You cannot be smart if your ideas are from comic books.

It is amazing that the US has some of the top universities in the world, the largest number of Nobel Prize winners and a surfeit of well funded think-tanks and yet seems to have no clue as to the world outside its borders. Even those with PhDs from Ivy League universities have a black and white view of the world, in which the US is always good and anyone who disagrees is bad. Whether it is because they have grown up reading comics about cowboys and injuns, GI Joe and the gooks, Davy Crockett and Santa Ana we do not know, but education and travel should broaden minds and generate a greater understanding of other points of view. Christopher Smart, a senior fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, no less, writes that Putin is wrong to support Donald Trump in his bid to become the next president of the US, by encouraging Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton's campaign servers. " Russian leaders also have a long history of agitation and propaganda, or 'agitprop' as their Soviet predecessors called the overt and covert campaigns to shape public opinion in foreign countries," he writes. Quite forgetting an unprovoked US war on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, support for mujahideen in Afghanistan, which led to the rise of the Taliban, which gave birth to Al Qaeda and Islamic State, and the disastrous regime change in Iraq and Libya. " To be sure, Russia's interests also include political dominance over its neighbours, which is what drove the ham-handed intervention in Crimea..." writes Smart. Perhaps, he should read about US support for dictators in South America which is why left-wing governments in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil still have a jaundiced view of the US. As for Crimea, Russia only intervened after the extreme right wing government in Kiev, backed by the US and EU, started bombing its own citizens in the east of the country. Ukraine has turned into Europe's 'supermarket' for illegal weapons from where smugglers have to cross any border into Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic or Slovakia, all part of the Schengen area, and they can walk into Austria, Italy or Germany. Smart thinks that Trump's economic proposals may cause chaos in international markets, which may not benefit Russia. Russia's economy is suffering because of financial sanctions imposed by the Obama government over which Putin has no control. If there is chaos Russia maybe able to trade independently with individual countries. Putin has every reason to disrupt Hillary Clinton's campaign, if he can,because of her abusive language in the past. Calling him "ruthless, cynical and utterly unprincipled" is utterly stupid when the US is friends with Pakistan, a center of terrorism, is a key ally of Turkey, which is a member of NATO, and sucks up to China, which is at war with all its neighbors. If Putin is smiling, it maybe because he is lucky or because he knows what he is doing, having gone to school in the KGB. 

If we don't have the guts, at least we can hide.

So, India's Home Minister, Rajnath Singh received a hostile reception in Pakistan. Even Indian journalists accompanying Singh received barbaric treatment. Not surprising at all. Our government is well aware Pakistan has a state policy of trying to bleed India through a thousand cuts. In January Pak army was identified by Afghan police in the attack on the Indian consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif. Most Pak army officers support Jihadi terrorist attacks against India, according to an former Pak ambassador. The Pak government has a well rehearsed set of excuses with which to condone every murderous attack on India. Everyone knows all this, so that is not a surprise. What is astonishing is why India, a larger and much richer country, which has won every war against Pakistan, always surrenders meekly and gives up its gains, won through the blood of our soldiers. Fighting with antiquated weapons we were on the verge of a decisive victory in 1966 when Lal Bahadur Shastri stopped the fighting and then gave up all the territory at the Tashkent conference. Shastri died a mysterious death which has not been solved till today. If he was killed, as his wife believed, then the questions are 1. Who killed him, 2. Why and 3. If he was killed who signed the agreement? In 1971, 93,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered to India. Indira Gandhi returned them without anything in return. All she had to do was to ask them to surrender to the Bangladeshis, who would have slaughtered each one of them, and Pakistan would have given us anything we asked for. One would have thought that an attack on the parliament in 2001, the center of our government, would invite a strong response from India but nothing. Atal Behari Vajpayee sent 100,000 troops to the border with Pakistan and brought them back after 6 months at enormous cost to the state and enormous inconvenience to our soldiers. The attack on Mumbai in 2008, in which 164 people were killed and over 300 injured, was followed by the sharam at Sharm el-Sheikh, when Manmohan Singh went on bended knees to talk peace. The present prime minister swore a bullet for a bullet when he was elected in 2014 and indeed our forces responded ferociously to unprovoked firing from across the border, taking Pak by surprise. Obama came running to India in January 2015 after which we have gone back to permanent 'peace talks', no matter how many Indians are killed by the scum. It is inexplicable why Pakistan is able to kill others, including US soldiers, and no action is ever taken. At last the US Congress has woken up to the danger of Pakistan as a terrorist state. We should take advantage of this. Declare Pakistan a terrorist state and shut off all relations. Build a wall along the border, lay land mines, so that even a rat cannot cross, and shoot at anything that moves. As China builds the Gwadar corridor in Pakistan, which is a massive land grab by the Punjabis, we may expect armed resistance from locals. Pakistan will implode, let China enjoy the results. 

You can never have too much money, can you?

There is silent war going on in India between the government and the middle class. The rich have accountants to advise them on how to avoid paying taxes and lawyers to file endless appeals to delay any judgement against them. The poor are dependent on subsidies to survive the constantly rising prices. The middle class has no escape. A system, called Tax Deduction at Source, or TDS, collects tax from any income, salary or interest on bank accounts, even before we receive the money. We have to claim refunds when we file our returns at the end of the financial year. If you do not know the complex rules you lose your money. Refund claims worth Rs 1.23 trillion are still lying with the government because the tax department is scrutinising the claims. This after tax fellows have paid out Rs 1.22 trillion already. Why are refunds held up? Because the government sets revenue targets on tax officers in the annual budget which forces them to resort to force, intimidation and sleight of hand to meet the targets. So what do we get for being terrorised to pay excessive taxes? Thousands of people die because of broken the roads every year. Roads are dug up by one government agency, say the water department, to lay pipes, repaired with poor materials and then promptly dug up by another department in an unceasing cycle so that contractors earn a fortune, part of which is shared with the departments which do the digging, as bribes. Money is needed to pay for the shocking rise in salaries and perks of civil servants who have been trained in all the ways to repress people. Some 8,167 people owe over Rs 767 billion to banks. They had borrowed money from friendly bank officials, probably under the impression that this was a gift which need not be repaid. Some bad loans are because of the weakness of the economy after the global crisis in 2008. Steel industry alone owes Rs 3 trillion to banks partly due to a fall in exports and partly due to dumping of steel by China which has produced 30% more than it can use. Because of high taxes and rising prices 47% of Indians are unable save for their retirement. Since we do not get any pension or healthcare for all the taxes we pay old age is a terrifying time of hunger and suffering. It is not surprising that India is one of the worst countries in the world for old people. However, not everyone is suffering. We know that civil servants are doing very well but politicians are doing even better. 34% of state ministers have serious criminal charges against them and 76% are multi-millionaires. Getting elected is financially very fattening it seems. That's the way the money goes and... 

Being blunt may win, flipflop will definitely lose.

Why is Donald Trump trying to commit hara-kiri? A man who has seen 6 companies go into bankruptcies and yet, according to Forbes, is worth $4.5 billion cannot be totally illogical. Yet he keeps making outrageous claims, only to withdraw them a few days later. According to some polls Hillary Clinton's lead has jumped to 15 points which probably means a clean sweep of all 50 states. This was the best chance for the Republicans to win back the White House after the disastrous 8 years of Barack Obama but Trump seems to be doing everything possible to ensure that he loses. When he joined the primaries nobody gave him a chance but he ended up with the highest number of votes any Republican candidate has ever received. He was clear on what he was going to do. He was going to build a wall along the border with Mexico, to stop illegal immigration, which would be paid for by Mexico, he would tear up NAFTA and other such trade deals, which transferred US manufacturing jobs overseas, he would levy over 40% tax on Chinese imports, because China manipulates its currency by keeping it undervalued, he would ask Europeans to pay for NATO, make it difficult for Muslims to migrate into the US and better relations with Russia. The media, mostly liberal, went hysterical, branding him racist, xenophobe, sexist, and anything else they could think of and could not understand why the people loved him. So they branded voters as dumb, racists and even pigs. Trump stuck to his positions and kept on repeating them, but now his campaign seems to be becoming increasingly incoherent. First, Melania Trump's speech at the convention seemed to be deliberately sabotaged. Someone had lifted 2 paragraphs verbatim from Michelle Obama's convention speech in 2008. Then, the Democrats produced Khizr Khan, a Pakistani immigrant, whose son, Humayun had died in Iraq trying to stop a suicide bomber. Trump attacked his wife as being a silent Muslim woman, which produced an explosion of abuse. All he had to do was say that one Pakistani did save American lives but hundreds of Americans have been murdered by Pakistanis in Afghanistan and in the US. The US paid $400 million to Iran for the release of 4 hostages in January. The money was paid in cash and in different currencies, packed in wooden boxes, instead of black plastic bags, exactly as ransom is paid for kidnapping. Obama denied that this was ransom. But then, Obama lied about Benghazi, about Libya about Bin Laden and so on. After ferocious criticism Trump withdrew his claim of having seen a video of the payment being made only for a video to emerge on YouTube showing exactly such a transfer. Not much time left. Trump must make sure of what he says and stick to it. Unless he is a stooge for the Democrats working for a Clinton victory. We hope.

Beware when crocodiles smile.

Dancing in the streets, shouting from rooftops and politicians exchanging sweets. Why? Because the Goods and Services Tax Bill, also known as GST, has been passed. This will combine indirect taxes levied by the central and state governments, such as excise, VAT, sales tax, luxury tax, entertainment tax, cesses and surcharges. We are told that a combined tax will reduce the overall tax rate for consumers so we, the people, will gain. If so, why are politicians so happy? We have to remember that politicians in India have only one aim in life and that is to get elected any which way, so that they can live in lavish bungalows provided by the government and draw magnificent perks, that will make a US Senator drool. To get elected they have to promise handouts to their vote bank, ranging from laptops to gold. Of course, if one party promises laptops you have to promise even more to lure voters, so the BJP promised laptops, color TVs and scooters in the Bihar election. And lost, heavily. All these handouts have to be paid for. We are being lulled by the lure of lower taxes on goods, although services will become more expensive, but politicians are celebrating because they think that GST will increase tax collections by ensnaring small businesses, which are avoiding taxes at present. Left wing economists are sceptical because they think that poor people may suffer. Alcohol, fuel, real estate, civil work, construction for factory and electricity are not covered by this act. Regional parties like to supply free electricity to farmers and the poor, resulting in accumulated debts of Rs 4.37 trillion for power distributors and losses of Rs 600 billion every year. The central government has started a scheme whereby states will issue bonds to borrow money from the market to pay off the debts. On the other hand taxes are very high on alcohol, fuel, factories and real estate already so scope for increase maybe limited. Some states charge a professional tax on every business and tolls on roads, taxes on taxis and road tax on vehicles maybe increased at will because they do not affect the poor. At present a company providing services in different states has to file consolidated returns 4 times a year but under GST such a company will have to file returns in each state, and presumably the center, every month. Each company will need an army of accountants. Small mom and pop enterprises have no hope of complying with such complicated regulations and will fall victim to predatory tax fellows. A lot of small businesses may have to shut down, decreasing competition and allowing big companies to increase prices at will. When crocodiles smile we should be wary.

Is it good for the people to be altruistic?

An economist, Siddharth Pai is puzzled by the relative lack of enthusiasm among venture capitalists to fund start-up companies run by women. In Silicon Valley, only 1% of start-up firms receive help from venture capital  and of that 1%, Asians comprise 12%, females 8% and blacks just 1%. Start-ups by women are "likely to be 15% more profitable on average, but are 40% less likely to be funded". Why? Economic theories were based on the premise that human beings always make rational choices and therefore the market is the most efficient way of allocating capital. No longer. Research shows that individuals tend to overreact to bad news, known as 'availability heuristic', which is why they tend to lose money on the markets. Thus, if there is a disagreement between 2 men ending in abusive language you just shrug and move on, but any abuse of a woman is likely to be extremely expensive, as Chelsea Football Club found out. What the article does not clarify is whether most venture capitalists are men, which would explain their caution, in dealing with women. There is enormous research into human behavior. A beautiful article by Charles Assisi explains how Paris makes a succession of wrong decisions when he chooses to abduct Helen, leading to his death and the destruction of Troy. Unfortunately, all the models to make correct decisions are not available to us when we are faced with a tricky situation which requires an instant decision. We are conditioned by our past experiences and social upbringing so a given set of facts maybe construed in an exactly opposite manner by 2 groups of people. This sort of opposing behavior can apparently be explained by Bayes' theorem. Economists may just be understanding human behavior but politicians have understood it long ago. Every living thing, including human beings, is governed by self interest. For instance a male praying mantis offers himself as food to the female to make sure that his genes are passed on and yet worker bees, which are female, do not reproduce but spend their lives tending to the queen. Human beings are motivated by self interest and yet we see heroic acts of altruism everyday. Is altruism also a selfish act? Indian politicians understand this instinctively. Every action they take is to increase their own power and pelf but presented as an act of altruism for the people. Taxes are disguised as subsidies to the poor but are actually handouts to win elections. Thus the poor pay taxes on goods and services to get handouts. Reservations are to help the downtrodden but a downtrodden cannot get admission to a college because primary education is dismal. GST is being presented as lower taxes but will increase taxes on mobile bills and electricity which the poor use. The mighty can be altruistic on our sacrifice.

The US election maybe decided in Europe.

Donald Trump's biggest problem is that he is not a lawyer, like Obama, Hillary Clinton or Khizr Khan, whose son Humayun died stopping a suicide vehicle in Iraq. Khizr Khan, a Pakistani who moved to the US in 1980, was used as a hitman at the Democratic Party convention. He accused Trump of not sacrificing anything for his country. But neither have Obama or Clinton. He also accused Trump of not having read the constitution. None of us have read the constitutions of our countries, but that does not make us any less patriotic. Khizr Khan obviously has, because he is an immigration lawyer, who must be looking for loopholes to bring in as many Pakistanis into the US as he can. Trump responded aggressively as he usually does, which has landed him in controversy. The liberal media has gone for his jugular while attacking Patricia Smith who lost her son in Benghazi. While the death of US Ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and the 4 Americans who died with him in Benghazi, was the fault of Obama and Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time, Trump is absolutely not responsible for the death of Humayun Khan. True, one Pakistani saved American lives, but how many Pakistanis have taken American lives? But, apart from right wing TV hosts, everyone is vilifying Trump. Why so much vitriol? Because Democrats, and liberals who back them, are not really sure of a Clinton victory. The problem is that a Clinton victory will effectively be a third term for Obama. Obama desperately needs Clinton to win to protect his legacy because Trump is likely reverse most of the executive actions he is taking at present. In 2008, Clinton had her own opinions and policies but, having served for 4 years under Obama, has been successfully branded as untrustworthy by the Republicans for her evasive answers on the tragedy in Benghazi and deleting 30,000 emails on her personal server. Some claim that the National Security Agency has those emails and WikiLeaks is threatening to expose many of those emails to prove that she is dishonest. Liberals shudder at the thought of Donald Trump as president because he has no knowledge of politics and foreign affairs and his direct speech is seen as rude. But that seems to be exactly what the people want. Obama promised change by his speech of "yes, we can" and his soaring rhetoric created enormous enthusiasm among the people that he will deliver. Now they are disillusioned and want change, which is what Trump is promising. Normally blue states, like Ohio, have suddenly become uncertain. But maybe the election will not be decided by what politicians or the media say in the US, but in the airports or railway stations of Europe where another suicide attack will suddenly make Donald Trump sound very reasonable. We in India hope so. 

Same illness but very different remedies. How vexing.

A financial consultant, Anantha Nageswaran expresses disappointment with the International Monetary Fund. ' Monetary policy: Central banks should continue to use all available instruments to raise inflation, including negative interest rates, where appropriate, while carefully monitoring the potential impact on banks, pension funds and insurance companies as well as market functioning,' opined the IMF. Low interest rates reduce earnings of pension funds, cause asset price bubbles to form and encourage companies and people to borrow in excess, which they may not be able to repay when rates start to go up. The IMF is also advocating fiscal policies to stimulate growth, through increased spending by governments, which will add to government debt. " What the Fund's memo to G-20 tells us is that, when needed, official multilateral institutions pull back from warning the world of the dangers of asset bubbles that are massively divorced from the prevailing and persistent macroeconomic malaise," writes Nageswaran." Maybe their incentives and interests are not aligned with the recognition of dangers of the asset bubble." Why is the IMF blind to dangers of bubbles? Maybe because its own economists have changed their opinion, writes Prof Noah Smith. They found that "each dollar of stimulus spending produces much more than an additional dollar of economic output". Others have found "that government investment boosts the private sector rather than crowd it out". The IMF has realised that its previous policies aggravated and prolonged the pain of recession, as happened to South Korea in the 1990s. Denmark introduced negative interest rate in 2012, starting at -0.1% it has reached -0.65% today. Although banks are not yet charging retail investors for keeping money in banks they are charging companies. People who borrow from banks get interest which is taxable. Easy money has unleashed a construction boom, as property prices have gone up, but because foreigners are not allowed to buy properties in Denmark there is no sign of a bubble as yet. Strangely average retail inflation rate has actually decreased from 2.41% in 2012 to 0.22% in 2016, the opposite of what one would expect. Since the efforts of central banks and governments have failed to stimulate growth discussion is turning to 'helicopter money'. In June 18 members of the European Parliament wrote to the President of the European Central Bank to consider every option including "citizens' dividend, using 'helicopter money', and the buying of bonds from the European Investment Bank". Clearly what apply to rich nations with very low inflation rates do not apply to India with its humongous population and a high retail inflation rate of 5.8%. Yields on German government bonds are negative while yields on our bonds are at 7.16%. Although low growth is a common disease treatments are completely different. What to do?

Tax the poor to help the poor, a difficult balance.

Like any company sets targets on sales people the government sets targets on the tax department to arm-twist as much money as it can out of hapless citizens. Unfortunately, vast majority of citizens are too poor to pay income tax so last year there was a shortfall of Rs 300-350 billion in revenue collection, which upset the Revenue Secretary. Unless we pay up the humongous pay rises of civil servants, as recommended by the Seventh Pay Commission, will raise fiscal deficit, which will give the opposition a chance to criticise the government. Not good. So our income tax fellows came to an arrangement with the State Bank of India, which has assets in excess of Rs 20 trillion, which paid Rs 100 billion on 30 March, 2016. On 1 April, the first day of the new financial year, the tax department refunded Rs 95 billion to SBI. In total tax fellows refunded Rs 250 billion in the first week of April. Two tax officers were transferred for this sleight of hand, causing resentment among tax fellows. The Indian Revenue Service Officers Association has passed a resolution accusing the revenue department of going beyond its mandate. They have a point. The tax department paid back Rs 1.22 trillion in 21 million refunds last year. Why? Because the government collects excess of taxes to meet its expenses, in what is known as TDS, or tax deduction at source. Last year indirect taxes, which comprise taxes on goods and services, raised Rs 7.12 trillion out of a total of Rs 14.54 trillion. This means that direct taxes, comprising of income tax, corporate tax, wealth and capital gains taxes raised Rs 7.42 trillion. About 4% of Indians file income tax returns and only about 1% actually pay taxes. In 2001, direct taxes contributed 36.31% of total taxes, rising to 37.7% in 2013, while in the US the share of direct taxes was 75.8% of the total. Rates of indirect taxes were raised in 2012 as well as the number of services that were to be taxed and this government has increased rates from 12.5% to 15%. Despite this, or maybe because of higher rates, the share of indirect taxes has fallen and the share of direct taxes has increased to 51% of total taxes. Various governments have tried to unify all indirect taxes under a Goods and Services Tax regime but this has been opposed by states who see a loss of powers to raise revenue. High rates of indirect taxes are seen as regressive because even those who are too poor to pay income tax are compelled to pay taxes on goods and services. Many countries already operate some form of GST but India is more complicated than most countries because we have a plethora of political parties who compete to win elections by promising ever increasing handouts, 'to help the poor'. Which means they are hungry for more taxes. If there is a cap on GST it may impose discipline on politicians. We live in hope.

If we can't build sewers, how will we build towers?

After 2 years of drought the monsoons are back. All Indians should be delighted as the rains clean the air of pollution, the land turns green with new grass and reservoirs fill up, so that there will be no need to transport drinking water by trains. Sadly, there can be no joy for us, because our government rules us instead of serving us. Couple of days back people were stuck in traffic for up to 6 hours in Gurgaon after a rain shower. India is a tropical country and cloudbursts are not uncommon so drains should be built to cope with heavy rains. How difficult is it to build proper drains? Between 1859 and 1868 Joseph Bazalgette built 82 miles of sewers in London at a cost of 4.2 million pounds. If that is bad, then Paris built its first sewer in 1370 and even has its own museum for sewers. Which means that building an effective sewer system should be child's play, right? All we have to do is copy what others have done. If we have any doubts just invite foreigners to build it for us. Of course, they will charge but they will complete the project on time, the sewers will last for at least 100 years and by ensuring smooth flow of traffic will save a fortune in wasted petrol and productivity. But this will not happen. Why? Because the project will take a few years and so will not help in winning the next election, and there is a lot of money to be made from illegal construction which block water outflow. Anyway, the monsoon lasts for a couple of months only, there may not be a cloudburst and people forget quickly, so who cares if people, especially women, are stuck for hours with no bathroom in sight or if thousands die, as happened in Kedarnath in 2013. There should be no lack of knowledge. The government has spent Rs 2.5 billion of taxpayer money on training civil servants in foreign lands. To learn what? We should have the right to examine these fellows on what they have learnt, apart from enjoying themselves that is. It is not wholly their fault. Politicians want civil servants to be grateful and suppliant and not get uppity. They do not want someone with an independent opinion, like Reserve Bank Governor, Raghuram Rajan who said that the economic growth was like that of a "one-eyed king in the land of the blind", when politicians were bragging about 7.56% of growth of the economy. Recently, former Governor, Subbarao has written a book detailing how Congress fellows put him under enormous pressure to reduce interest rates even though inflation was soaring. Now this government forced Rajan to resign by its nasty behavior because he has not reduced rates by as much as politicians demanded. They never learn do they? Congress fellows were bragging in Davos about growth rates of over 9% before the economy sank. Rajan is not a civil servant so he refuses to toe the line. Politicians and civil servants, waterlogged streets and sinking economy.

They have power, just show them how.

Activist called Bezwada Wilson has been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award along with a singer, TM Krishna. Bezwada Wilson has been working to eradicate manual scavenging, which is cleaning faeces from homes and railways. Seems that some homes still continue to use a commode system for evacuating bladder and bowel which are then cleaned by these scavengers. It is disgusting and degrading work and must be eliminated but, as with any other human activity, it is not so simple. Firstly, those who are doing this work have to be found new avenues of earning a living otherwise they will starve and secondly, those who are still using this system need to upgrade their toilet facilities. Which means connecting them to sewers or building septic tanks. Sewers can only be built by municipalities or state governments and miles of sewers to connect every village will be enormously expensive and the sewage thus collected has to be disposed of in a safe manner. Individual septic tanks are cheaper but even so households may not be able or willing to bear the necessary cost and there is a danger of contaminating the water table. Unfortunately, the best intentions in India become a reason for bashing Hindus. Apparently it is the fault of upper castes and they should be punished for it. No one is forcing these people to do this work and they should just stop doing it, forcing people to upgrade their bathrooms or go out to the fields. Dalits are not powerless as they have shown in Gujarat by refusing to remove carcasses of dead cows, after some were assaulted. Faeces is undigested food and every creature that eats, animals, birds, fish and insects, has to get rid of that waste so that it is able to eat again. Even unconscious patients, who are not eating by mouth, pass faeces, consisting of dead bacteria, which reside in the gut. In foreign countries, nurses, who are well paid and respected, clean patients and are not considered to be slaves. Women who work as scavengers are probably illiterate, so will not be able to work as nurses, but could be trained as nursing assistants, to clean patients, do dressings and chaperone male doctors, when nurses are busy. Trouble is that they will have to leave their villages and go to towns where hospitals are located. That is where Mr Wilson should be paying attention. Meanwhile, taxis and autorickshaws went on strike for 3 days against app-based taxis, such as Uber and Ola. As usual Chief Minister Kejriwal was quick to blame the BJP for instigating the strike. But, auto drivers are all fervent supporters of Kejriwal and helped him win the election. One short shower brings Delhi to a standstill because drains have not been cleaned and roads are broken. Is that the fault of the BJP? We seem to have an infinite capacity to avoid the truth. Maybe that is why we are so poor.

Has Hillary Clinton won already?

The Democratic convention is coming to an end. Tonight Hillary Clinton will accept her nomination as candidate for the presidential election in November and they will all go home for the campaigning to begin in earnest. From the speeches it seems that her victory is assured. Even right wing media channels, like Fox News, gives Clinton 201 solid electoral college votes plus 26 which are leaning Democrat, for a total of 227, while Donald Trump has 154 solid votes plus 37 which are leaning Republican, for a total of 191. So, Trump needs 79 more electoral college votes to get to the magic figure of 270 while Clinton needs just 43. Under the electoral college rules a candidate who wins a state by even one popular vote takes all the electoral college votes which makes elections almost impossible to predict. Eulogizing Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama said," I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes that our Founders put forth all those years ago...." Even if she is a " Hildebeest " Michelle? In his speech today, Barack Obama said," I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman, not me, not Bill, more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as the President of the United States of America." But she is still second choice, because your party rejected her in 2008. Why are the Obamas campaigning so hard for Clinton, despite deep mutual dislike? Because Obama has no legacy without Clinton. Trump got 13.4 million votes in the primaries, Clinton got 15.9 million and Bernie Sanders got 12.2 million. Clinton has raised 10 times more money than Trump, so she should be a certainty. But doubts still linger. It is not sure that supporters of Bernie Sanders will vote for Clinton after Debbie Wasserman Shultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman had to resign after leaked emails revealed how the party had conspired against Bernie Sanders to make sure Clinton won the nomination. Seems that Russia was behind the leaked emails. As Senator and then as Secretary of State Clinton used abusive language against Putin so he hates her. The armed coup in Ukraine was clearly engineered by the west to look like those in Arab countries, known as Arab Spring, and has effectively divided the country in two. Obamacare is in difficulties as insurance companies are running into losses and 8 years after he pomised to close it Guantanamo still remains open. For us in India Obama has been an unmitigated disaster because of his open support for Pakistan and he would have presented Pakistan with another 8 F-16 fighter jets if the Congress had not stopped it. He still has another 6 months to reward his friends for giving him Osama bin Laden in 2011 to win re-election in 2012. For us another 4 years of an Obama clone will be a continuing disaster. Let us hope that fortune favors us. 

Why continue with remedies that don't work?

In the last few days we have seen an outpouring of articles lauding the reforms of 1991. Now, Prabhat Patnaik, a Professor Emeritus at JNU in Delhi has written an angry, if incoherent, article criticising those reforms. He says that the reforms did not produce a 'retreat of the state' in favor of 'the market' but a change in the nature of the state." This means that instead of a state that apparently stands above all classes even while promoting capitalist development, and that protects traditional petty producers, including the peasantry and the workers, against encroachment from capital.....the 'reform regime' creates a state that becomes exclusively concerned with the interests of the globalised capital, and the domestic corporate-financial oligarchy aligned with it," he writes. So what is his solution? Increased taxes on the wealthy, price support for crops, easy creadit to farmers, quality education and health care. All these have been tried before under 'garibi hatao' campaign, which led to the crisis which led to the reforms of 1991, but even after 69 years of socialism India has the largest number of poor people in the world. He has special anger against the middle-class which has " emerged as a votary of the 'development' paradigm of the 'reform regime' and thrown its weight behind the corporate-financial oligarchy whose share of wealth and income has increased phenomenally under this regime." It is true that the number of rich people in India has grown but that is true for the rest of the world as well. A pathetic 3.2% of people in India are considered to be middle-class, of which 2.6% are in the lower middle, with an income of $10-20 per day, and 0.6% are upper middle, with an income of $20-50 per day. Anyone with an income of $20 per day, that is $7,300 per year, would be considered very poor in any western country and is lower than 'dibao', that is minimum income, in China. What is puzzling is what the professor is demanding. Does he want his favourite peasants and workers to stay as the proletariat or does he want them to climb up the social ladder? As the poor climb out of poverty they will inevitably become middle-class. The number of people who go from poverty to billionaire can be counted on the fingers of one hand, which is why they make such good stories. For the rest, it takes 2-3 generations of education and very hard work to make it to the upper middle-class category. The professor wants job creation but creating jobs needs investments, investments need capital and capital always looks for profits. That is the nature of the beast. The future is with robots, which are capital intensive but do not create jobs for humans. There is only one solution and that is to reduce the number of humans. There is still time but not much. Professors should devote their time to find out how best to achieve that. 

Why can't we get rid of 1991?

It is 25 years since 1991. Obviously, so what? In 1991 India nearly went bankrupt and was close to defaulting on its debts. This was a crisis in balance of payments which is a balance of exports, imports and investments. As a result of the crisis the Reserve Bank had to sell 67 tons of our gold reserves to secure $2.2 billion in loans from the IMF to steady the ship of state. From the flood of articles in news media 1991 is being celebrated as 1947, the year we became independent from the brutal British rule. The credit really goes to Narasimha Rao who was the Prime Minister at the time although the Congress has airbrushed him out of history because of the contrast with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which was responsible for the mess we were in. Instead the Congress conspired to give all the credit to Dr Manmohan Singh because of his unquestioning devotion to The Family, but we know that Singh could not have been responsible for the reforms 25 years ago because of the way he presided over a near repeat of 1991 in his 10 years as Prime Minister. Unlike Narasimha Rao, he chose to hang on to his kursi, or chair, rather than go for reforms, to improve the eonomy. Politicians do not have the courage to take on the pit bulls of socialism who keep snapping at their heels to increase handouts to the poor, leading to inflation, which hurts the poor the most. The result of slow creeping reforms is that jobs are not being created. In 2012, 23.53 million men were employed in the organized sector, where wages and benefits are much higher, compared to 23.61 million in 1997. The number of women in the organized sector has increased. Total number of employment in the organized sector has increased marginally from 26.73 million in 1991 to 29.58 million in 2012. The share of manufacturing was 16.4% of GDP in 1989-90 but, despite muscular efforts by the government, it was lower at 16.2% in 2015-16. The combined fiscal deficit of state and center was higher in 2014-15 than in 1995-96 while tax-GDP ratio was slightly lower than in 1991-92, despite rising incomes. One reason why the tax base is not increasing is that most of the employment has been in the unorganized sector where all payments are in cash. Craftsmen earn more than engineers. Government is spending more on salaries and social schemes than on infrastructure. Job creation is weak because manufacturing is stagnant which was supposed to boom with the dismantling of the license/permit raj. It has not happened because most of the growth has been in real estate because of the phenomenal rise in property prices, which probably accounts for the increase in earnings of artisans. The real estate market is comatose, partly because properties are too expensive, partly because the circle rates have been increased too high, demanding a higher share of the price in white money, and partly because of the crackdown on black money. So the hysterical demands for lower interest rates. But that will only increase inflatinflation. Shades of 1991 still haunting us.

Can we create wealth without improving?

A report by the World Health Organisation says that more than half the doctors in India in 2001 did not have any medical degree. The WHO underestimates the problem. All those with degrees in Ayurved, Unani and Homeopathy actually practise Allopathic medicine, when their training is completely different. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, thankfully dissolved, noted that doctors do not need to have a MBBS degree, while presenting the report to the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Will anyone without a proper degree be allowed to practise law or accountancy? If not, why are politicians so contented with uneducated doctors? Because politicians and civil servants have given themselves the right to go abroad for medical treatment, entirely financed by the taxpayer. With 'attendant'. Who are the people availing of services by quacks? Poor people. A lot of these people are not fully literate and so do not know abbreviations for proper degrees. They are impressed by a jumble of alphabets after the quack's name, which are just fake. It is not difficult to get rid of quacks. First, publish a list of accepted degrees and make it a cheating offence to fool people with fake degrees. Second, if any patient dies after treatment from a quack he will be deemed guilty of murder. Only very few people will have the guts to become quacks. Why don't they do it? Because then poor people will have to visit proper doctors, who will naturally charge more, which may lose votes. Why are poor people so ill-informed? Because government schools are dark pits of ignorance, where more importance is paid to midday meals. Private schools teach better but are expensive. Annual cost for one child at a Delhi school was around Rs 1,30,000 last year. This is not the most expensive school in Delhi. Education is essential because good jobs are not being created. Most jobs are created in manufacturing but this sector is not growing and there is little new investment. The reason is that companies have taken on too much debt which they are unable to repay. Banks will not lend unless the old loans are paid back. The weak global economy means that exports have been falling for 18 months in a row although exports have risen in June, for the first time in 19 months. Education is vital to get good jobs in the knowledge economy. In this situation of enormous demand for jobs how is an employer to know which candidate is better. That is why marks in examination is so important. To get marks students learn from cheat sheets called kunjis or 'Pass Books'. The solution is not to stop all examinations in schools because then teachers have no incentive to teach and because parents cannot gauge a childs weakness and what extra help she may need. So-called intellectuals in India see 'meritocracy' as elitist and want to bring standards down. That is why they want to get rid of exams. Better to spread ignorance.

If you want to laugh read our news.

Uttar Pradesh will hold elections to the state assemby next year, so abuse between politicians is getting exceedingly crude everyday. What fun! First, a BJP politician, Dayashankar Singh said that Ms Mayawati, Chief of BSP, is worse than a prostitute, for selling election tickets to highest bidders. This naturally caused a huge outcry and Mr Singh was promptly expelled from the party. Rightly so. He will slink back in quietly after all furore has died down. Mr Singh should be censured for disparaging prostitutes who are as much citizens of this country as he is. The BSP has filed a FIR with the police for the abuse. It should have finished here. But this being India party supporters have to prove their absolute devotion to leaders in expectation of a share of the spoils should they manage to win the elections. So BSP workers staged protests and abused Singh's mother, wife and 12 year old daughter in filthy language. Instead of showing her outrage at this abuse of women Ms Mayawati, who just the day before had waxed eloquent about sexism, justified her party goons by saying that this will teach a lesson to Singh. Now Singh's wife has filed a FIR against Mayawati and members of her party. Ms Mayawati is worshipped with garlands of notes by her supporters. While threatening hapless women with violence politicians are very conscious of their own security. One member of parliament filmed his passage from the main gate to inside the building and posted it on Facebook, apparently showing positions of security personnel. At first he tried to brazen it out but has now tendered a written apology to the Speaker. Sadly for him, another MP, who was suspended from the same party last year, has complained that he reeks of alcohol, so that she cannot breathe. India is the only country in the world where state governments love alcohol, because of the revenue it brings, but politicians pretend to hate it because it brings votes from women. Politicians probably get their supplies tax-free from duty free shops or from friendly foreign embassies, but they tax alcohol by several hundred per cent to finance their luxurious lives. A Free Trade Agreement with the European Union cannot be concluded because of the EU demand for lower taxes on wines and spirits. All this time Indian companies were using Britain to get access to the huge EU market but after Brexit the government will need to help our companies. While Delhi is knee deep in water after a short drizzle, giving mosquitoes ample space to breed and spread viruses, Chief Minister Kejriwal is in Gujarat inciting police to revolt against the government. Those living outside India must find it hilarious reading about our politicians but for us who live here life is almost hellish. Helpless, so we laugh.

It will surely be better than a Hollywood movie.

The Republican convention ended with Donald Trump as the accepted candidate for the party, although some within the party are against him. Ted Cruz, who was the last one to accept defeat, after losing the Indiana primary, was booed loudly by delegates when he refused to endorse Trump at the convention. That was an attempt at sabotaging Trump and makes him a sore loser. He has tried to justify it by saying that Trump had insulted his wife and his father. If so, he has every right to be offended, but he could have stayed away, like the Bush family and Kasich did. We think that the biggest traitors are in India, as we saw when fellows, who were elected as members of the BJP, actively undermined the party during Bihar elections. They did not have the decency to resign their seats in parliament, with all the perks that come with them, which makes them paticularly repugnant. Americans are no different, are they? Trump gave a long, somewhat rambling speech during which he blamed the present administration for increasing crimes, attacks on police, terrorism and uncontrolled immigration. Like all political speeches, it was mixture of facts, half-truths and false assertions. For the present Trump has pulled nearly equal with Hillary Clinton but this will change next week when the Democrat convention starts. Attacks will be fierce. Trump has never held public office so the attacks will be personal. He will be called a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe, a liar, a crook and any other name that they can think of. People have heard all that before. The debates between Trump and Clinton will be interesting. Trump will really have to work hard to get his facts right. We do not know if Melania Trump's speech was deliberately sabotaged to make it look like plagiarism so Trump has to select his advisers very carefully. Clinton's experience with public office is both an asset and a millstone because she is open to allegations of incompetence, at best, and being deceitful, at worst. The challenge of Bernie Sanders has seriously shaken her confidence so that she is having to depend on Obama to support her campaign. Not so long ago Bill Clinton, husband of Hillary, was know to despise Obama. "  I hate that man Obama more than any man I've ever met, more than any man who ever lived," said Bill Clinton. While Michelle Obama called Hillary a "Hidebeest". She refused to invite the Clintons to dinner and wanted Joe Biden to run for president. Spiteful people, aren't they? Now Obama desperately needs Hillary Clinton to protect his tatty legacy. His only achievement the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is sinking and will surely by dismantled if Trump wins.  He dissuaded Biden from running and is using all his influence to make sure that Trump does not win. He can bring all African-Americans to vote for Clinton. Whatever happens it will be interesting. Better than going to a movie.

What if we do not want to serve our masters?

Former Governor of the Reserve Bank, D Subbarao, has written a book saying that the then Finance Minister, Chidambaram tried to force him to reduce interest rate when inflation was already running very high. When Subbarao refused to comply the Congress government retaliated by refusing to extend contracts of 2 deputy governors of the RBI. Recently, former minister in the same Congress government, Jairam Ramesh had this to say," So, this controversy, which now Dr Subbarao has also entered, it is most unnecessary.....because the Finance Minister has to weigh so many considerations, whereas the Governor of Reserve Bank of India can afford to be single-minded in his approach. Prime Ministers cannot, Finance Ministers cannot. So, I think Dr Subbarao has done grave injustice to his political masters." Firstly, politicians are not our masters, although they have given themselves all the powers to suppress us, and keep devising new tricks, like Aadhar cards and cashless society, to take away whatever little freedom we have left. Secondly, all ministers should be single-minded in their efforts to improve the economy, reduce poverty and make the nation stronger, and not follow orders blindly to hang on to their posts. Ramesh is, or was, an economist and the former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh boasts of a D.Phil in economics from Oxford, no less. The present government is no different, having forced Raghuram Rajan to resign by treating him with great disrespect, because he is not reducing interest rate, when retail inflation is rising. A politician in India would never resign regardless of insults or humiliation. Rajan has cut policy rate by 150 basis points, from 8% to 6.5%, while retail inflation has risen to 5.77%, after dropping below 4%, and the Asian Development Bank is predicitng a rate of 5.8% next year. Politicians argue that inflation is caused by food, which is a supply side problem and not of demand, and inflation has come down because of lower oil prices, and not because of the high interest rate by the RBI. What they are hiding is what inflation rate they are willing to inflict on us. Rajan was aiming for a rate of 4%, plus/minus 2%, setting the upper limit at 6%, whereas politicians want a rate of 5% which sets the upper limit at 7%. The Finance Minister cannot understand why people should expect high interest on their savings when inflation is running so high. That is because politicians get everything free on taxpayer money, including companion, while taxpayers get nothing in return for the taxes they pay. Low rates of interest encourage the rich to borrow heavily from banks. 8,167 people have defaulted on Rs 767 billion loans to banks. When you are masters you feel entitled. 

Innocent freshness or polished platitudes, what is preferable?

It seems to be a custom in the US for a candidate's wife to give a speech extolling her husband who is running for office. We should have the same in India, it will make boring elections so much more enjoyable, to watch each lady trying to prove her extreme devotion to her husband. Couple of days back it was Melania Trump's turn to speak at the Republican Convention about her husband Donald. Now this is a lady who was born in Slovenia, worked in Milan and came to the US in 1996. During her speech she repeated a paragraph straight out of Michelle Obama's speech to the Democratic Convention in 2008. Michelle Obama is a lawyer, born and educated in the US and her husband is the champion gasbag of the world, so she wrote her own speech, but we are not sure of Melania Trump's knowledge of English. She apparently said that she wrote her own speech but whether she meant that she wrote every word or just suggested the ideas is not clear. A speechwriter has now accepted responsibility for the plagiarism but whether she did it on purpose we do not know. It is unimaginable that a professional speechwriter will not know that in today's world, where everyone is armed with Google, her action will be detected within minutes, as it was, causing acute embarassment to Melania. Donald Trump is a highly divisive figure, but so is Obama. The US has not been so racially divided since the Rodney King riots of 1992. It was eye-opening to see the sheer delight in the liberal media at this innocent lady's discomfiture. These people are usually highly sympathetic to terrorists, who they see as misunderstood children, to be hugged with sweet words of comfort. But these same people were enjoying repeating that bit of video over and over again with such mean spite that it was painful to watch. Being liberal obviously does not mean being generous, understanding or sympathetic. On another note, Sam Allardyce, also known as 'Big Sam', is to be appointed as the new manager of England following the resignation of Roy Hodgson, after the humiliating defeat by Iceland in France, in Euro 2016. He is the same man who was sacked as manager of Blackburn Rovers by the Venkys, the chicken magnates, after they bought the club in 2010. Blackburn were relegated that season and have not been able to get back to the Premier League. That is a loss of almost 200 million pounds per season. Obviously, running a football club is not the same as selling chicken. The Democrat Convention is next week and we will see a highly synchronised event and we will see Hillary Clinton, another lawyer, giving a flawless speech, with the same platitudes in high flowing language. How stale, same old, same old.

It seems like something we have seen before.

When the Egyptian revolution took place in January, 2011 commentators were hoping that Egypt will transform into a secular democracy like Turkey. At that time we argued that there was a greater possibility of Egypt turning into another Pakistan because, like the Pakistani army, the army in Egypt controls a large chunk of business in the country. If the army staged a coup the Muslim Brotherhood will resort to terrorist attacks like the Taliban in Pakistan. We also predicted tha Erdogan will slowly turn Turkey into an Islamist state. About 4 days back there was apparently a coup in Turkey. Seems that two F-16 fighter jets locked onto President Erdogan's plane, as it was flying to Istanbul from Marmaris, but did not fire. Also apparently there was an attaack on his palace in Marmaris (how many palaces does this guy have?) minutes after he had left. Seems that the entire coup attempt had been designed to fail, doesn't it? For a coup to be successful the plotters should seize the media and be able to convince people of their imminent victory, which brings support from fence-sitters in defence forces. Erdogan was able to contact a private television station from his iPhone to demonstrate that he was still free. This is the excuse that allows Erdogan to purge over 50,000 people, consisting of army personnel, police, judges, civil servants and teachers. Iran also purged the armed forces after the revolution in 1979 but had to release many from prison when the war with Iraq broke out in 1980. Previously, Erdogan got many army officers arrested on charges of plotting a coup in 2003 but all the officers were released in 2012 when all the evidence against them was proved to be forged. This time 243 people have been killed to make it look more solid. This failed attempt gives total power to Erdogan which has been his ambition all along. Like all thugs Erdogan is drunk with his power and thinks he is invincible. The NATO is a big source of his strength because it is committed to protecting Turkey in case of an attack by another force. That is what Erdogan tried to engineer when Turkish planes shot down a Russian jet returning from a bombing mission in Syria. Erdogan wanted to stop Russians from bombing ISIS oil trucks because he was making vast sums of money from oil smuggling. In February the NATO warned Erdogan that it will not participate in a war with Russia. Like all dictators Erdogan, and wife, spend the nation's wealth on personal enrichment and luxuries. So, what happens now? No doubt Erdogan will consolidate his power and his ecstatic supporters will beat up anyone they do not like. He can convert schools to madrassas like Zia-ul-Haq did in Pakistan but at some point he will realise that once you let the Islamist genie out of the bottle you cannot put it back in. Will Obama have the spine throw Turkey out of NATO, which is the only action which will bring some sense to this thug? So far Obama has no evidence of a spine. We wait.

If you do not protect income how are you protecting people?

Donald Trump has promised a 35% tax on cars and parts produced by Ford in Mexico and a 45% tax on imports from China, inviting criticism from economists. So, is protectionism necessarily a bad thing asks Professor Eichengreen from the US. If the US imposes taxes on imports from other countries they will retaliate by imposing taxes on US goods and global trade will suffer as investment collapses. Apparently, the Great Depression was exacerbated by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930. But that reasoning may not apply to the present slowdown in global growth. " When the economy is in a liquidity trap - when demand is deficient, prices are stagnant or falling and interest rates approach zero - normal macroeconomic logic goes out the window," writes the professor. If President Trump imposes taxes on goods from China and President Xi retaliates by imposing taxes on goods from the US trade should fall and both countries should suffer. " But when deflation looms, upward pressure on prices is just what the doctor ordered. Higher prices encourage firms to raise production and households to increase their spending. They also reduce the burden of debts. And because inflation is still too low, owing to depressed macroeconomic conditions, there is no need for the Fed to raise interest rates and offset any inflationary effects of the increase in spending." Free trade is not necessarily good for developing countries. China and Vietnam developed by imposing business subsidies, domestic-content requirements, investment regulations and import barriers, while Mexico has languished by relying on free trade alone. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China had phenomenal export-led growth when import tariffs in the US and Europe were higher than they are today. Free trade deals may not be necessary. People in rich countries see free trade as the cause of rising unemployment and falling living standards. This is what binds Donald Trump and Brexit. People, who were solid Democrats in Pittsburgh, are going to vote for Trump. Why? " We've lost people here," said Del Signore." Why did we lose people? Because we lost the coal, the coal mining jobs. We lost the steel mill jobs. We lost the railroad jobs. Because they went overseas, or somewhere else, and we've suffered. It's a shame. But that's what happened. We're the Rust Belt." Why is there a liquidity trap when central banks in the US, Europe and Japan have poured trillions of dollars into their economies by buying up bonds, also known as Quantitative Easing? At the same time interest rates are close to zero in the US and negative in the Eurozone and 4 other countries. Nations protect their borders, what is wrong in protecting their economies? Only if they can stand up against business lobbies. Need guts.

The irony of democracy.

In today's world 'democracy' is the biggest irony perpetrated on 'we, the people'. East Germany was known as the German Democratic Republic, which was a communist dictatorship, kept in power by the dreaded secret police, the Stasi. Robert Mugabe has been elected continously since 1980 which surely makes him the most democratic leader in the world today. He is great friends with Kim Jon-un, despite the difference in age. Mugabe won a landslide victory in general elections in 2013, showing that he still has support in the country. Western countries instigate 'regime change' in countries ruled by dictators but will resist any change of a democratic government unless through legitimate elections. South Africa could protect the people of Zimbabwe from economic collapse by asking Mugabe to step down but will not do so because he has been elected democratically. President Obama condemned a military coup in Honduras in 2009, precipitated by the president trying to cling on to power by amending the constitution. " It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections," said Obama. Recently, Hillary Clinton, who is the Democrat Party candidate for president in November's election, said that although it was a coup in Honduras it was not a military coup. Back in 2002, when the military imprisoned Hugo Chavez of Venezuela the Bush adminstration refused to call it a coup. It is another matter that the socialist policies of Chavez have reduced Venezuela's economy to near collapse so that its citizens are crossing into Colombia to buy food and medicines. An armed coup by extreme right Svoboda and Right Sector groups, supported by the west, forced the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country but instead of levying sanctions on the unelected government in Kiev western countries applied sanctions on Russia which supported the democratically elected government of Ukraine. Couple of days back there was a badly organized army coup in Turkey. Obama was quick to condemn the coup and support the 'democratically elected' government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, never mind that he is an Islamist thug, who supports terrorist groups in Syria and broke a peace deal with the Kurds, the only group fighting ISIS on the ground, to win elections last year. Turkey is apparently holding 1,500 US soldiers inside Incirlik Air Base as hostage to force the US to extradite Erdogan's enemy, Fethulah Gulen, who is in exile in Pennsylvania. Ironically, Erdogan defeated the coup attempt by calling for democracy over social media. Thugs, liars, assorted low lifes, are all accepted as long they have won elections. Only we, the people are the mugs. That is the irony.

Should we not have an expert to manage our money?

We have written about this many many times. Politicians in India, from every party, have one conviction, encased in concrete, which is low inflation stimulates economic growth. Apparently, high inflation does not matter in emerging economies so if growth can somehow be accelerated it will increase tax collection, which will allow politicians to buy votes with more handouts. We would like to ask one question," Would any prime minister appoint an economist or an accountant as the Attorney General?" If not, why is every Finance Minister a lawyer? Do we not have any competent economist, financier or accountant to do the job? It maybe that an expert will have his own opinion on the best course for the economy, maybe honorable and refuse to follow the same imbecile policies as politicians have been repeatedly asking for, making us suffer. It is no surprise that former Governor of the Reserve Bank, D Subbarao has published his autobiography in which he confirms what we have been writing for so long, and that is that Chidambaram tried to pressure him to reduce interest rate, when he did not want to. We would suggest that Chidambaram succeeded because retail inflation was out of control from 2008 to 2013 when Subbarao was the governor. The interest rate was 7% in 2008 but he brought it down sharply in 2009 to 4.25%, probably helping the Congress to win re-election. The average inflation rates were 8.32% in 2008, 10.83% iin 2009, 12.11% in 2010, 8.87% in 2011, 9.30% in 2012 and 10.92% in 2013, when Raghuram Rajan came in and increased rates to 8% and inflation fell to 6.37% in 2014. In August 2013, the rupee fell to 69 to the dollar, so that Rajan had to increase returns on NRI deposits in banks to attract $28 billion to stabilise the currency. Subbarao says that he held rates steady even under pressure from Chidambaram. " There is a price to pay, of course, for not falling in line. The government has several ways of showing its displeasure, and the way they chose to do so with me was by going against my recommendations in the reappointment of deputy governors in the bank," writes Subbarao. It is exemplified by the churlish manner in which the present government has dealt with the extension of Raghuram Rajan's contract. The Finance Minister asked recently why people should get a high interest on their term deposits in banks. He has no compunction about making us poorer through negative real interest rates, because everything is provided for him by the taxpayer. Politicians better watch out. Power is controlled by the Hindi states because they have the most members in the parliament. Hindi states get most of the money from the budget which is causing resentment in the South. High taxes and inflation affect everyone, so they see this as punishment. An economist as finance minister, is that too much to ask for?