Last week Mr. Aiyar, an economist writing in the Times of India, said that people in India do not default on their home loans because fifty percent of the price of every property is paid in cash or black money. The cost of the property is officially the amount paid by cheque and on which stamp duty has been paid. Therefore Indian banks are relatively protected and are sure that creditors will continue to pay off their loan regardless of how high the interest rate is. The reason people choose to pay in cash is because states charge whatever they like as stamp duty and registration charges. People hate paying because they know that most of the money will be looted by politicians and kleptocrats. State governments and municipalities are even more corrupt than the Central government. It is not uncommon to read that some low level municipal employee has been arrested with assets of billions of rupees. The citizens and the establishment are enemy camps. The people, quite naturally, want to keep their hard earned money and do not want filthy crooks to loot it while politicians want to loot as much as they can before they are booted out in the next elections. Will things ever change? It will take an economic catastrophe to bring about meaningful change but an awful lot of people will have to suffer.