Who will protect our money?

Since 2009 soaring inflation has eroded personal wealth of Indians as the rupee buys almost nothing these days. You would need Rs 39 to buy one dollar in 2007 whereas now you need around Rs 60. This is especially hard on the poor and retired people with private pensions. If a person worked hard the whole life to retire with savings of Rs 10 million in 2007 it is now worth Rs 6 million and, since the real rate of interest has been consistently negative, this money earns less in interest than it loses in inflation. The difference in rates of growth between China and India remained relatively constant between 2.1 in 2004 and 2.6 in 2013, with China growing faster. But inflation in India, which was fractionally less than that of China in 2004, jumped above 12% in 2009 and was 8.2% in 2013, much higher than that of China. The same results are seen when compared to other emerging markets. For some reason pundits blame Mr Pranab Mukerjee, now President, who was Finance Minister from 24 January 2009 to 26 June 2012, for the inflation. " One, India chose to stimulate consumer demand through higher revenue deficits rather than increase public investment to address growing supply constraints. Two, the stimulus was not withdrawn even after domestic demand revived in 2010." It is completely false to say that the stimulus was started in 2009 in response to the global slowdown. The MGNREGA scheme was started in 2006, at a cost of Rs 2.5 trillion since then, and the Sixth Pay Commission, which increased civil service salaries by 25% and the farmers' loan waiver, costing Rs 750 billion, were in the 2008 budget. The man responsible for these economic crimes was Mr Chidambaram, Finance Minister from 22 May 2004 - 30 November 2008 and again from 31 July 2012, who refuses to take any responsibility for his actions. Once handouts are started they cannot be reversed because people get used to them. The only way to increase revenue was to increase taxes which Mr Mukherjee did. He tried retroactive tax on foreign businesses, called GAAR, which led to a precipitous fall in foreign investment. He levied taxes on every kind of service he could think of which increased prices and led to a fall in demand. The HSBC Purchasing Managers Index for Services for the month of March was 47.5, down from 48.9 in February, which is ninth month of contraction. Any figure below 50 denotes contraction. With elections going on we need a government which will protect the humble rupee. Trouble is vast numbers of people have an interest in the handouts.