Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Dear ‘Hard Working’ FM, sorry, but the cake stinks
Dear FM, I graduated around the same time when UPA came into power first time, in 2004.Despite belonging to middle class strata of society and from a tier-3 city with no higher education or qualified degree I raised the ladder of financial market world as commodity & currency trader. Even I manage to get work in some of the great cities of our country and even abroad and earning well enough to spend and enjoy my life at leisure. I even survive the financial crisis of 2008-09, but thanks to your various steps taken in last two years and
apathy towards FCRA bill and commodity market specific (read your never ending love towards ‘P’ note driven equity market) careers of many become cropper in the last few years. But I am not here to discuss on those issues, after all we are very small constituency for taken as a vote influence. But your vote of account does not romance during this valentine month with me even after sops.
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| Image Courtesy : Google |
I have a few points to make which I discuss later in brief here point by point. But before that I must applaud you for all the juggling of numbers and mockery of statistics in broad daylight and able to pretend selling comb in bald houses.
A) In your interim budget you propose excise duty cut in automobiles sector specially in small segment car by 4% .i.e roughly 10-17k rupees discount in that segment, we all know the automobile sector specifically small car segment is bleeding and facing its toughest time in last decade but mere 4% cut in this segment while giving larger sop to SUV market to 6%,which is anyway growing far more than other segment, is a complete wash hog in my view, people like me are not buying cars because inflation eating up my household budgets, job uncertainty does not pursue me for opting car loans and thanks to govt borrowing, interest rate, EMI remain a constant factor in slumping car sales, take this on face why would I go to buy car for a mere discount of some few more thousands rupees where my concern lies more to do with other things. Dear FM you need to fix other things first before you ask me to buy car.
B) You are bailing out Air India but have no future plan for our shrinking public transport system facility. Subsides numbers are so exotic that I prefer to leave it for economist to tell you the reality. However Rs.2, 600 cr subsidy as moratorium on student loan is not what exactly me, my colleague or my brother will be looking for, on contrary fact is jobs shrinking as hell as degrees are being produced in our shattered education system, instead of doing that Dear FM if you could help those students to get a fairly paid job,than they will take care of principal and interest themselves, also again this is discrimination against those who paid the same on time. Dear FM fact is UPA 1 & 2 failed to fill the gap of degrees and job offer in a huge numbers.
C) By reducing 2% excise duty on consumer and capital goods you are laughing on our inflation hitting household budgets misery, but yes by doing so you have reduce the prospect of filling fiscal deficit gap for next govt, when food inflation and rising cost of living is a day to day threat to existence for many, buying AC will be least on the priority. And smartly you handout dole of cheap mobile handset by few bucks, but your recent auction bill(to foot your extravagant spending on flagship schemes) will definitely increase my mobile bill by more than 10-15% as per various reports in media and my own estimation. So who is putting cherry on a half-baked cake?
D) Dear FM, you specifically mentioned that your mother and faculty at Harvard taught hard work, but sir, no one taught us, but we are forced to do hard work in our daily chorus to remain exist in these tough times. Thanks to financial crisis sir, the hot money in name of QE and various stimulus packages from developedcountries keep your FX reserve full so that you can take credit for all the goodies in parliament and make mockery of hard work initiatives. The fact is Dear FM, $15B rise in FX reserve is nothing but just adding more debt on your books, as recently by FCNRA bond programme RBI raised $35B and fill the bag which caught naked after FED announce to take back its ‘QE Hot money’ from emerging markets, as you must be remembering how tough the year was for our domestic currency. You pat yourself for manufacturing and export sales rise with huge numbers, but you must admit this one tiny fact that a small country formed in 1971 is exporting far more garments in the volume of the world. The reality is rupee depreciation just ensures some healthy competition in pricing for them and discount billing ensures they increase their volume. However, you did very little to discourage import in various sectors except hitting hard on Gold & curbing currency trading to inflate your currency, CAD comes down heavily because many imports become impractical to do business, our Gold import curbed by whopping 77% YoY basis and yet Mr.FM you and yourgovt must be appreciated for all the good numbers and steps you have taken in the last ten years to revive economic growth and ensure large scale ‘development’.
Thanks, but no thanks your cake in the last hours of your inning is stinking for me, I did better prefer for new cookies in coming time.
P.S – Neither I am Amartya Sen or Jean Dreze, or even an economist to say, I was just a small trader who is waiting for nextgovt in hopes of employment opportunity by real reforms.
I end my painful letter to you of this simple quote, hope you may like this.
“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.” –Mark Twain