Equally up or down?

"The 10,000 wealthiest individuals of the 92 million Indian adults own an average of 22.6 billion rupees ($271.91 million) in wealth, 16,763 times the country's average, while the top 1% possessing an average of 54 million in wealth," said a study by the World Inequality Lab. "By the end of 2023, India's richest citizens owned 40.1% of the country's wealth, the highest since 1961, and their share of total income was 22.6%, the most since 1922, said the study." DH. "From 1975 to 1995, urban inequality declined slightly to (Gini ratio) 0.390." It rose to 0.455 post-liberalization in 1995-2005. "Between 2005 and 2020, urban inequality peaked at a Gini ratio of 0.532." Post-covid, from 2020-2023 it fell sharply to 0.382, wrote Rajesh Shukla. The sudden reduction in inequality may be because of a fall in earnings of the middle-class along with higher subsidies for the poor. "Once the backbone of domestic consumption, India's middle class which represents 31% of its population, is cutting back sharply on daily and discretionary expenditure." For the FMCG sector, "urban volume growth in the June to September quarters was stagnant at 2.8% versus rural volume growth which improved from 5.2%in the June quarter to 6% in the September quarter." FE. However, "Despite challenges, one segment that continues to grow," are "luxury homes - residential units priced over Rs 30 million." "And after touching new highs in 2023, sales of luxury units have scaled a new peak in 2024, latest data shows." BT. How to reduce inequality? "Let's take cues from Piketty to raise India's tax revenue," wrote Madan Sabnavis. Increase taxes on luxury homes, high-priced hotels and first class air travel. This will presumably reduce wealth of the rich and provide more money to the government to distribute handouts. This is the old Communist slogan, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," propounded by Karl Marx. wikipedia. By now it should be obvious that communism was a total failure and the rich have the choice of buying real estate abroad. Already, "Property developers in Dubai are receiving an increasing number of inquiries from residents of Tier 2 and Tier 3 India cities as apartment and villa prices in Delhi and Mumbai literally shoot through the roof." ET. How to increase national wealth? "India's geology is like resource-rich nations like Canada, South Africa and Australia." But, "50% of India's imports are on account of natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds, minerals and metals." The government should provide subsidies like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes (wikipedia) for manufacturing for resources, wrote Dhiraj Nayyar. In the US, individuals owning a piece of land are entitled to mineral rights underneath the surface of the land. Investopedia. Individuals and corporations can register mining claims in the United States as resources are privately owned. blm.gov. There is a long list of names of those who have become billionaires from oil and gas in the US. Forbes. In the US, national wealth is owned by the people, creating billionaires, in India everything is owned by the government which distributes handouts, creating beggars. The US is the richest country in the world while India is a failed middle income country (Rathin Roy). End of story.