Killing growth.

Politicians, business leaders and the press all want the RBI to reduce interest rates to stimulate growth. Businessmen want low interest rates so that they can borrow money cheaply to finance personal extravagance such as palatial houses, big cars and foreign travel. Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares in London are called Indian ghetto because of the number of houses bought by Indian billinaires, each house costing well over a million pounds. Politicians want growth because that increases tax collection which then finances their lavish life and foreign travel but, more importantly, allows them the luxury of distributing free goodies to the poor to win elections. The press is merely freeloading, barking to the orders of its masters. There is no discussion or debate about whether unlimited growth is possible or even desirable without destroying the environment, causing inflation, which kills the poor, and creating asset price bubbles, like the sub prime mortgage crisis, which have to burst creating untold misery. This unequal growth is concentrating wealth in the hands of 1% with the other 99% growing poorer. This is what the Occupy Wall Street protesters are saying. One Wall Street fellow is reported to have justified his astronomical bonus by saying that he pays taxes whereas the protesters do not. He does not understand that the protesters are unemployed because of predators like him. Also, if you pay taxes on the proceeds of bank robbery does that deserve to be rewarded? An internet company, Zynga has just had an IPO on the Nasdaq. Its most popular game is called Farmville where you can buy virtual money with real money. Futures, options and credit default swaps are creating virtual money by betting ever larger amounts and like in any gambling there have to be losers. This is what happened to Lehman Brothers and AIG. Sadly, politicians will not listen. They will continue with policies to increase growth until, like lemmings, all of us go over the precipice. Maybe then we can get rid of them.