A policy of masterly inactivity is most desirable.

Ever since Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released the Rs 20 trillion stimulus package, as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to kickstart the economy after the coronavirus lockdown, a debate has been raging about whether enough money has been allocated to increase cash in the hands of people. One report put the "actual fiscal impact of all the steps announced over the past few days to Rs 1.50 lakh crore (Rs 1.5 trillion) or 0.75% of the GDP". This was because of communication failure, wrote Sudipto Mundle. "The 2020-21 budget, for instance, had provided for a demand-stimulating fiscal deficit of 3.5% of GDP." The government has announced additional borrowing of another Rs 4.2 trillion, or 2.1% of GDP, while states are running a fiscal deficit of 2.8% of GDP, with a possibility of borrowing an additional 2% of GDP if they agree to certain conditions. "All this adds up to a demand stimulating combined fiscal deficit of 9.7% of GDP; nearly 11.7% if we also count the additional borrowing headroom for states." "The government plans to bridge the fiscal deficit by borrowing more money this year. Initially, it had planned to borrow Rs 7.8 trillion. On May 8, it said it will now borrow Rs 12 trillion to finance the fiscal deficit," wrote Vivek Kaul. To help the government the Reserve Bank (RBI) has pushed interest rates down so that banks are paying just 5.8% for a 5-year fixed deposit compared to 8% in 2015. The economic standstill has given rise to bizarre ideas of how to deal with an expected recession in the economy, wrote Andy Mukherjee for Bloomberg. "Pro-labor academics, activists and social workers who think it's morally justified to expropriate private property to support India's pandemic-flattened economy should know that such extreme measures are unwarranted. The proposal from the fiscally conservative, pro-business side to use people's gold as collateral to raise emergency public resources is also indefensible." "An otherwise well-meaning memorandum by a group of economists and trade unionists asked the government tot treat all cash, property, bonds and real estate held by Indian citizens or in the country as national resources during the Covid-19 crisis. Amid trenchant criticism, the idea was quickly dropped." That Indians, with degrees in economics, can actually propose such communist drivel maybe the reason why this country is so poor. "Indian remittances overseas surged to a record in March as many wealthy Indians shifted a part of their savings to safe haven assets and to purchase popular technology company stocks, taking advantage of the sudden collapse in valuations, said experts." Any imbecile move to confiscate private property or gold will result in an exodus of wealthy people in India leaving only the poor and the newly impoverished middle-class behind. Foreign investors will stampede to get out. As in most patients of Covid-19, masterly inactivity is the best course of action. Don't kill the economy. It will recover.