We need to know whose money it is.

News channels in India have been full of the debt problems of liquor baron, Vijay Mallya who is now in residence in his house in Hertfordshire in England, which he bought for 11.5 million pounds, over Rs 1 billion, last year. He is said to owe Rs 90 billion, but he has pledged shares to the banks, so the net loss maybe around Rs 50-60 billion. Not small change, but nothing compared to what other companies owe. Relaince ADAG owes an eye watering Rs 1.25 trillion, Essar Group owes Rs 1.01 trillion, Jaypee Group owes Rs 762 billion, GMR Group owes Rs 480 billion, Videocon Group owes Rs 454 billion, Lanco Group owes Rs 471 billion and GVK Group owes Rs 334 billion, giving a combined total of about Rs 5 trillion. There are 9 companies whose debts are higher than those of Mallya and their earnings are less than their interest payments. 5,600 companies have been declared willful defaulters, with debts of over Rs 600 billion, but the loans of the big firms are so huge that banks are terrified to call them bad because they will lose a lot more than the promoters of the companies. In India, business fellows do not risk their own money. Public sector banks are owned by the government which allows politicians to treat public funds as their own money. " Bankers recall that in early 2009 there was practically weekly hounding of bankers by the ministries asking them to clear more loans. The government was facing its re-election and there was a general feeling that while the West had problems, India, along with the BRICS countries was set for 10% growth. Caution was scarce." This was the Congress, led by the world famous economist. But not just in India. No banker went to jail in the US for nearly collapsing the global economy in 2008 because no one can be prosecuted for making a bad business decision, even though a lot of these fellows were playing with savers' money and doing their best to hide the losses. However, Bernie Madoff is serving a 150 year prison term for a ponzi scheme and Rajat Gupta has just been released after serving 2 years in prison for insider trading, although he did not make any personal gain from his supposed crime. In India no one goes to jail because politicians treat public funds as their own, there is close friendship between business fellows, politicians and civil servants and cases drag on forever so that crooks die of old age before being convicted. While Ms Mamata Banerjee has increased West Bengal's debt by Rs 850 billion to Rs 2.78 trillion by dishing handouts to win elections. Salaries of government employees and interest payments total Rs 660 billion, Rs 210 billion more than what the state earns. Meanwhile, MPs of the Trinamul Congress have been shown to be accepting bribes in a sting operation. They pocket our money, we are left with none.