Not easy to chase the 1%.

"India's richest 1% expanded their wealth by 62% between 2000 and 2023, according to a report commissioned by the South African Presidency of the G20," as "the top 1% globally captured 41% of all new wealth created between 2000 and 2024." "In contrast, the bottom half of humanity received only 1%, underscoring the widening wealth gap." TOI. "Wealth refers to assets (property and savings minus liabilities) accumulated over a lifetime or more (including intergenerational wealth)." Income comes from wages, earnings or investments. However, wealth can generate income and income can generate wealth. India has low capital gains tax but higher income tax, no inheritance tax and low corporate tax, but high goods and services tax (GST), which is paid by everyone, wrote Bharat Bhushan. That is not true anymore. The income tax exemption limit has jumped to Rs 1.275 million for salaried workers in Budget 2025  (bajaj finserve.in) and GST rates have been rationalized to two slabs of 5% and 18% with most essential items, including medicines, slashed from 12% to 5%, while the GST on medical insurance has been removed. pib. gov.in. "It is a moral and political travesty that the Government of India's upcoming Shram Shakti Niti 2025 - the so-called National Labour and Employment Policy - is ideologically linked to the Yajnavalkya Smrti," which is "a two-millennia-old text that codified caste hierarchy, gender subjugation, and ritual servitude to frame a labor policy," wrote Rejimon Kutappan. In a book 'A Sixth of Humanity', Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian write, "The more the low-skilled labor force a country possesses, the cheaper the wages and the more competitive its products ought to be in global markets. Instead, India's share of global exports is 4.5% when its endowment of people ought to have taken that share to 22.5%." It is because of laws protecting workers from being laid off, earmarking certain industries for small-scale sectors and very high salaries for low level government workers which act as irresistible lure for millions of young people, who waste years in attempting qualifying exams with a success rate of just 0.2-0.3%, wrote Rahul Jacob. The top 1% of India holds $11.6 trillion in wealth, of which 60% is in assets and 15% in illiquid financial holdings, leaving $2.7 trillion in liquid financial assets. As a result, "Across industries, premiumization is the defining theme - whether in automobiles, real estate, fashion, or even coffee," wrote Abhishek Mukherjee. It is not just the very rich. "Economist Deepanshu Mohan says that it is not just the affluent class but those in relatively lower economic strata who are aspirational and comfortable with a credit fuelled lifestyle spending." Leading many into a debt trap. Stressed unsecured debt is estimated at $35-45 billion. TOI. Is it wrong to try to imitate the 1%? Not if you don't get into debt. Too much of a good thing is not good.