Friday, March 30, 2018

Even if no deficit why allow theft of $600 billion a year?

In 2013, India was counted among the "Fragile Five", along with Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey, wrote W Pesek. "Even before Donald Trump came along, India and Indonesia had been moving toward favoured-investment status among Wall Street set," Trump may have started a trade war. "That puts sizeable and rapidly growing, but integrated economies at a unique advantage. In Asia, that primarily means India, Indonesia and the Philippines." Japan and South Korea have their own problems with Trump and Taiwan's existence is threatened by China. So these 3 countries with "vibrant and growing consumer sectors" are the best bet. Why India is considered a safe investment destination is difficult to understand because the economy is growing without producing jobs, as shown by 28 million applications for 90,000 mainly manual jobs in Indian Railways. Growing consumption without increase in production results in a current account deficit every year. Despite slogans about Make in India, we have been running a deficit every quarter ever since this government came to power. Current Account Deficit means an outflow of wealth to other countries and results in a weakening of currency. "The trade war is a symptom of the waning clout of the US," wrote M Chakravarty. As a country becomes wealthy other countries start to compete so that the dominant economy shifts to financial services. Financialization leads to loss of its dominant position. This apparently happened to Britain, as it lost its place in manufacturing to the US, and to the Netherlands earlier. Britain's wealth was dependent on wholesale plunder of resources from colonies, conquered by military brutality. The US has its own resources, exporting oil to India for the first time last year. China is now a bigger economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity. If Britain's wealth was by robbery China's wealth is by theft. China forces foreign companies to transfer their intellectual property and encourages an enormous industry of fakes. How much has it stolen? From $225 billion to $600 billion annually for years. When Britain lost its pre-eminent position John Maynard Keynes, once an "ardent advocate of free trade", reversed his position and supported protectionism. After calculating balance of trade in goods and services Prof R Hausmann came to a net debt of $9.1 trillion for the US. At 4% the US should be paying $364 billion a year in interest. But it pays nothing. Because the invisible earnings of companies like, Apple, Google and Facebook, wipe out all the deficit. So the US is not weakening after all. Crafty.

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