalment of watching paint dry.
Well true to the PMs word, the Finance minister showed up on TV the next day. This time at 4 PM so as to not cut into either the Ramayan broadcasts in the morning or Arnab’s TRP ratings in the evening. From then on there has been a steady slow drip of disjointed drivel masquerading as reform/stimulus.Whatever happened to the Big Bang theory of reforms. Someone forgot to inform the FM that reforms work ideally when they shake the foundations of conventions and traditions. Incremental, marginal reforms are doomed to failure at the starting gate.
I am not sure if the FM was briefed on how many zeroes there are in 20000000000000.? Not sure if I got that right..but what is a zero, here or there. I know my phone calculator can’t handle it. Neither can our FM, it seems. Maybe her brief, was something very brief, like make it sound like 20 lakh crore in 2020. The theme is not Covid, it is 2020.
Anyway, from Wednesday onwards we have been exposed to never ending episodes of the equivalent of watching paint dry. What our FM lacked in content, she was unable to make up with oratorial or sartorial skills unlike her master. So here we are, with no clue as to where we are and where we are headed. To be fair, it is hard to come up with a number like 20 lakh crores and expect someone to come up with the math. There are two approaches to budgeting, planning and stimulus’s..bottoms up or top down..but never to a slogan like 20 lakh crores in 2020. Imagine, if she takes 20 days to unravel her stimulus plan? Just to stick to the theme?
Smoke and mirrors cannot make watching paint dry, exciting. How is refunding income tax to people who have paid more than their share, to be considered a stimulus? And what is it going to stimulate? Also how is stuffing an absurd amount of potentially bad MSME loans onto Indian bank balance sheets a stimulant? All that will stimulate is the forced euthanasia of Indian banks. Cutting advance tax rates by 25% when most people are trying to figure if they will have any income to pay tax on. Is that a reform. Or is it a stimulus? And old schemes, freshly dusted, inflated and sold as brand new stimuli. And she still has a long way to go. She may run out of old schemes to re present. Like I said 20 lakh crores has a lot of zeroes.
I can’t wait for the next instalment of watching paint dry.
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