Is the dollar a solution to black money?

To some it is a 'game changer', while to millions of Indians, who struggle to survive it is enormous hardship. It is the sudden announcement of delegitimizing the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in India. Karl Marx would have been proud. At a stroke every Indian became a pauper, with no money to buy rice or toothpaste. You can see movies in a multiplex by booking online, eat and drink at a restaurant in a mall or buy a sofa, all by paying with a credit card but millions of Indians to not have card machines and earn their living in cash. Thus, electricians, plumbers, barbers and street vendors will see a drastic reduction in their earnings as people do not have small notes to pay them. Some are pleased. Stick it to the rich even if we have to suffer days of indignity, standing in queues to access our own money on which we have paid hefty taxes already. It will certainly get rid of fake notes. Printing fake notes is cheap so terrorists will have to be paid in dollars which will make it a much more expensive career. Will black money disappear? In the medium term, certainly. Those hiding billions of rupees in currency will just have to burn them. Most black money is invested in real estate so the expected collapse in property prices will eliminate all that. States will lose enormous revenue as real estate sales come to a halt. Will the government suddenly discover a mother load of income tax payers who have been hiding in the shadows? According to our government figures 46.1% of the population are the poorest, earning less than $5,000 per year. Which is Rs 335,000 per year. The threshold for paying income tax is Rs 250,000 per year so every Indian should be paying income tax. But, just 1% of the population is paying direct taxes. Arrest the cheats, force them to have Aadhar cards. Foreigners claim that the Hunger Index for India is 28.5% and a census showed that 65.4 million Indians between the ages of 5 and 19 years did not attend school. They must all be Bill Gates. Previous Governor of the Reserve Bank, Raghuram Rajan was unconvinced about the efficacy of demonitisation so he was rudely shoved out and Mr Urjit Patel was appointed in his place. Mr Patel is Gujarati, as is our Prime Minister, but that has nothing to do with it. The US has $1.2 trillion in notes and coins in circulation and a total of $10.5 trillion, if all bank deposits and savings in other institutions is concerned. Nine countries use the US dollar as their own currency. Why is the US not worried about black money? Indians learn fast. After the current shock is over expect a surge in conversion to dollars. Since one dollar buys Rs 67 it will be much easier to store and no one will demonitise that. Instead of wasting money printing notes let us just adopt the dollar. A permanent solution.