Can we tax corruption?

Seems that Mexico is about to levy a tax of 1 peso, which is equivalent to 8 US cents or about Rs 5, on every liter of sugary soft drinks. This is apparently because the government is concerned at increasing obesity, not to mention the $1 billion that the tax will raise. Since 2006 when Felipe Calderon became president taxes have gone up while politicians have made vast amounts of money through crony capitalism. In India the Congress grabbed power in 2004 by promising a bunch of handouts and freebies to millions of people and have levied punishing taxes to pay for these. Also telecom licenses, coal mines and contracts for building roads were given to friends at highly profitable rates. Rumors are that Rs 250 billion were enjoyed from the Commonwealth Games. Naturally the fiscal deficit went up to 4.8%, bringing with it a threat of credit downgrade. Clean drinking water is not easily available in Mexico, forcing people to drink either bottled water or soft drinks. In India the government owned Indian Railways hands out bottles of water to every passenger on every Rajdhani and Shatabdi train as soon as the train begins its journey. These bottles are labelled Neer which is the word for water in Sanskrit. As the author suggests in the article both countries could benefit enormously from a tax on corruption. In India the HSBC Services sector PMI was 47.1 in October from 44.6 in September. Anything below 50 denotes contraction so, although the figure was better than last month the sector must still be shedding jobs. " While activity readings maybe stabilising, a notable recovery is not on the cards for a while," said Leif Eskesen, Chief Economist for India survey sponsor HSBC. " Despite the weak growth backdrop, the RBI has to keep its inflation guards up to address the lingering inflation pressures," he said. Many experts are of the opinion that emerging markets have reached the limits of productivity gains through industrialisation and future growth rates will be around 3.5%. This would be extremely bad news for us because the economy will not generate enough jobs for the rising population although the IMF is more optimistic and sees growth at 6.7% in 2018. The solutions are simple. Control inflation tightly, reduce taxes and engineer a fall in the population. Only a person of principle and personal integrity will be able to rescue the country. Is there such a person in India?