Can't blame capitalists for loving cronies. Can we?

"A groundswell of diverse voices seeking to reform capitalism, and radically alter how companies do business, has been growing over the past few years," wrote Rajrishi Singhal. In India, the Bombay Plan "forged a symbiotic, yet turbulent, partnership with government and, even though the association has waxed and waned over the past 75 years with ties periodically reset, the pandemic has now brought it to an interesting intersection". Hospitals and companies are charging usurious prices and large companies are elbowing smaller ones out. Andy Mukherjee warned against crony capitalism. "The worry is that dominance by a handful of capitalists may not leave enough space for others." "Barring some notable exceptions, the Indian business class is overextended, trapped in the debris of assets created with the help of syndicated loans from pliant state-run banks." "There are a few undesirable trends in some sectors where market share is becoming dominant with potential monopolistic trends," wrote VK Vijaykumar. "Another undesirable development is the monopoly trend in some crucial infrastructure segments." "The government has extended the moratorium on insolvencies by another 3 months to the end of March. Recently, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman claimed, "I wouldn't hesitate here to say that we shall be the engine of global growth along with a few other countries," and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Now I am pushing India to surpass China," in manufacturing mobile phones, wrote Rahul Jacob. Meanwhile, the fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5) found that, "The share of children who were stunted (low height for their age) increased in 13 states, while the share of children who had low weight for their height increased in 12 states," reported the Hindustan Times. Improving nutrition in children below the age of 5 years have monetary benefits. "In India, the benefits ranged from anywhere between $45 and $139 for each dollar spent towards reducing child stunting," wrote Udit Misra. Rural India is suffering. "When compared to levels two years ago, too, the real wages of general agriculture laborers and non-agricultural laborers declined 0.2% and 0.8% per annum," wrote Prof Himanshu. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "on multiple occasions, done his bit to exhort industry to invest", but they have chosen to donate "large sums of money to the PM Cares Fund (PMCF) while simultaneously laying off employees on grounds of revenue loss and inability to pay wages", wrote Singhal. The previous Congress-led government initiated many reforms which led to GDP growth of 6.9% in 2013-14 and 7.4% in 2014-15, wrote Arvind Mayaram. "The sudden negative shocks of demonetisation and hasty introduction of GST started the downward spiral which has led the economy into recession this year." So, resort to bombast. As long as it works.