The worst of both worlds.

In 2007 Michael Moore filmed a documentary, Sicko in which he showed how rescuers who volunteered after 9/11 were refused treatment in the US for physical and psychological problems unless they were able to pay. He took some of them to Havana in Cuba where they were treated free in the elite Hermanos Ameijeiros Hospital and were able to purchase inexpensive medicines. Although poor Cuba provides cheap but very high quality education and medical care to all its citizens. Indeed, when President Fidel Castro had bleeding in his intestines in 2006 he was treated in Cuba and was recently seen voting in elections. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has had 4 operations in Havana for a cancer in his pelvis since last year and is now receiving follow up therapy in Caracas. China is a communist country like Cuba but has adopted an aggressive form of capitalism where the government has gone for a very high growth in the economy, with huge spending on infrastructure, but without spending anything on social services. Hundreds of millions found jobs in factories as China became the manufacturing center of the world and is today the second largest economy in the world. In India we have a combination of socialism, where the government spends vast sums of borrowed money on bogus social schemes to win elections, and crony capitalism, where friends and relatives are given licenses to exploit our enormous mineral wealth while we continue buy expensive coal for power plants. A party leader is designated as VVIP and flies off to the US for medical advice in a special luxury plane with son in law and grandchildren while advocating reservation in institutions of higher learning. In 2004 the government had 42 ministries with 3.22 million employees costing Rs 310 billion. Today it has 53 ministries with 3.41 million employees costing Rs 1.15 trillion every year. A reduction of 5% in the number of employees will save Rs 60 billion and a reduction of 10% will save Rs 120 billion every year, which is 6% of total income tax revenue. A mid-level officer cots Rs 200,000 every month in salary, phone, car and fuel bill, subsidized accommodation and medical benefits. The costs have sky rocketed after the Congress awarded 80% salary increases in 2008 to win the general elections in 2009. " What were earlier divisions in a ministry ( headed by a joint secretary ) are now full-fledged departments ( with a secretary and several joint secretaries )," said a former Expenditure Secretary. ET, 19 February.While the government has set up regulators for various sectors there has been no reduction in the size of the ministry concerned. The Security and Exchange Board of India was set up in the 1990s but the Finance Ministry still has a Capital Markets Division with 19 officers. And so it goes. Parasites multiplying on our blood.