So many ironies, but we cannot laugh.

"Markets worldwide were in for a rude shock on March 9, after global crude oil prices fell almost 30 percent, with Brent crude prices falling to $32 a barrel," wrote MG Arun. "Every $10 a barrel decline in oil prices would mean a saving of $15 billion in India's net oil import bill. India spent $111.9 billion on oil imports in 2018-19, up from $87.8 billion in the previous fiscal year." Brent crude has fallen to $17.83 per barrel today. Even worse, couple of days back, "West Texas intermediate crude for May delivery fell more than 100% to settle at negative $37.63 per barrel, meaning producers would pay traders to take the oil off their hands." This has never happened before. Considering that Brent crude was trading at over $50 a barrel in January the government would be saving huge amounts of foreign exchange which should be favorable for the rupee. The rupee has fallen to near 77 to the dollar. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was first elected in 2014 the price of crude oil was over $100 a barrel but fell to $25 by January 2016. The government increased taxes on fuel and raked in windfall profits of $11 trillion in 4.5 years which should have been used to recapitalize banks, but wasn't. The government should be collecting truck-full of taxes with crude prices collapsing and fuel prices at the same level as before. In the US, petrol is selling at about $1.8 per gallon. One US gallon converts to around 3.8 liters, which means that petrol is selling at Rs 37 per liter in the US, nearly half the price in India. Sadly, fuel sales have collapsed due to the coronavirus lockdown, with petrol sales down 64%, diesel down 61%, and air turbine fuel (ATF) down 94%. "India's economy may be heading for its first full-year contraction in more than four decades after Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the world's biggest lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak," This was necessary because our healthcare system is totally inadequate, said officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), who are responsible for setting up and managing the system. They had already established and escape route by getting the taxpayer to foot the bill of treatment in foreign lands. The irony is that, with flights stopped, they cannot escape the system, just as the government cannot earn from falling oil prices. If millions of people get infected by the virus there is no way of treating them and there could be corpses on streets. The lockdown is a desperate effort to avoid such a calamity and if the economy tanks the Reserve Bank (RBI) is advancing Rs 2 trillion loans to the government to feed the poor. As it is, the government is running a large fiscal deficit and with tax collections expected to fall precipitously there is no way the government can repay the RBI. The irony is that the government looted Rs 1.76 trillion from RBI reserves last year. Which means the RBI will have to write off that loan by printing rupees, so-called monetising the deficit. Expect the rupee to go down. The greatest irony is that the poor will thank the government for handouts. While they suffer.