A Rogue Who Nearly Became A Bigger Rogue (ie, An Economist)

Somewhere in the course of my education, I lost my way and considered – only briefly, I promise you – becoming an economist.
 
Ok, ok, I know what you are thinking with an involuntary shudder and your eyes rolling upwards.  How could this guy, a normal (well, relatively, shall we say?) self-respecting, law-abiding, well-nourished chap, who loves walnuts dipped in chocolate and never grew a beard and has an IQ – when reports last came in - above 22, from a decent middle-class background with family values that included watching Hum Log and bargaining with auto drivers and rinsing empty milk sachets to extract eleven additional molecules to that half-litre…. how could this guy even think that he should study Economics?  Yes, I know, I know, it can happen to anyone and Society should be forgiving. 
 
Now for the good news: I redeemed myself by flipping through an Econ textbook.  What I saw there was that one bane of human civilization which everyone agrees is an unnecessary evil but nobody does anything about: it’s called Math, and economics is full of it, all of it designed by sadists who have had their eyebrows pierced against their will.  I would rather swim with a starving Great White Shark in a baby pool.  So, economics took a back seat (in another car). 
 
Later on, in Misguided Life (don’t shudder, this para ends quickly), I even started teaching economics to a bunch of homicidal, ideologically-vacuumed, disengaged, moribund misanthropes – we called them college students to provide a veneer of respectability.  We had classes on aggregate demand, full employment and marginal revenue and pretended that none of this was fiction (mind you, this was before demonetization as well).  I even once managed a class on GDP without anyone needing first aid or asking me if there was a book by Jeffrey Archer on it.
 
Some of the misanthropes who had an axe to grind with teachers as a retardant sub-species asked questions – when they were awake – like “Sir, what happens to the GDP multiplier if a helicopter drops five thousand rupees from above into each poor household in India”.  Now, you see how dangerous these misanthropes are – since I had no fricking smart-aleck idea, I would say, “It will cause inflation.” and then suggest reading material that only Robinson Crusoe would attempt to read. 
p.s.: generally, everything causes inflation.  That’s why Economics is hot air. 

Some of the other misanthropes were delightfully funny with quotes from the textbook which began with “Since human beings are rational decision makers….”, after which we would all laugh so much that we needed a break.  Then, we’d have tests where I would ask questions from the Real World (i.e., newspaper), questions like, if National Income increases by 8 percent a year, how much water hyacinth will the Godavari carry in five years?
No, I made that up.  But you get the picture.

I did all this Economics instruction for no income, just fun, mind you.  Let me repeat that in case you have missed it: I did all this teaching just for Fun, which is incontrovertible evidence that the apparently mildest person – one, for example, who loves walnuts dipped in chocolate - has a streak of barbarism hidden somewhere along with two fangs.  

Dhan

 Above everything else, it is helplessness that gets you angry. 

At a nearby Reading Room, I browse through the Business Standard and stop at a page that should not merit a second glance.  The next page looks exactly the same.  Turn over.  The same.  And a half-page more.  On these three-and-a-half pages are thousands of account numbers in tiny print, so small that they seem like lines of badly sewn stitches.  
It is a gold auction notice.  

This we – you and I - know: there is an alternate universe where men and, more significantly, women pledge their gold for small loans to address a medical issue or perhaps admission fees for a child in a private school or, unhappily, the costs of adhering to social mores for an unaffordable wedding.  Often, one loan repays another, one crisis ends, another begins, but they soldier on, sometimes lurching and stumbling their way through the maze of crippling interest rates, processing charges, late fees that choke and unforgiving penalties. They never forget that the gold loan needs to be repaid, for gold is never sold, only pledged.  Gold – though I am no fan of it – is social acceptance, comfort, protection, insurance, even identity.  There is a hidden language in that metal in this alternate universe. 

In this auction notice, read the signs of a crisis in that universe. 

That universe isn’t far away: our domestic help’s family could be living there, as could a family in interior Karnataka struck by Covid or a welder in Pudukottai whose machine shop shut for good after two waves of perdition.  It is their gold that will be sold to feed the collection-and-recovery frenzy reported with diligence to anxious collection managers.  In the old days, these gold hand-loan sort of guys were called ‘blade companies’ in God’s own country, but one can buy respectability:  get the  Kaun Banega Crorepati mascot to endorse you (he was once bust too, but has misplaced the experience).  Or, better still, IPL.   

To take my mind of this, I pick the Business Line up.  Lost reprieve, for it comes right back, this time through an ad.  The same lender has, on this same day, yet in another newspaper, announced its financial results: record profits and collections are the highlights.  As I read this, I wonder if that distressed family in interior Karnataka made this financial performance happen.  I know the answer.
And that makes me angry, in a feeble, helpless way. 

But in the universe I inhabit, the stock markets are booming, Dhanteras rocked while the crackers wouldn’t cease and economic news is about the recovery that the experts did not expect.  The chimera is real here and only a party-pooper would think otherwise, for the collateral damage is below the bonnet.  Only the paint matters. 

Yes, those three-and-a-half pages of badly sewn stitches in the Business Standard tell a story.  We need to listen. 
And help in every way we can. 

 

 

A Dump of Bullshit

From The Hindu dated Friday May 3^rd, page 14

(with some apologies for a personal interpretation)

“Poverty,” said the Asian Development Bank chief, sipping his bottled water, “amid progress worries me greatly.  It is disheartening that in a region of such rapid progress, we still have a population of more than 800 million people living in absolute poverty.  This, along with growing inequality, remains an overarching challenge” he said, while making his presentation in an impeccably tailored suit, in a air-conditioned room at the Indian Expo Mart at Greater Noida (the outside temperature was 38 degrees Celsius). 

The ADB Chief indicated that the bank’s lending programme may have to be lowered, simply because the income from investments of surplus resources (which are mostly lent to European countries) has come down due to lower interest rates.  Despite the tight financial position, the Chief added, the ADB would still be interested in promoting a number of projects in India (remember, he is greatly worried by poverty).  Such projects include the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor - no doubt, all of India's poor people live along this line or will migrate to it - and other highway and railway projects.  He said that poverty could be eradicated only through (hold your breath: not food, not jobs & livelihood, not income, not security, not healthcare or sanitation) infrastructure development and, towards this end, co-financing with the private sector and attracting offshore funds - perhaps he had Argentina, Greece and Spain in mind - would “act as a catalyst in promoting infrastructure finance.”

Then, the ADB Chief seemed to forget everything he had said.  “It is because of domestic demand that India, China and other emerging market economies in Asia have enjoyed stronger growth and I think it will continue, led by strong consumption demand” he ended.

While he was making this epoch speech, no doubt to applause and encomium, there were two news items that entered the media radar. 

 - For the first time ever, all the fourteen districts of Kerala were declared drought-hit.  Perhaps they do not have infrastructure; of what use is total literacy, when a road to Hell may have made the drought easier to handle? 
 - The Supreme Court strongly endorsed the role of the gram sabha to decide if land must be given away to infrastructure projects, mining or industry.  It is beyond doubt, the Supreme Court said, that there is an organic connection between tribals and their land; that bond must be respected. 

The ADB Chief ended his meeting early.  He had to meet another 82 year old economist who, like him, lives in an ivory tower, but in New Delhi.  And then there was a flight to catch to another country, where this polemic pronouncement, this passionate plea for poverty purge, would be delivered to a fawning audience in the comfort of a temperature-controlled convention centre.